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t5 and algae

C

chris_A

Seedling
Joined
22 Apr 2013
Messages
17
Hi guys. I'm at a stage where I don't know what to do. I have a 125 tank which is, I would say medium planted. I use co2 at 1 drop per second, Ei dose. I have two t5 bulbs bulbs, one is a glo tube, but no matter what I do, I am getting algae, hair and bba. I added some new plants about 10 days ago, which are slowly getting covered. Oh yeah I have lights on for 7 hours a day. Can anyone help, shall I take a bulb out?
 
Sounds like you don't have enough co2 for the current levels of lighting.
The above idea is good,plus can you safely increase the amount of co2?
Difficult to judge but "1 bps" doesn't seem like much on a 125L,I use that on a tank half the size.
How are you diffusing,in tank ceramic,inline diffuser?
What's your maintenance routine like,weekly water changes?
 
As relative novice to high tech I find it a balancing act. I would definetely go through it the way Stu and Tim suggests. I have 2 T5 on my 3ft 4"above and relatively little algae,just trimmed the stem plants severe at the back, just prior to that I had the full 4 tubes on,the stems were shading a lot of the tank. Why not plant heavy with stems at back temporary if needed as well.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. Stu, I perform a weekly 50% water change and my Co2 is supplied using a inline diffuser.
I will go with your other bit of advise, which is to increase the gas going into the tank.
 
Hi
Try a forum search for "ph profile".
Do the changes on a day where you can regularly keep an eye on the fish/shrimps.
Don't want to gas 'em
 
I have about 1.5 T5 tubes running for 7 hours on my 300 liter tank and a whole lot more CO2 bubbles per second (3-4). My guess would be that you run to much light. Clean algae manually as much as you can every day and do large water changes as many as you can, this should help to get you sorted. You could also use some Excel (gluteraldehyde) to help.
 
The problem I have found out here when we talk about bps is that all bubble counters are very different, I think this seems to confuse people, it did me I was scratching my head everyday until the penny finally dropped haha.. Some bubble counters have bigger outlets than others.. I used thee different ones on my 250 litre tank and the difference was unbelievable.. Jbl 2 bps , JBL with the non return valve built in 4 bps and one I got from co2 art was unreadable just needed too many 🙂


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Hi you also say you have BBA, this is a sign of poor flow so you will need to increase this to 10 you tank volume per hour. You can do this by more filtration (the best way) or by using power heads. This will also ensure you’re C02 and ferts are distributed over all your plant surfaces so they can take then up more readily.
You can also use hydrogen peroxide at 3% or 6% volume in a dropper to kill any spots of BBA. Don’t do this if it’s all over the tank as you can kill your fish if you use too much. As others have said Excel or Easy Card works well.
Col
 
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