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What would trigger algae to grow on glass?
- Thread starter anewbie
- Start date
Driftless
Member
How often do you clean/scape the inside glass of your aquarium? Cleaning/scraping right before a water change will help keep the algae at bay.
I do it on demand; until recently once every 2 or 3 months. The past 2 months; once every 2 or 3 weeks. I do water changes reliably once a week. The aquarium has been set up for 18 months.
Driftless
Member
I have settled on doing my tanks' glass every other week. I find, for me, that interval keeps the glass looking clear and I think that waiting longer than this interval allows the algae to get started and for spores to be floating around your aquarium. I don't need to see algae before I clean glass.
MichaelJ
Member
Hi @anewbie Buy this NilocG Monopotassium Phosphate. 1 lbs is $5 +Tax + Shipping. When you do your next 50% WC in your 40 US gallon tank (which is 20 US Gallon) you add 1 gram (1000 mg) which is a quarter (1/4th) of a US Teaspoon. With consecutive 50% water changes It will slowly build up your tank to about 9ppm of PO4 minus the plant uptake. That's it - plenty of PO4. Nothing to worry about with regards to Phosphate... and you can take that out of the equation. If in doubt you can always invoke the almightly @Zeus. He is the Fertilizer Meister around here, and will strike down with all his might and tell you exactly the dosing you need 🙂
Cheers,
Michael
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@anewbie what fertiliser are you using ATM ? or what DIY mix yields are you dosing?
Which could be flow/tank turnover related, Flow is King of the CO2 injected tank and CO2 issues are often resolved by addressing better flow first, your tank from the pics does seem to have a low surface agitation. What's the output of your filter and any power heads?
When was the last time you cleaned your filter and what media do you have in it ? . In my 500l tank I use to clean the filter media weekly and it always needed it ( I was using the filter as a detritus trap when weekly turkey blasting the carpet)
Which could be flow/tank turnover related, Flow is King of the CO2 injected tank and CO2 issues are often resolved by addressing better flow first, your tank from the pics does seem to have a low surface agitation. What's the output of your filter and any power heads?
When was the last time you cleaned your filter and what media do you have in it ? . In my 500l tank I use to clean the filter media weekly and it always needed it ( I was using the filter as a detritus trap when weekly turkey blasting the carpet)
Actually the tank has fairly high flow; more so than my other aquariums. The back has a large jet stream (run via air) on the matten filter; the front has 2 small submersed pumps one on either side. You can see one of the pumps in the 2nd picture; the jetstream and back current is hidden by the plants but the surface agitation is high. There are a few dead spots on the middle side where the young guppies hang out but those areas are not algae problematic.
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The front flow extends fairly deep into the aquarium (I can tell when i drop pellets); the back flow I'm not sure is that deep but i've never really checked. However you raise a good point. I'm trying to decide if the algae started when i increased as the pumps are relatively new addition the flow and maybe the flow is causing the algae issue (of course this would be inverse of what you said but still there might be a relationship).
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All the filtration are sponges and i last clean them about 3 weeks ago. They normally get clean about once every 6 to 8 months. I can watch the flow through the matten filter fairly easy by seeing the water level on the opposite side and when it shows signs of clogging i clean it.
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Ok. I order some phosphate; i was griping earlier that shipping was 2x the cost of the actual mineral but i tossed in some root tabs as i'm running low (i hate their root tabs since they float but whatever). It'll take a week for it to arrive and another 3 weeks to see if it helps so in 4 to 6 weeks i'll update this thread with this experiment. After it arrives I'll look into increase the co2 a touch. I mostly do it by ph drop with the absolute max of 1 (I do have a drop checker to safety check). The issue is that this is a fish tank with plants and i worry about the fish well being with all these chemicals and co2 (reduce oxygen).
I dose thrive+ once a week 4 pumps.
So
for your 40gallon you will be dosing 7.5ppm NO3, 5ppm K, 1.3ppm PO4 and 0.4ppm Fe which is a tad on the lean side IMO.
two or three times a week would be better IMO ( or at least try for 6 weeks)
x3 a week yields ( allow so slight difference as we used UK gallons so will be slightly more in US gallons)
I'm sorry i add additional iron - 4 pumps of nilocg iron at the same time as thrive+ so there is a bit more iron. The reason I don't dose more often is i want to keep the nitrate level below 40ppm. I will add more po4 starting next week if the shipment arrives in time. I'm not sure if that will be sufficient or not. It might be that the issue is not related to po4 at all. Fe and PO4 and NO3 will be covered starting next week; I guess there is some Ca in the water (my water is kh 3 gh 7). I also put in root tabs every 3ish months. I am very concern about the total die-back of the crypt in the back. That really seems like a rejection of the tank by a 2 year old plant - maybe an issue with organics building up in the substrate ?
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This is what the tank looks like as of this morning the real concern are the complete death of the crypts in the back and the repens in the front beginning to show severe degradation: I hope it isn't an issue with the substrate because it would be a nightmare to tear down and replace; The rotala at the top is doing pretty well; I just trimmed it extremely heavily the past two weeks.
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This is what the tank looks like as of this morning the real concern are the complete death of the crypts in the back and the repens in the front beginning to show severe degradation: I hope it isn't an issue with the substrate because it would be a nightmare to tear down and replace; The rotala at the top is doing pretty well; I just trimmed it extremely heavily the past two weeks.
I'm not sure how to quantify the actual flow of the back jetstream. If you look at the back right corner you will see a matten filter; the primary flow comes from that jetstream which is air driven. In the picture the edge of the matten filter sponge is visible at the very top of the back right corner. The two pumps on the side are small (80gph) and turned down a bit so it doesnt' blow the kubotai around - i would guess each is running around 40 gph; but the actual stream from them is narrow and does not extend to the bottom of the aquarium. I thought about trying t make a spray bar out of some air tubing but i don't think it would work well. I do have a pair of wave makers and originally i put one on the side midway down but at 250gph it was too strong.
Well generally speaking we would not recommend setting up opposing power heads but offer all of the flow in one direction.
I think you could improve the flow pattern considerably by moving both the power heads to one side and not having whatever you have at the back.
I think you could improve the flow pattern considerably by moving both the power heads to one side and not having whatever you have at the back.
Well the suggestion that i 'get rid of that thing in the back'; suggest you are not familiar with matten filters; so that will have to remain. I could move one of the pumps to the other side and lower it but is this a good idea?
Also since I upped the co2 the algae seems less pronounce and more important the repens in front have started to out grow the algae on them. Tuesday i added the additional phosphate and reduce the amount of thrive+ by 50% but it is too early to see if it will be beneficial.
Well that is good news if things are improving 🙂
I think a matten filters is a type of air powered sponge filter?
Flow is a very much discussed subject on this forum and is critically important if you want to get the best out of your C02 injected planted tank.
I am sure there are many ways to achieve great flow but a very popular method is based around a slow overall movement within the tank and into the plant mass.
For instance if we use a spray bar, the flow would push along the surface layer and then be pushed down the front glass.
At this stage he flow is no longer jetting but is a smooth water movement heading toward the back of the tank and in amongst the plants.
Now we hope this will be a continuous movement, a circular motion going around and around as a mass of water.
If you point two pump at each other then the result will be chaotic and non repeating, the result won’t offer the same effect as a consistent flow coving the whole tank but…. It may just work for you but, it is not a popular method.
Anyway if things are going your way there may not be any need to change things further.
I think a matten filters is a type of air powered sponge filter?
Flow is a very much discussed subject on this forum and is critically important if you want to get the best out of your C02 injected planted tank.
I am sure there are many ways to achieve great flow but a very popular method is based around a slow overall movement within the tank and into the plant mass.
For instance if we use a spray bar, the flow would push along the surface layer and then be pushed down the front glass.
At this stage he flow is no longer jetting but is a smooth water movement heading toward the back of the tank and in amongst the plants.
Now we hope this will be a continuous movement, a circular motion going around and around as a mass of water.
If you point two pump at each other then the result will be chaotic and non repeating, the result won’t offer the same effect as a consistent flow coving the whole tank but…. It may just work for you but, it is not a popular method.
Anyway if things are going your way there may not be any need to change things further.
It has been about 6 weeks and things have improved quite a bit - i did three things - added phosphate; increased co2 and increase light by reducing the ha'ra rotala that was floating and suffocating everythng. I can't say for sure which had the largest effect though I'm leaning towards increasing co2 and adding more phosphate.
So things are not perfect; I'm now beginning to get some clumps of bba; vaguely I think i read somewhere the too much phosphate will encourage bba; so I will reduce the phosphate to 1/8-1/16 of tbs to see if that helps over the next 8 to 12 weeks.
