Algae, not sure of type, and how to rid.

[JRagg]

Well the plant growth in my tank has been phenomenal lately except for a couple minor issues.

When I was gone for two weeks for my wedding/honeymoon my tank took a turn for the worse. Everything bottomed out while I was gone. I came back and saw an overgrown forest of sunset hygro, red melon sword, etc. The growth had holes in the leaves and thin leaves. It was pretty obvious that this was an "everything deficiency" from 2 weeks on an auto-feeder with no dosing.

I have since gotten the tank pretty well cleaned up. Replaced with sword with something smaller, etc. One thing that hasn't subsided since I came back is the algae problem that took hold while I was gone. It's not so much a big deal on most of my plants as I can easily cut off the affected leaves, but my Anubias nana looks bad. The leaves have a "furry" type of green algae that is at most 1/8" to 3/16" long. I don't have any algae eating fish in the tank, only snails (MTS and tiny ramshorn), and they don't seem to be doing much to counterat the problem.

I haven't seen any significant amount of "new" aglae since this all started. I just can't get rid of the existing stuff. I've been thinking about an oto or two to get rid of the current problem and keep it from showing up again in the future.

Is there anything that eats this stuff or any way to remove it? It doesn't seem to come off mechanically.

Here are some tank stats:

40W of 6500k/10000k and 40W of "dual actinic" lighting over a 10g tank.
2x2L DIY CO2, generally about 2 bubbles / second.

Dose 1/4 tsp KNO3 2x a week
5mL of "Leaf zone" 2x a week (iron and potassium)
Equivalent of 1~1.5ppm PO4 2x a week
Half a cap of Flourish trace 2x a week (recommended dosing)

Either a 25 or a 50% water change weekly (using a bucket and a siphon) depending on how much time I have.

I should have bought CSM+B when I ordered from greg watson, but I didn't know any better. I know now that flourish is the better trace supplement than flourish trace is, that's why I continue to use Leaf Zone to supplement iron as well.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm leaning towards a full EI dosing schedule, but I need to get CSM+B and a python to make that easier. I'm also a little squeamish to go spending a lot of money since I'm sure the wife won't appreciate that right now (on a bit of a budget).

TIA

 

[JRagg]

Well here is a slight update.

I think it's a combination of hair aglae and green spot algae. The short hair stuff continues to grow on most of the leaves, but not so bad that it makes the plants look bad.

I took a toothbrush and scrubbed the anubias nana leaves and it got some of the algae off. The leaves still look pretty pitiful since they tend to get overshadowed by hygro and other plants. They've got some holes in them from the major nutrient deficiency from a few weeks ago.

 

[Plantbrain]

Well, 40w of 6500/10K ligthen is on the upper range and weill make life hard.
Adding another 40w/now at 8 w/gal is asking for fgrief.

Try adding 2 x15 w on the tank and running good consistent DIY CO2.

You'll do a lot better.

Cut the amount dosed to 1/2.

Switch lighting.
15 w under the cabinet lights run 6$ each, 2x 6= 12$ and DIY hood etc.

This is the best lighting for a 10 gal.
I use a cool white and Triton bulb mix.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[JRagg]

I was under the impression that the 40W of actinic didn't really count towards usable light and that only the dual daylight bulb really did anything.

Honestly, when I got myself into this mess (the long vacation) I had 2x13W 6500 CF bulbs over the tank. The new fixture is one of the Current USA Orbit fixtures that sits about 3-4 inches off of the tank, so there is a lot of escaping light. I've been able to switch to an open top tank as well, which I really like.

I know that algae and planted tanks sort of go hand in hand to an extent, and I would really like to keep the fixture I currently have if at all possible. Algae isn't really overrunning the tank either, I'm just not sure how much I should expect to see in there.

 

[Purrbox]

Personally I don't think that 40watts is too much over a 10 gallon. Probably right around medium light, maybe medium high light. With proper ferts and CO2, it should be quite managable. I'm running 60watts over a 10 gallon, which is probably somewhere around high light. Yes you have to keep on top of things or you will run into problems. Mostly a personal decision on what you are willing to do and what you want to accomplish.

I'd say that you probably just need to make sure that your ferts and CO2 are in line, and either spot treat with excel or prune the affected leaves. Since the tank was doing well before, a little bit of TLC should get it back to where it was, especially since you've noted that the algae isn't all that bad at this point.

 

[maxwell1295]

While actinic lighting does not really count when calculating usable light for growing plants, it does seem to lead to more algae growth. At least that's how it has been in my experience. I had to get rid of the 50/50 bulbs on my 20G and 29G tanks. Neither of these tanks were planted tank at the time, but the algae was all over the place...

 

[JRagg]

I've read that actinic tends to cause algae in tanks that don't have a large plant mass in them, but can and will lead to problems in an unplanted tank since algae likes the blue spectrum. I'll have to dig out my books again.

I may just swap my bulbs and use the dual daylight though to see if the actinic causes additional problems (the fan on the unit is linked to the actinic bulb slot right now). For now I'm going to go with getting the ferts in line, grabbing an oto or two, and then if the problem isn't better I'll remove the actinic bulb.

In any case, this is some good stuff to think about. Thanks for the responses.