Please help me get my tank back under control

[Chrispowell]

Hi all,

I'm struggling abit with my tank at the moment, I can't seem to get various algae under control and I think things are getting worse...

My lights are ZETLIGHT 4000, 80% for 5 hours a day, I'm dosing EI ferts at 20ml a day (roughly 250L tank) and just started adding 5ml of easycarbo.

Drop checker is green and co2 is quite fast (3bps)


Anyway here is the mess...










please help

Thank you

 

[Ryan Thang To]

Hi

Can you first turn you lights down to 40-50 % and remove as much algae as you can.
Ei add abit more like 25 or 30ml is fine.
Also me personally i dont like dc they are only there to let you know co2 is there. Use a ph pen or a ph monitor. Have your co2 to come on around about 2 or 3 hours before lights come on. test first thing in the morning and another reading just before lights come on and last one when light goes off. What ever your reading is you want to aim for a 1 point drop

For example
My ph in the morning is 7.4 and 6.4 when lights come on so it should stay stable until ligths are off. If not stable then try to have less surface movement
Remember patient is the key. Don't change things and expect it to fix straight away. Let is run for 2 weeks and keep up the water change

Cheers
Ryan

 

[alto]

My lights are ZETLIGHT 4000, 80% for 5 hours a day, I'm dosing EI ferts at 20ml a day (roughly 250L tank) and just started adding 5ml of easycarbo.

Check your Easy Carbo bottle, this sounds a very low dose for the tank size (but I use Excel)

Water change schedule? during an algae outbreak, going back to daily water changes & algae removal is a conservative choice

though if you look at Iwagumi sometimes just letting it "burn out" works too

Who's on your algae crew?

Re turning down the light - this is a fairly deep tank, so take care with this as you can starve the plants of PAR long before you starve out the algae
How many LED's in the 42watt fixture, that will give you an good estimate of watt/LED ...
0.3watt/0.5watt LED will generally provide moderate to high PAR values for 30 - 35cm water column depth, but decrease to low PAR after 45cm water column depth

Also understand that the "cone" or "spread" of light is significantly affected when you turn down the LED intensity, depending on the type of driver, spectrum can also shift significantly (most LED's)

Try to find other example of these lights on a similarly deep tank & use that as a guide for your light goal

 

[Chrispowell]

Hi

Can you first turn you lights down to 40-50 % and remove as much algae as you can.

Yes Ryan I have turned the lights down to 60%. I dont think any of my plants require strong lighting anyway so cant see it troubling them..

Ei add abit more like 25 or 30ml is fine.

I am trying an EI mix that Luis uses to great success -

I'm Using EI regime
All-in-One Daily 1000ml
KNO3 - 60g
K2SO4 - 45g
KH2PO4 - 15g
Traces - 28g
Ascorbic Acid - 1g
Potassium Sorbate - 0.4g
Adding 20ml per day
7days per week

He uses RO water and I have hard tap water, not sure if this would make this mix act differently?

Also me personally i dont like dc they are only there to let you know co2 is there. Use a ph pen or a ph monitor. Have your co2 to come on around about 2 or 3 hours before lights come on. test first thing in the morning and another reading just before lights come on and last one when light goes off. What ever your reading is you want to aim for a 1 point drop

I will look into a ph probe, any recommendations?

Thankyou for your detailed post!

 

[Chrispowell]

Alto - thankyou to you too for a detailed post!

Check your Easy Carbo bottle, this sounds a very low dose for the tank size (but I use Excel)

The bottle recommends, 1ML per 50 liters or 2ML per 50 liters in a heavily planted tank, my tanks around 250L

Water change schedule? during an algae outbreak, going back to daily water changes & algae removal is a conservative choice

I am going to do a large (90%) water change today and will remove every bit of algae I can, then I will do 30-50% changes every evening for the next week and see where it gets me..

Who's on your algae crew?

At the moment I have about 20 amano shrimp and only 2 ottos. Would cherry shrimp help? SAE?

Re turning down the light - this is a fairly deep tank, so take care with this as you can starve the plants of PAR long before you starve out the algae
How many LED's in the 42watt fixture, that will give you an good estimate of watt/LED ...
0.3watt/0.5watt LED will generally provide moderate to high PAR values for 30 - 35cm water column depth, but decrease to low PAR after 45cm water column depth

Also understand that the "cone" or "spread" of light is significantly affected when you turn down the LED intensity, depending on the type of driver, spectrum can also shift significantly (most LED's)

Try to find other example of these lights on a similarly deep tank & use that as a guide for your light goal

I am strugging to find good infomation on the lights. I will have a solid look now and see if I can find any specs!

heres some info on them, I have 2 roughly 10cm above the water...

Model: ZP4000-F-1047-42W

Length: 1047mm

Power: 42w

Replaces T5 Lamps: 54w

Replaces T8 Lamps: n/a
Aquarium dimensions (when using supplied brackets)

Minimum Aquarium Length: 105cm

Maximum Aquarium Length: 125cm

Lumens: 3500LM

White Colour temperature: 6500K (84 LED's)

Blue wavelength: 465-470nm (14 LED's)

Red wavelength: 620-630nm (28 LED's)

 

[Chrispowell]

Also.. Is an air stone at night a good idea?

 

[EdwinK]

Yes. That's a great idea.

 

[Chrispowell]

Thanks all!

24 hours later and a marked improvement! I have cleaned everything up yesterday and added an air stone that turns on an hour after lights go out and stays on until the morning.

I have adjusted my co2 timing so it's now on 2 hours before the lights. I am going to look at a ph probe this week!

50% water change every day now, I will update with pics at the weekend

 

[foxfish]

Look for a PH pen, just a few £ on eBay.

 

[Chrispowell]

I had one before but never relaised you had to calibrate it :-/

Needless to say I didnt measure ph that well for a year or so!!

 

[Simon Burley]

Also understand that the "cone" or "spread" of light is significantly affected when you turn down the LED intensity, depending on the type of driver, spectrum can also shift significantly (most LED's)

Hi. Long time lurker, first time poster. I want to correct the above statement.
I've used LEDs for years in industrial applications (not aquatic plant lighting!) and measured LEDs using devices far more sensitive than the human eye. I can absolutely assure you that the cone, or spread, of light does not change at all when you turn down LED intensity. We may perceive that it does, but it doesn't. In fact, all practical reduction of LED intensity will be via PWM - pulse width modulation - in other words, the LED is switched fully on and off at high frequency and the ratio of on time to off time will determine the intensity. Therefore, the LED is either at 100% output or zero output. At, say, 50% modulation the output of the LED over the entire illuminated area will be at the same 50% modulation, so therefore the falloff from the centre of the illuminated area to the edge will always be a constant.
If all the LEDs in the array are being dimmed from the same driver then the spectral output of the array should remain the same.
In the case that the driver is of a linear type rather than PWM (why anyone would do this I don't know) then yes, each type of LED in the array would probably not dim at the same rate. But that would be a dreadful design and one to steer clear of.

 

[micheljq]

Very few aquarium LEDs use pulse width modulation, unfortunately. I know Aquaray does, Zetlight may use it but i am not fully certain.

Michel.

 

[Chrispowell]

Thanks to everyone for your help, slow progress but progress none the less.










After a busy week where I haven't managed a water change since last Sunday that is the state of the tank...

Sands got some green on it but it's not terrible! Hair algae is going, some remains on the moss but not half as bad as a week ago!!

Leaves have some algae that is easy to wipe off, is this due to lack of flow over them??

Also, why does the lower parts of my rotala looks so dark and rubbish? Also is it growing really leggy?

Thanks all!

 

[Chrispowell]

The leaves seem to be getting more and more of this algae? Any tips to try?

 

[kadoxu]

Have you considered snails?

 

[Chrispowell]

Nope, will they help? Wouldn't want to get overrun though! Would cherry shrimp help?

 

[kadoxu]

I believe Nerite Snails aren't able to reproduce in freshwater... they do put some eggs, but they need brackish water to hatch or something like that, so if you don't mind scraping a couple of white dots once in a while, they would do some good, specially on the substrate, wood and rocks (they are too heavy to be able to climb most plants).
I have 2 Zebra Nerite Snails in a nano tank that do a hell of a job cleaning white pebbles.

Red Cherries also help a lot... but since you already have Amanos, it may be a problem if you want the Cherries to breed.

 

[kadoxu]

Also, how is your water flow rate & distribution like?
What kind of filter are you using? From what I can see on the pics it's an external one, right? What are you using on the outflow, a lily pipe, spray bar, or nothing at all?

 

[Chrispowell]

Also, how is your water flow rate & distribution like?
What kind of filter are you using? From what I can see on the pics it's an external one, right? What are you using on the outflow, a lily pipe, spray bar, or nothing at all?

I thought the flow was quite good as I can see most plants gently swaying around. It's 2 ehiem e1501, with lilly pipe outlets. One at either end of the tank, one pointing along the front glass and one the back

 

[foxfish]

Did you get a PH pen?
I know a lot of the experts on here believe a drop checker is the best way to establish the correct C02 levels but I wonder what you might find out by checking the PH drop.
I strongly suspect you don't have enough available C02 for your plants to really thrive.