Unhealthy plants and troublesome algae

[calsip]

Hi all,

I wouldn't reduce the plant mass any. Plant health look fine, but I'm going to guess that you have more light and nutrients than your plants fully utilise. So you need either more plant mass or less light intensity. I always have <"more plants">, but I have <"no sense of aesthetics">.

What does it look like now? The test tube won't work, because it doesn't have an air gap to let the CO2 diffuse across. That is why <"Drop Checkers"> are shaped the way they are with the kink.
View attachment 217288
If you had the test tube upside down the gas would be collected, but the drop checker solution lost to the tank, and the right way up you would retain the drop checker solution, but there isn't any way for the gas to diffuse in.

cheers Darrel

The test tube was inside of a holder I made with a 3d printer so it had the air gap. It actually had a huge water surface area too and worked better than either the one I broke or the Ista replacement that it in the tank now. It was ugly as hell though 😆

Here is how the Ista looks now:

 

[calsip]

Hmmm. We the light intensity looks quite low to my eyes. Anyone else agree/disagree?

I don't know if this means much but it's 35% on a light that claims "PAR 269"

 

[calsip]

Full stats for the light are: 32w LED, PAR 269, 7300K, Lux 16100

It came as part of this set: Superfish Scaper 90 Litre Aquarium Set

 

[calsip]

I've tweaked this photo to get the brightness as close to reality as possible... at least on my monitor.

 

[Bradders]

Do you have sunlight coming into that room as well by any chance?

 

[calsip]

If only! There’s a blackout blind and curtains that the kid is determined never to have open.

 

[Bradders]

4 months old and there is quite a lot of algae is about the sum of it. There must be something imbalanced, which means there are lots of nutrients to feed the plants/algae. But I just am not experienced enough to understand what it could be.

 

[palcente]

You need to show us the plants. Scrape the green algae off from the glass and feed your critters veg. You can see if your light is low enough if it the algae does not grow back. Once you regain control, you can try increasing the light very very slowly.. DSLR photo is dark as you took the picture from under the light and the camera underexposed. I think your tank looks really good, just get the dust algae under control by tuning down the light. Unless there's obvious issues with your plants (post pics), I would not make any other changes.

 

[calsip]

You need to show us the plants.

You want some close up photos of them?

Scrape the green algae off from the glass

So there’s no need to keep the algae growing on the front glass any longer?

feed your critters veg

The ottos have been enjoying peppers, cucumber and caugette 🙂

You can see if your light is low enough if it the algae does not grow back

I’ve turned it down to 20%. Will get the kid to clean the algae (sides and back at least) and see if it returns 🤞

 

[calsip]

Happy to say that things have been going pretty well!

The GDA was still growing quite quickly so I turned the light down to 15% and it's growth has slowed a lot from then (plants were pretty big at that point too) - glass still needs a scrub after a few weeks but I'm not sure if that's normal?

Diatoms have dropped off to pretty much nothing. Haven't seen a single bit of thread algae since the middle of March!!!

The plants got so big that flow was severely disrupted, to the point where the rear left of the tank was over a degree cooler than where the heater is! (Inkbird told us about this at 3am 😆) We took a load out from the surface and in front of the outlet. The kid is keen to to cut the plants back more and turn the light up but obviously we don't want to risk a return of the algae. Is that reasonable or is it too soon?

What's the best approach if/when we do that? Gradually turn the light up until it's at a good strength but we're sure the algae isn't returning? Then cut the plants right back in small groups? (to allow them to regrow under a stronger light without taking out too much mass from the tank)