Algae issues

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Kitekat87

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Aug 19, 2012
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210
Location
Manchester, UK
I have a planted aquarium that close with liquid ferts once a week and liquid carbon 4 times a week yet I still seem to get quite a lot of algae.

Any suggestions to help reduce it would be greatly appreciated.

The light is on for 9 hours currently would reducing this period make much of a difference without affecting my plants?
 
Exact light model?
Tank size? (height as well)
Exact fertilizer and how much/when you dose?
Exact carbon source you dose and how much/when?
Water change schedule?
Fish load?
What type of algae?
Nitrate levels?
Flow in the tank?

Edit: solving algae issues is a personal task, what works for me may or may not work for someone else. Giving my the info above will narrow how I can help, but algae is caused by an imbalance of light/CO2/plant growth which is up to you to experiment with until solved.
 
Yeah I figured that would be the case but I'm fairly new to the whole planted tank thing so any pointers would be good. My plants are growing well but so is the algae

The light is a 30 watt led by Ciano (came with the tank)
Tank is 200 litres and 61cm high
I use easy life pro fito ferts at 18ml per week
Easy life carbon at 3ml Mon, wed, Fri and Sun.
30-40% water change weekly
Stocking is juvenile gold severum, 3 juvenile Angeles, redtail black shark and 6 cherry barbs.
General green algae? Growing on the surface of decorations
Last week the nitrates were 10ppm before a water change
There are three pumps running circulating water. One top level, one mid level and one low level.
 
Yeah I figured that would be the case but I'm fairly new to the whole planted tank thing so any pointers would be good. My plants are growing well but so is the algae

The light is a 30 watt led by Ciano (came with the tank)
Tank is 200 litres and 61cm high
I use easy life pro fito ferts at 18ml per week
Easy life carbon at 3ml Mon, wed, Fri and Sun.
30-40% water change weekly
Stocking is juvenile gold severum, 3 juvenile Angeles, redtail black shark and 6 cherry barbs.
General green algae? Growing on the surface of decorations
Last week the nitrates were 10ppm before a water change
There are three pumps running circulating water. One top level, one mid level and one low level.

Do you know the kelvin rating of the light? Normal green algae is pretty much impossible to stop, you can suppress it by having perfect growing conditions for plants, (high CO2, high nutrients, high light) but that's basically it.

The general cause (likely yours) is a color spectrum not perfect for plants, this allows some wiggle room for algae to sneak in. How much plant mass do you have?
 
I think I read it was 6500

This is the tank with the current plant stocking. This was when it was first set up a couple of weeks ago (Two cycled filters were brought over from the old tank so it isn't newly cycled)
 

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Do you know the kelvin rating of the light? Normal green algae is pretty much impossible to stop, you can suppress it by having perfect growing conditions for plants, (high CO2, high nutrients, high light) but that's basically it.

The general cause (likely yours) is a color spectrum not perfect for plants, this allows some wiggle room for algae to sneak in. How much plant mass do you have?
No I was wrong. Just found this review by practical fish keeping magazine...
The lighting (included) is an LED strip of 30W, with fierce output. My PAR meter has gone awol, but anecdotally speaking, it looks punchy as anything, in a crisp, clean 9000 Kelvin looking temperature. It’s sharp white, not yellowed, violet or blue.*
 
Thanks for the help. I think I'm gonna reduce the photo period and up the carbon dose. The instructions say dose the carbon everyday but I was a little worried about the oxygen levels in the tank if I did that. So I've been dosing half the carbon but fully dosing the ferts, maybe that's where I've gone wrong
 
Thanks for the help. I think I'm gonna reduce the photo period and up the carbon dose. The instructions say dose the carbon everyday but I was a little worried about the oxygen levels in the tank if I did that. So I've been dosing half the carbon but fully dosing the ferts, maybe that's where I've gone wrong

Dosing a carbon source has zero effect on O2 levels in the tank. It should in theory increase the O2 level in your tank, more plant growth = more O2. It's not CO2, it's likely a glutaraldehyde based product.
 
Yea I’d say the lighting is too strong and not enough co2. That light looks extremely bright by the looks of the top of the plants. Reducing photo period should help but may not either.

Have you ever thought about going down the pressurised co2 route? I’d double dose the easy carbo and see if that helps over the next few weeks and see if that helps. Try and remove as much by hand as once it’s there it won’t leave by itself [emoji106]
 
I used 9ml of easy carbo daily in a 180litre tank with pressurised co2. You don’t have to dose it all at once. Split it up through the day.
 
The liquid carbon supplements also break down after about a day in the tank which is why it needs to be dosed daily.
 
Your cover must be sturdier than mine. My cat found out this summer that aquariums are wet! Lol
 
Your cover must be sturdier than mine. My cat found out this summer that aquariums are wet! Lol
I had to reinforce the cover to stop any accidents!!! Can't keep the cats away ?. Thanks for the advice, I'll try dosing the carbon daily and higher dose if there's no improvement. So far the lesser photo period seems to have helped tho
 
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