What causes green spot algae,hair algae and some causes....

[Ed Seeley]

Three things spring to mind that I don't think you mentioned:

1. Is there any flow directed down at the problem areas? As this is on the substrate could it be that the circulation is not optimal down there? What I'm thinking if if your external (I assume?) has a lily pipe on then most of the flow may well be spinning around off the bottom of the tank allowing fluctuating CO2 at/near the base.

2. Do you have any shrimp or SAEs in there? Maybe a decent crew of shrimp will eat the algae, or at least slow it down. SAEs might also eat this if I remember rightly? Could tip the balance in your favour for a while.

3. You said the EasyCarbo caused it to redden. Did you stop dosing it? Maybe it might be worth trying that again at double dosage squirted straight at the algae filled areas?

 

[keymaker]

1. Is there any flow directed down at the problem areas? As this is on the substrate could it be that the circulation is not optimal down there? What I'm thinking if if your external (I assume?) has a lily pipe on then most of the flow may well be spinning around off the bottom of the tank allowing fluctuating CO2 at/near the base.

The CO2 enriched flow from the lily pipe goes directly to- and along the bottom so there is optimal circulation. In a small tank like this and a high filter turnover flow should not be an issue.

2. Do you have any shrimp or SAEs in there? Maybe a decent crew of shrimp will eat the algae, or at least slow it down. SAEs might also eat this if I remember rightly? Could tip the balance in your favour for a while.

Yes, I forgot to mention. There are 4 Red Cherry shrip, 4 Amano, 4 Otos, and 1 SAE in the tank. But I'm looking to solve the main reason of the algae, not to get rid of it with fish/inverts - so to speak.

3. You said the EasyCarbo caused it to redden. Did you stop dosing it? Maybe it might be worth trying that again at double dosage squirted straight at the algae filled areas?

I still dose Easy Carbo at a heavy rate 1ml/20l/day. Any more than this and shrimp would suffer. I had lost one when I tried to up that value.

Ed, thanks for your answer. If you have any more ideas, please post them.

Cheers.

 

[ceg4048]

Hi Balazs,
Can we see an image of how your flow pipework is configured? it's no good hammering the plants with flow as this can sometimes do more harm than good. Also, you need to consider that algae like CO2 as well so you might have induced it, made the proper changes but were still feeding it. You have to get rid of the stuff that's there and then carry on. The question is did the staghorn emerge with this present configuration or had you been changing the configuration of bubble rates, pipework, dosing etc when it appeared? I suggest the 3 day blackout + water changes daily + Excel dosing routine to clean the slate. If your current configuration is valid then the algae should not return. Definitely cut out sections and remove as much as you can. If that means temporarily wrecking the scape then so be it.

I don't think the indirect lighting is the culprit here. My tank sits in a conservatory which means it's basically outdoors with almost full sunlight so this can't be too much of an issue. The OFF time for CO2 is much less important than the ON time so that's not an issue.

You must also consider the possibility that the requirements of your fauna are at odds with the requirement of the plants under such massive lighting conditions. Having said that though Barr describes staghorn as a transient species, i.e. one which is stimulated by changing conditions in the tank (rescape, overfeeding and so forth). Once conditions are stabilized it normally goes away, however the strong lighting doesn't help so you may want to carefully increase the lighting after the blackout.

Cheers,

 

[keymaker]

Clive, thx for your answer!

Can we see an image of how your flow pipework is configured? it's no good hammering the plants with flow as this can sometimes do more harm than good.

I uploaded a video of the tank, hope this shows the situation better. The inflow is on the left, the outfow is on the right. The flow pushes the CO2 bubbles on the left side of the tank towards the ground and then to the right...

The question is did the staghorn emerge with this present configuration or had you been changing the configuration of bubble rates, pipework, dosing etc when it appeared?

The cause of the appearance is clear: not enough K and PO4 in the TPN+ which lead to plant deficiency. As soon as I realized that and started adding K2SO4 and KH2PO4 the growth is back on track. There were no other changes.

Definitely cut out sections and remove as much as you can. If that means temporarily wrecking the scape then so be it.

I will definitely replant the whole HC carpet once the tank is fully matured (and the diatoms are gone). It is impossible to cut out sections of the HC. All of it is affected. Until then there's no point in making a BO.