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Staghorn Algae causes other than CO2?

neofy705

neofy705

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Hello all,

I've set up my tank around 3 months ago.
I got away with little to no algae but the last few weeks I'm struggling a bit with staghorn.
I think co2 is not a problem. Lime green to yellow and circular flow.
Could it be lack of nutrients? I only dose 4ml of TNC complete per day and change 35% water a week.

Interestingly staghorn algae grows everywhere, on driftwood, tall stem plants, carpeting plants. Background, foreground, low flow and high flow areas.
I mechanically removed all visible algae last thursday and it's reappeared worse than before already.

Hydrogen peroxide and excel work on driftwood but melt the moss and monte carlo so I avoid using them.

The tank:
Fluval Roma 200L
Chihiros wrgb 2 slim at maximum
Flow rate around 3000lph (fluval 307 and hydor koralia wavemaker)
Co2 using bazooka diffuser
Tropica soil with tropica substrate

Relatively high bioload: 8 otos, 5 honey gourami, 10 juvenile albino cories, 16 rummynose tetras and around 30-40 shrimps (amano, cherries, crystal)

Should I increase the amount of fertiliser? Adjust the flow or CO2?

00E60412-0003-401F-BA4D-17777A83EEC4.jpeg
 
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Absolutely, no need for floss or fine foam in a planted tank. I binned the floss pad many years ago. It made no difference to water quality but impeded flow quite markedly especially when full of gunk. I tend to just use a coarse sponge prefilter and Eheim Substrat Pro. I don’t use very much of that either.
 
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Hi @neofy705

Firstly, I'm having problems with my PC. With that caveat in mind, I firstly suggest that you take a look at the following site:

www.aquasabi.com

Staghorn algae - | Aquasabi

Red algae in the aquarium
www.aquasabi.com www.aquasabi.com

Staghorn (Compsopogon) algae prefers HCO3- (bicarbonate) as a source of inorganic carbon. Bicarbonate is present at higher water pH values - say, 7.5 to 8.0. What is the pH of your tank water?

JPC
 
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jaypeecee said:
Hi @neofy705

Firstly, I'm having problems with my PC. With that caveat in mind, I firstly suggest that you take a look at the following site:

www.aquasabi.com

Staghorn algae - | Aquasabi

Red algae in the aquarium
www.aquasabi.com www.aquasabi.com

Staghorn algae prefers HCO3- (bicarbonate) as a source of inorganic carbon. Bicarbonate is present at higher pH values - say, 7.5 to 8.0. What is the pH of your tank water?

JPC
Click to expand...

Hello JPC,

I have read that and cut down on additional Fe a few weeks ago.
Ph in my tank fluctuates between 6.5-7.5. (1 pH drop from CO2 injection).

I'm adding a bit of nt labs kh plus and seachem equilibrium. My tap kh is 0 and gh is 3. So I add those to make it kh 2 and gh 6. I'm unsure if those have bicarbonate in them.

I mechanically removed as much algae today and got rid of most of the moss as it was covered in algae. I'm currently doing a 40% wc using the turkey blaster at the same time.

I was thinking that maybe all those botanicals for the shrimps are the root cause! Indian almond leaves, cones, pods. The leaves were sort of falling apart.


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neofy705 said:
I'm worried if I do that the shrimps will die.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty conservative with regards to what changes I subject my livestock to and I always consider the impact on the livestock before plants. If the tank is otherwise stable with respect to CO2, a couple of things to worry about with your shrimps is elevated levels of Copper and Zinc (i.e. if your targeting high levels of Fe with your TNC) or too low or too high levels of Calcium/Magnesium with minerals/tap or fluctuating TDS - especially too high TDS which should be kept below 150-200 ppm (300-400 uS/cm). As far as I can tell 42ml TNC Complete / wk in 200L shouldn't be a problem if you're making the change over a couple of weeks - shrimps (or fish for that matter) don't like rapid changes. I would however watch out for accumulation given that your only doing 35%/wk (or 35% twice wk). This is why I only do front loading WC-targeting of fertilizer/minerals. Otherwise shrimps are known to be pretty tough with respect to most other water parameters - lore has it that when adapted they can bring brass knuckles to a knife fight and still win ... 🙂

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
I'm pretty conservative with regards to what changes I subject my livestock to and I always consider the impact on the livestock before plants. If the tank is otherwise stable with respect to CO2, a couple of things to worry about with your shrimps is elevated levels of Copper and Zinc (i.e. if your targeting high levels of Fe with your TNC) or too low or too high levels of Calcium/Magnesium with minerals/tap or fluctuating TDS - especially too high TDS which should be kept below 150-200 ppm (300-400 uS/cm). As far as I can tell 42ml TNC Complete / wk in 200L shouldn't be a problem if you're making the change over a couple of weeks - shrimps (or fish for that matter) don't like rapid changes. I would however watch out for accumulation given that your only doing 35%/wk (or 35% twice wk).
Click to expand...

