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Woah green algae!

M

Morgan Freeman

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16 Aug 2010
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631
Came home today to find an absolute tonne of the stuff in the bottom of the tank. It's halfway through cycling, could this be the cause? It's completely swamped the tank.

6 gallon. Two Arcadia 11W clip on lights. co2 via nano pressurised. Eco complete and 50% planted. Dosing 2.5% Profito a day until my dry ferts are delivered.

Not sure what to do, keep cycling and deal with it once it's done or make water changes to get rid.
 
What type of algae?
Have a look on James planted tank website to id and find out cause
Matt


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Green water and bit of GDA.


If the cause is ammonia my cycling would explain it, which is why I'm unsure what to do.
 
Personally I would drop one of the lights for the moment
Do 50% water change daily for a week then twice a week for a couple of weeks to give the filter time to mature
I think green water is caused by ammonia but with alot of light it's just bloomed by cutting the light and water canges you'll reduce the algae and ammonia at the same time
You need to keep lighting low in the first couple of weeks to help stop algae blooms and perform large regular water changes once the tank has cycled you can decrees water changes and slowly increase light to allow the plants time to adjust
Start with a 5-6!hour photo period
Hope that helps
Matt


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
2 changes in and a massive difference already. Here's hoping.

Unfortunately I smashed my diffuser so I'm out of co2 for a while. Bah! It never ends :crazy:
 
Morgan Freeman said:
Aye. Gone down to 5 hours a day.
Click to expand...

I do believe he means Off completely or your in for some major issues!
 
Oh, well it would be over a week and my plants would surely suffer?

5 days and completely algae free though.....*fingers crossed*

My diffusor left Hong Kong on the 7th, so here's hoping I'm not co2 less for much longer. I've been dosing EasyCarbo for now.
 
Hiall
Johno2090 said:
I do believe he means Off completely or your in for some major issues!
Click to expand...
I did.
Morgan Freeman said:
Oh, well it would be over a week and my plants would surely suffer?
Click to expand...
My lights have just been off for 6 days due to me awaiting spares from Aquamedic, for my reactor. Plants got by on ambient light. No ill effects whatsoever. I also had no algae when I turned them back on :lol:
One of the golden rules I've learnt round here and now had experience of, is........... "No CO2 = Lights out".
 
Ah ok. Will keep that in mind for the future.

FE co2 is now up and running... .Woohoo! Algae issue seem to be largely under control, towards the last few days before the return of my co2 they started to creep back again but I'll get back to the water changes and hopefully I'll be 100% algae free soon.

Started to get that white surface scum I've seen mentioned on here but cleared up within an hour of putting the co2 back on.
 
Good news mate 😀 Keep on top of it.

I get that film all the time, drives me mad but nothing i try changes it.
 
ah - that's more info! If you're dosing liquid carbon i'd go back to a 5hr photoperiod to stop the lc building up to dangerous levels. Anyone else have thoughts on this? If your diffuser still not here? I'd think about opening a case with ebay - you can always close it again if it arrives but if you leave it too long you can't start one. Matt
 
The diffusor is up and running fine. Plants seem to be finally growing but along with this the surface scum has returned. Flow and distribution are good, all plants are gently swaying. Had a read of all the surface scum threads but can't work out what my issue is.

Maybe I'm not dosing enough and the plants are suffering? I'm using the planted tanks uk fert mix. 5ml day which is their recommendation for 40l tanks. Mine is 23l.
 
Ok I think I've worked it out. According to Ceg in the other surface scum threads increased co2 results in increased nutrient demand, otherwise the plants suffer and spit out loads of crap (paraphrased). My co2 is at 2bps which I think is high for a 23l tank and thus my plants aren't getting enough nutrients = surface scum.

Sound right or am I way off? I'm pretty sure it's not a flow/distribution issue.
 
Hi Morgan,
Yes, it's normally attributable to some combination of excessive lighting, poor flow/distribution, poor CO2 injection rate and poor nutrition. Please remember though that just because you are injecting at a high rate, it does not automatically mean that it is being diffused efficiently. Attention must also be paid to the timing of the CO2. Is the dropchecker green at lights on? Check your CO2 dissolution by measuring the pH of the tank water at an arbitrary interval throughout the photoperiod, say once an hour. This gives you an idea of the concentration levels as a function of time.

I do not know your nutrient mix so can't comment on whether they are sufficient or not. I can only interpret known milligrams of powder to known liters of water.

I also do not know your lighting so cannot determine if this is a significant factor.

If you are certain enough for all other things such as distribution, dissolution, flow, and lighting, then the only other factor left is nutrient load.

Cheers,
 
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