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To sump or n̶o̶t̶ to sump? (Swan Lake)

Okay struggling with this tank alot lately. Had a gda outbreak that went on for more then a month. Changed the lights to Skylight hyperspot FL I must say the colours are amazing and the light spread from 3 to 8 spots is way better. I love the light alot but it made my plants grow better and the algea got worse too. Last Saturday I cleaned the glass once again and dot 3x 50% water change this time. Now the gda is less but there is a brown diatoms outbreak 😔.
I dose weekly 22ppm K, 2.5ppm MG and 0,4 ppm of iron, spread out daily with an auto dose. No extra nitrogen or phosphates I got enough from fishload with 6 angels in there.
I think I have. My co2 good now ph 7.9 degassed and 6.6 when lights on and stable trough the day.
Anyone suggestions?
 
Luciën said:
No extra nitrogen or phosphates I got enough from fishload with 6 angels in there.
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Nah - not if you’re still injecting CO2, fish load will provide no where near enough N and P, that and the very high light from the Hyperspots will be contributing to your algae woes.
 
Wookii said:
Nah - not if you’re still injecting CO2, fish load will provide no where near enough N and P, that and the very high light from the Hyperspots will be contributing to your algae woes.
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Well that's exclusive all the tetras, Cory's, otto's.. With nitriet limitation the rotala should get red it just gets orange, it grows quite well and pearls, but no reds and I have the skilights blasting at full power.. 😅 I left Ei after always struggling with bba and tryed apt lean dosing style but I have more algea now then ever 😂 Maby the terrestrial plants eats up too much?
 
Luciën said:
Thanks, no recent foto's, well I could make it but it's just a mess 🙁
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Hopefully things get sorted out soon.
There was a tank on here (I think?) or might have only been on TPT - I think it was from MinorHero, but I can't find it anymore - Whomever it was had a similar setup with to yours and could not keep algae away because of nutrient competition from emersed plants.
 
Just kidding - here it is. Beautiful tank, and somewhere in the thread there is a battle between emersed and submersed plants. Not being able to find it was driving me mad.
 
Just read the whole thread. It's an beautiful tank indeed. It had pretty high dosage of nutrients. Just wondering how my tank is doing, never had an test kit just a ph pen.
Now I mixed up a batch with nitrate and phosphate and dose it manual daily I will see if it improves. 🙏
 
20240814_145648.jpg
Here is a quick phone shot of the current state bit ashamed there is still alot of algae and the reflection is from the table. Just lowered the light intensity to 85% I notice it's a bit less bright to my eyes but I think it's alot less for the plants.
Have some more time for it now I will do more maintenance and try to get all the algea out.
 
I have found that over feeding fish and algae go hand in hand. I suspect you’ll need to feed a fair bit for all your fish to get food, and it’s basically impossible to remove all uneaten food in a tank like that. Without a regimented weighing of food, and siphoning of water I think it’s very very difficult to balance a moderately stocked planted tank. I’m not saying there aren’t success stories, but it’s not easy, in fact for difficulty it’s probably one of the most difficult things we can do as freshwater aquarists.

Move all your fish to another tank, introduce a cleanup army (amanos) and watch the magic of your aquarium stabilising 😅 - me, the newfound expert on the unbalanced aquarium.
 
Conort2 said:
Those angelfish are stunning.

Are they Rio Nanay Scalare?
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Thanks, yes they are. Went too a lot of fish stores to find good specimens luckely I found one that had more then 100 juveniles that they breeded so I picket the one with the most visible black dot's on their side in the hope that they became the most colourfull 🙂
 
castle said:
I have found that over feeding fish and algae go hand in hand. I suspect you’ll need to feed a fair bit for all your fish to get food, and it’s basically impossible to remove all uneaten food in a tank like that. Without a regimented weighing of food, and siphoning of water I think it’s very very difficult to balance a moderately stocked planted tank. I’m not saying there aren’t success stories, but it’s not easy, in fact for difficulty it’s probably one of the most difficult things we can do as freshwater aquarists.
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I don't really feed more then I used too when there where other fish in this tank and that worked alright. Think food gets eaten pretty fast, I use a floating ring for dry foods so nothing drifts in to the sumb or in between the emersed plants whats sinking gets eaten fast by the tetras shooting thru the angels toget their meal and what sinks get eaten by the chichlids or the cory's. I generaly don't see any food left after 5 minutes.

castle said:
Move all your fish to another tank, introduce a cleanup army (amanos) and watch the magic of your aquarium stabilising 😅 - me, the newfound expert on the unbalanced aquarium.
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Would that be something, we really don't have a tank big enough to be keeping them in for a longer period and it would be a big oparation to get all the fish out.. I am thinking of replacing this tank with an biger one but would like to reuse what I can from all my plants and it would be good if they where already algea free again.
 
castle said:
I have found that over feeding fish and algae go hand in hand. I suspect you’ll need to feed a fair bit for all your fish to get food, and it’s basically impossible to remove all uneaten food in a tank like that. Without a regimented weighing of food, and siphoning of water I think it’s very very difficult to balance a moderately stocked planted tank. I’m not saying there aren’t success stories, but it’s not easy, in fact for difficulty it’s probably one of the most difficult things we can do as freshwater aquarists.