Hi Michael,

I'm very cautious when it comes to shrimps. This is the reason of 35% wc and aging water etc. I'm not really targeting anything. I don't want maximum plant growth or anything. I want a healthy stable system. That being said I already set my dosing pump from 4ml a day to 6ml a day. Do you think that's a problem?

I've ordered a new TDS meter as my last one swam with the fishes the other day. Last time I checked my tds was around 235.

As for accumulation it is a concern but i hope my tank is too heavily planted for it to be an issue? TNC complete (even at 3x dose) is nowhere near a full blown EI dosing and hopefully a 35% wc is enough (considering the norm is 50% for EI).

Cheers,
Neo


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neofy705 said:
That being said I already set my dosing pump from 4ml a day to 6ml a day. Do you think that's a problem?
Click to expand...
Hi Neo,
Not a problem at all with respect to Copper or Zinc. With 42 ml TNC Complete per week (7 x 6 ml), a 35% WC weekly the total max accumulation of Copper in your 200L tank will amount 0.011 ppm, and 0.06 ppm of Zinc. (assuming no uptake and no Zinc or Copper in your water source). You can easily increase it to 8 or 12 ml a day without issues - just make the increase slowly - say 2 ml increments per week, so the shrimps can adapt to the slightly higher TDS due to the increased dosing.
neofy705 said:
I've ordered a new TDS meter as my last one swam with the fishes the other day. Last time I checked my tds was around 235.
Click to expand...
Its a bit on the high side (or could be, depending on your TDS meter), but should be okay. What water source are you using? If tap water, what is the TDS of the straight tap? Are you adding anything, such as as minerals, to the WC water?

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
Hi Neo,
Not a problem at all with respect to Copper or Zinc. With 42 ml TNC Complete per week (7 x 6 ml), a 35% WC weekly the total accumulation of Copper in your 200L tank will amount 0.00743 ppm, and 0.039 ppm of Zinc. (assuming no uptake and no Zinc or Copper in your water source). You can easily increase it to 8 or 12 ml a day without issues - just make the increase slowly - say 2 ml increments per week, so the shrimps can adapt to the slightly higher TDS due to the increased dosing.

Its a bit on the high side (or could be, depending on your TDS meter), but should be okay. What water source are you using? If tap water, what is the TDS of the straight tap? Are you adding anything, such as as minerals, to the WC water?

Cheers,
Michael
Click to expand...
Great! Thanks for the calculation.

I use tap water. It's very soft. Kh 0 gh 3 ph not measurable due to low kh and tds around 80.
After adding seachem equilibrium it goes up to 170. I add some kh plus to bring it closer to 200 so the shrimps don't get shocked from tds drop.
 
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neofy705 said:
Great! Thanks for the calculation.
Click to expand...

I updated the numbers to account for the theoretical max accumulation before WC (instead of after). Just for comparison, the Cu/Zn levels in my shrimp tank with the traces I am dosing are at least twice as high as the numbers above and still remain within a very safe margin of any harm even at my relatively low pH (6.3'ish last time I measured).
neofy705 said:
I use tap water. It's very soft. Kh 0 gh 3 ph not measurable due to low kh and tds around 80.
Click to expand...
Excellent water!
neofy705 said:
After adding seachem equilibrium it goes up to 170.
Click to expand...
Equilibrium adds a lot of Potassium - Above you said your targeting 6 GH on top of the tap's 3 GH... that is ~12 gram of Equilibrium to raise it an additional 3 GH for your 35% (70L) WC - this will add somewhere around 35 ppm of Potassium (K) - that's not harmful to your fish or shrimps in itself, but it adds considerably to your TDS and such high levels are unnecessary for your plants. You can get rid of that if you just dose Magnesium Sulphate (MgSO4 / food grade Epsom Salt) and Calcium Sulphate (CaSO4 / food grade Gypsum Salt) which are the two ingredients in Equilibrium that raises your GH (the tiny amount of Fe in Equilibrium contribute as well, but you get that from the TNC Complete). As a bonus it will allow you to finely tune you're Ca and Mg amounts - as I suspect your Mg contents might be very low due to the geology where your tap water is sourced.

neofy705 said:
I add some kh plus to bring it closer to 200 so the shrimps don't get shocked from tds drop.
Click to expand...
You don't really need much more than 1 KH. If you slowly dial down your TDS over time there shouldn't be a significant drop in TDS between WC. My Shrimp tank sits around 100 ppm and the fluctuation between water changes is around 5-10 ppm. which is far within safe range. (I also do 35% WC but only every 11-12 days)

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
I updated the numbers to account for the theoretical max accumulation before WC (instead of after). Just for comparison, the Cu/Zn levels in my shrimp tank with the traces I am dosing are at least twice as high as the numbers above and still remain within a very safe margin of any harm even at my relatively low pH (6.3'ish last time I measured).

