Hi,
I am new to the hobby and made few mistakes at once and now seek help and advice on how to recover.
CURRENTLY:
My tank is 100L (60cm long) with pressurised co2 (inline on the filter outflow) and WRGB2 lights.
I use Oase Thermo 350 with temperature set to 24C, spray bar across the back facing front glass.
I have half and half of Biohome and ceramic rings in the filter, with sponges and floss tucked in the prefilter.
Lights are set to 9 hours per day with co2 lagging 2 hrs behind. I run an air pump when lights & co2 are switched off.
Water comes from domestic ION exchange softener and I add calcium and magnesium using Seachem Equilibrum.
I get 40ppm NO3 from tap and pH is around high 7 to 8. No nitrites/ammonia.
Also I am using EI dosing as per their default recipe. I do 50% water change weekly.
In the tank there are 12 little rasboras, 2 otto cats, nerite snail and few rescued baby fish (a small tank is already being cycled for them).
The substrate is Fluval Stratum.
I had my tank running for around 6 months fine, went through initial diatoms explosion, but that corrected itself. I had a little bit of staghorn/green spot on ARM, but that was sorted by cutting two affected leaves.
That was it and then my beginners luck ran out.
I made a series of silly things and within few weeks got a massive algae explosion.
WEEK 1
1) I re-scaped the tank and removed large amount of plant mass - probably half
1*) I changed half of my filter media - replaced stock sponges and put in ceramic rings instead
1**) I took out massive amount of floating plants
1***) I started daily EI dosing (I used TNC complete weekly prior to that)
WEEK 2
2) I then further trimmed the plants and removed most of the carpet as it was taking over (no algae yet)
2*) I add another section to the spray bar and move it from the side of the tank to the back of the tank, so it spans across to increase flow.
WEEK 3
3) Algae appears
3*) I tuned down co2 by a lot and tuned down the lights by a lot as per random internet advice
WEEK 4
4) Algae takes over, plants did not grow much this week
I believe up to this point all I did was wrong, next few steps fixed plant growth issues and increased plant mass, which I think will be beneficial in the recovery.
WEEK 5
5) I did more research and blasted the lights and put co2 as high as I could without gassing the fish
5*) Plants shot up and new growth has less diatoms, but my two ottos simply cannot cope eating everything - I also ordered a shrimp team online, should be here in WEEK 6
5**) Added couple more stem plants and put back some floating plants (I have enough to cover this tank completely if needed)
5***) I scooped some of the hair stuff with toothbrush, but it just grew back within hours
WEEK 6
This is where I am now...
I have four distinct types of algae...
1) Green spot algae on the glass and slow growing plants (ARM) (was there before re-scape, but less of it)
2) Staghorn algae (mostly on ARM) (was there before re-scape, but minimal in comparison)
3) Long stringy algae (completely new - don't know what it is, but it seems to like the water flow and it sticks to every plant that grows vertically)
4) Diatoms (dark brown stuff, pretty sure this is because I swapped filter media - hoping for it to disappear with time)
All the bubbles in pictures/videos are plants pearling. CO2 was switched off when I shot.
Algae :
Aquarium WEEK2:
Any advice appreciated.
Many thanks,
Matt
I am new to the hobby and made few mistakes at once and now seek help and advice on how to recover.
CURRENTLY:
My tank is 100L (60cm long) with pressurised co2 (inline on the filter outflow) and WRGB2 lights.
I use Oase Thermo 350 with temperature set to 24C, spray bar across the back facing front glass.
I have half and half of Biohome and ceramic rings in the filter, with sponges and floss tucked in the prefilter.
Lights are set to 9 hours per day with co2 lagging 2 hrs behind. I run an air pump when lights & co2 are switched off.
Water comes from domestic ION exchange softener and I add calcium and magnesium using Seachem Equilibrum.
I get 40ppm NO3 from tap and pH is around high 7 to 8. No nitrites/ammonia.
Also I am using EI dosing as per their default recipe. I do 50% water change weekly.
In the tank there are 12 little rasboras, 2 otto cats, nerite snail and few rescued baby fish (a small tank is already being cycled for them).
The substrate is Fluval Stratum.
I had my tank running for around 6 months fine, went through initial diatoms explosion, but that corrected itself. I had a little bit of staghorn/green spot on ARM, but that was sorted by cutting two affected leaves.
That was it and then my beginners luck ran out.
I made a series of silly things and within few weeks got a massive algae explosion.
WEEK 1
1) I re-scaped the tank and removed large amount of plant mass - probably half
1*) I changed half of my filter media - replaced stock sponges and put in ceramic rings instead
1**) I took out massive amount of floating plants
1***) I started daily EI dosing (I used TNC complete weekly prior to that)
WEEK 2
2) I then further trimmed the plants and removed most of the carpet as it was taking over (no algae yet)
2*) I add another section to the spray bar and move it from the side of the tank to the back of the tank, so it spans across to increase flow.
WEEK 3
3) Algae appears
3*) I tuned down co2 by a lot and tuned down the lights by a lot as per random internet advice
WEEK 4
4) Algae takes over, plants did not grow much this week
I believe up to this point all I did was wrong, next few steps fixed plant growth issues and increased plant mass, which I think will be beneficial in the recovery.
WEEK 5
5) I did more research and blasted the lights and put co2 as high as I could without gassing the fish
5*) Plants shot up and new growth has less diatoms, but my two ottos simply cannot cope eating everything - I also ordered a shrimp team online, should be here in WEEK 6
5**) Added couple more stem plants and put back some floating plants (I have enough to cover this tank completely if needed)
5***) I scooped some of the hair stuff with toothbrush, but it just grew back within hours
WEEK 6
This is where I am now...
I have four distinct types of algae...
1) Green spot algae on the glass and slow growing plants (ARM) (was there before re-scape, but less of it)
2) Staghorn algae (mostly on ARM) (was there before re-scape, but minimal in comparison)
3) Long stringy algae (completely new - don't know what it is, but it seems to like the water flow and it sticks to every plant that grows vertically)
4) Diatoms (dark brown stuff, pretty sure this is because I swapped filter media - hoping for it to disappear with time)
All the bubbles in pictures/videos are plants pearling. CO2 was switched off when I shot.
Algae :
New video by matt
photos.app.goo.gl
New item by matt
photos.app.goo.gl
Aquarium WEEK2:
New item by matt
photos.app.goo.gl
Any advice appreciated.
Many thanks,
Matt
Last edited: