When to re-plant after algae break out

[kitch]

Hi,

I switched from low tech to high tech in varying stages, light upgrades, sugar/yeast co2, EI, more light upgrade, FE co2, messed around with flow, co2 up, co2 bps down, co2 up co2 down, re-scaped, more plants till finally I got to where I thought was a fairly decent setup.

100 L
EI dosing as per James Planted tank page
Lights 2x39w T5 10 hours a day.

Now I think, due to a lot of fiddling with plants and moving them, getting them to stay in the sand, too much light, fiddling with the co2 and not enough care of the plants, ie. not removing dead/dying leaves straight away, I was hit with a mixture of BBA and fuzzy hair and GDA.

Finally found this great thread - http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/getting-algae-after-starting-ei-dosing-what-to-do.4713/ and acted accordingly. Pretty much culled my plants and lost around 60%. Followed that with an immediate 50% water change.

I've put the lighting down to 8hrs at 1x30w T8 and plan to slowly increase it as per the thread. EI dosing I've kept as was.

Now I'm a little stumped as to what would be the best course of action. Add new plants and hope that the above will rectify the situation so that I don't end up simply throwing more plants in the bin and wasting money. Or do I decrease the light duration, give a leaner EI dosing and bring the co2 down a little (currently at 3bps and green drop checker and no gasping fish), or carry on with the 8hrs on 30w and EI with current plant mass?

Thanks in advance.

Kitch

 

[tim]

Hi kitch, as long as you feel you have rectified your issues add more plants, this may require a few extra water changes over a month or so while they adapt and also an increase in co2 for the extra plant mass, if you feel algae may return I'd be inclined to wait and make sure the regrowth on the plants you have returns algae free. As long as your livestock are fine you can wait it out a little, the t8 bulb will make tank management easier.

 

[ceg4048]

Also, the OP is advised to continue rectification actions, to maintain low light intensity, to review flow/distribution, to initiate a pH profile check to ensure the CO2 is at a high level at lights on and to verify that algal blooms are abated prior to spending more money on plants.

Cheers,

 

[kitch]

Thanks guys.

Just wanted to make sure that leaving the plant stock low wouldn't cause any detrimental affects.

I'll leave everything as is for the next couple of weeks and do 2 50% water changes a week.

Cheers.