Excellent water!

Equilibrium adds a lot of Potassium - Above you said your targeting 6 GH on top of the tap's 3 GH... that is ~12 gram of Equilibrium to raise it an additional 3 GH for your 35% (70L) WC - this will add somewhere around 35 ppm of Potassium (K) - that's not harmful to your fish or shrimps in itself, but it adds considerably to your TDS and such high levels are unnecessary for your plants. You can get rid of that if you just dose Magnesium Sulphate (MgSO4 / food grade Epsom Salt) and Calcium Sulphate (CaSO4 / food grade Gypsum Salt) which are the two ingredients in Equilibrium that raises your GH (the tiny amount of Fe in Equilibrium contribute as well, but you get that from the TNC Complete). As a bonus it will allow you to finely tune you're Ca and Mg amounts - as I suspect your Mg contents might be very low due to the geology where your tap water is sourced.


You don't really need much more than 1 KH. If you slowly dial down your TDS over time there shouldn't be a significant drop in TDS between WC. My Shrimp tank sits around 100 ppm and the fluctuation between water changes is around 5-10 ppm. which is far within safe range. (I also do 35% WC but only every 11-12 days)

Cheers,
Michael
Click to expand...
This has been so very helpful Michael thanks.
Out of curiosity do u keep cherry shrimps in that water? I'm only adding kh and gh for the cherries.
 
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neofy705 said:
Just a pH pen from amazon which I calibrated. I'm getting an apera ph meter by the end of the week tho. What am I looking for with the pH? A lower pH?
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Hi @neofy705

As I said above, higher pH is likely to encourage growth of Staghorn Algae because of the higher bicarbonate in the water. And, in post #22, I suggested that pH figures in the range 7.5 to 8.0 may be typical of this water. Please take a look at the attached graph which shows the relationship between the forms of dissolved CO2, etc. as pH changes.

1671737994160.png
.
 
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jaypeecee said:
Hi again, @neofy705

I suggest that you measure the tank water pH with your new pH meter and let us have the figure. Then, we can decide how best to proceed.

JPC
Click to expand...
Hello again,
I got the new ph meter. It's an apera pc60.

I measured the ph at 5pm (about 5h after lights on) and the ph was 6.1! But that didn't worry me as much as my tds value. The new TDS meter shows 450ppm compared to the cheap tds meter I has before that was showing 250!

Am I correct in thinking that 450ppm is going to wipe my crystal shrimps long term?

Staghorn algae seems to have grown back but not as bad as before. I have noticed a bit of green fuzz on some old leaves that I didn't have before.

Cheers,
Neo
 
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neofy705 said:
The new TDS meter shows 450ppm compared to the cheap tds meter I has before that was showing 250!
Click to expand...
Hi Neo, Thats quite a difference. What meter did you get? Post a link to the actual product!

The pH is a bit on the low side but likely ok - I've measured 6.0 ( likely below) in my shrimp tank without issues.

As for the staghorn your struggling with I suggest lowering your light intensity a bit (possibly add some floating plants), increase flow around the areas where you see staghorn. And just resume a higher WC frequency with an increased dosing of ferts as discussed above. You can have staghorn at low pH and high pH - doesn't really matter. pH levels may exacerbate the problem, but pH by itself is not the problem, so stop focusing on that 🙂

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
Hi Neo, Thats quite a difference. What meter did you get? Post a link to the actual product!
Click to expand...
Hi Michael,
Previous one was likely an HM TDS3 knock off.
The new one is an apera pc60.

I've done some reading and it seems that the previous one was using a 0.5 conversion factor whilst the apera uses a 0.71 factor (that can ve changed).
 
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neofy705 said:
I got the new ph meter. It's an apera pc60.
Click to expand...
Hi @neofy705

The Apera PC 60 looks like a nice piece of kit.

A pH of 6.1 would be unlikely to encourage the growth of Staghorn algae - in my opinion.

Not being a shrimp-keeper, I am unable to advise about shrimp.

The difference in TDS readings is gobsmacking! As the Apera PC60 also has an EC option, what figure is it showing?

JPC
 
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jaypeecee said:
Hi @neofy705

Please take a look at the scientific paper below:


I suggest that you read the Abstract of this document where it talks about strong water current.

JPC
Click to expand...
I can definitely say that the areas that are in the high flow are the ones mostly affected.

I'll check tomorrow what the EC value is.

I do trust the apera kit. Just a bit surprised at how off my tds is. I'm actually worried now about my crystal shrimps and whether something's leaching minerals or chemicals into my water.
 
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