Move all your fish to another tank, introduce a cleanup army (amanos) and watch the magic of your aquarium stabilising 😅 - me, the newfound expert on the unbalanced aquarium.
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I stock and feed quite heavily and have never had any issues with algae in a well matured tank. I think you've had to go some with a lot on uneaten food sitting around to cause that.

I think the case with this tank remains, the change to much higher output lighting, and the lack of N and P dosing (assuming that's still the case).

Algae aside though, those angels do look in superb condition! Beautiful!
 
Wookii said:
I think the case with this tank remains, the change to much higher output lighting, and the lack of N and P dosing (assuming that's still the case).
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I dose more NP now I see better growth with some plants but the algae remained so I lowered the output of the light now I hope that it adds up. 🤞
 
Luciën said:
I dose more NP now I see better growth with some plants but the algae remained so I lowered the output of the light now I hope that it adds up. 🤞
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Yeah, I believe those Hyperspots kick out a lot of light - nice colour rendition though! You have mostly slow growers - you'll be surprised how little light they actually need.

Good that you're dosing NP now, hopefully it'll turn the corner for you as its a lovely tank! Do you have much in the way of clean-up crew in there? I'm guessing any shrimp will be Angel food. They do really help get rid of dying algae when a tank starts to turn the corner, it can be a bit stubborn otherwise - you may have to resort to some manual removal.
 
Wookii said:
I stock and feed quite heavily and have never had any issues with algae in a well matured tank. I think you've had to go some with a lot on uneaten food sitting around to cause that.

I think the case with this tank remains, the change to much higher output lighting, and the lack of N and P dosing (assuming that's still the case).

Algae aside though, those angels do look in superb condition! Beautiful!
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Isn’t your tank benefiting from a very large volume? An enhanced filtration system (sump) and emergent growth?

Your tank will be far more resilient as your tank has the buffer to deal with the fish load/feed imo. Remove the emergent plants, change the sump for an external and I think you’d see algae pretty quickly
 
Wookii said:
Yeah, I believe those Hyperspots kick out a lot of light - nice colour rendition though! You have mostly slow growers - you'll be surprised how little light they actually need.
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Yeah the most plants are slow growers indeed. I never was really satisfied with the colour rendition my aquamedic's spot gave, far to cold imo. And the tank especially this scape needed way better spread of light but I still love the spot shimmer and shadows that makes it more natural looking so this light was just my match.

Wookii said:
Do you have much in the way of clean-up crew in there? I'm guessing any shrimp will be Angel food.
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Yeah I allways did had Amano shrimp in there but with the latest rescape ive triedto add some again but I never seen them again .. There are also a sort of taiwan caridina in there, that reproduce in fresh water. But I only know that they still in there is that there are always a buch that end up in the sump so they are still hiding somewere. I have a group of 15 to 20 oto's though.
 
castle said:
Isn’t your tank benefiting from a very large volume? An enhanced filtration system (sump) and emergent growth?

Your tank will be far more resilient as your tank has the buffer to deal with the fish load/feed imo. Remove the emergent plants, change the sump for an external and I think you’d see algae pretty quickly
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I've ran all my tanks in a similar fashion (I like fish too much to lightly stock), from 60 litre and 100 litre with canisters all the way up, all without any major issues - only my recent tank has had emergent growth. Algae outbreaks have always been traceable back to CO2, fert dosing, or excess lighting issues. That being said, I always automate my water changes, so they are never missed. Perhaps if you fed a lot and also skip water changes its a different story.

As far as @Luciën 's tank goes, he also has a large tank (not that much smaller than mine), and a sump running, and emergent growth . . . .
 
castle said:
Isn’t your tank benefiting from a very large volume? An enhanced filtration system (sump) and emergent growth?
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Eh my tank is 325L + 100L sump that has a wet/dry section and emergent growth as you can see in the pictures. I don't see how its so much different from @Wookii acept that his is more profesionally done 🙂
 
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