Fertilizer balancing happiness

[AdamHorton]

It's been a couple of weeks with my new light, ferts, and plants in my 20G tank. I'm still getting a little algae, though pretty much all of the plants are doing very well and showing new growth. The java fern hasn't done so well, though. Here's my setup:

Lighting: Current USA Nova Extreme 30" 2x24W T-5 10,000K - Freshwater - Lighting - T-5 Fixtures at BigalsOnline

Plants: Dwarf Onion, Anubias Barteri, Java Fern (tied to some driftwood), Tail Sags, Micro Swords, Ludwigia Peruensis.

Ferts: I use Flourish Excel, Potassium Sulfate, and Potassium Phosphate. Lighting is on 8AM-12PM, then 4PM-10PM, and there's an air stone in the tank.

I do 50% water changes every weekend. When I did the water change this weekend, I took measurements of the tank before and immediately after the water change (which is also when I dose my ferts)

Before:
pH: 8.2
NO3: 20 ppm
PO4: .7-.8 ppm

After:
pH: 7.6
NO3: 10 ppm
PO4: .7-.8 ppm

I'm sure you need more data, but I don't know what data you would need. Any ideas what could be out of whack with my fert dosing? I really don't know what to look for here. Thanks for your help.

 

[meegosh]

What is your kh/gh? Are you dosing anything for traces? How often do you dose what you listed, just once a week? Getting into a dosing schedule will really help you troubleshoot. I would stick with a recommended dosing regime, like EI or something similar, for 3 weeks or so and see how your plants react. From there you can tweak things based on how the plants respond.

I use this chart for my dosing regime (found at bottom):

Edit: Actually my dosing regime for my 30g long is:
Sundays 50% WC
KNO3 - 1/4 tsp 3x week (sun, tues, thurs)
KH2PO4 - 1/16 tsp 3x week (sun, tues, thurs)
GH Booster - 1/2 tsp every other week after 50% WC
Plantex (trace) 1/16 tsp 3x week - alternating days from macros (mon, wed, fri)

I should add that I use pressurized co2, ~30ppm with a 96watt 6700K Coralife over a 30g long.

Hope it helps!

 

[AdamHorton]

I forgot to mention that, I have a trace fert. I add what it says on the bottle when I do water changes.

I only dose once a week with the water changes, and it's been two weeks now, so this is the third time I've dosed ferts. I've been doing 1/2 tsp of each the KH2PO4 and the K2SO4, which seems like more than what they suggest (about twice as much).

The plants are actually doing pretty well. Everything is growing, it's only the java fern that's not really growing (I think they're slow growers anyways). I just have a little bit of algae on the java fern and I don't know if I should be concerned about it. I can't identify it for sure based on google image searches for the types of algae in that chart. Here's a recent picture:

Maybe it's green spot algae? You can see pretty much all of the algae in the tank in this picture.

So my questions at this point are:

1. Should I break up my dosing into 3-4 times per week, or keep it the way it is?
2. Should I just be more patient and see if the algae goes away in a couple of weeks, or should I start tweaking the ferts I give (maybe I should give less like the chart suggests)? I have KNO3 around but I haven't been using it.
3. What kind of algae do I have, and what can I do to get rid of it (mostly to make sure that the java fern does well).

The java fern has been through worse, and I can clean up the algae if it will only be that much, but from what I've read around here, I should try to treat the source of the problem when it comes to algae.

 

[meegosh]

Well Java Ferns are typically slow growers & low light. I have never grown ferns but I've heard that putting them in a higher flow area sometimes helps to get rid of the algae. Sometimes this can be problem though since most people tie them to decor/rocks/dw.

I would try to remove as much algae as you can by hand and then give it a few weeks and see if it comes back. I would be tempted to break up the dosing schedule so that the tank isn't loaded up in the beginning of the week and then the levels drop later in the week. The whole goal of EI dosing is to have excess nutrients all week and then reset at the end of the week with a 50% WC.

 

[AdamHorton]

All right, I'll try that and next PWC (Friday) I'll dose the ferts in smaller portions and see how that goes. Hopefully I won't have too much trouble getting the algae off that java fern without hurting it. Thanks for your help.

 

[Purrbox]

Your aquarium is fairly lightly planted. You may find it helpful if you add more plants.

 

[JustOneMore20]

I agree. Adding more plants might help the little bit of algae you have....try some faster growing plants like Rotalas and Ludwigias.

 

[AdamHorton]

Hmm, more plants, eh? I thought with this last batch of plants I made the transition from "lightly planted" to "planted." I'll definitely be getting more Ludwigias, since that thing is growing like crazy. I'll probably have to clip the anubias also and re-plant them.