Please help. Light and algea control.

[SqueakyBed]

So I have a heavily planted tank and it's approximately 2 months old. When I first set it up I did a fish-less cycle. Everything went well and plants were flourishing. dwarf hair grass, Limnophila hippuridoides and other plants were growing like wild fire. Then I introduced fish and increased the light up to 10 hours instead of 6 per day. And ever since the tank is going down hill.

It went from a beautiful lush green planted aquarium to a yellow, pale and algae infested tank. I now have green algae and plenty of baby black beard algae all over the rocks. And brown algae all over my plants. And slimy brown algae on the glass at substrate level. dwarf hair grass growth just came to a halt and is now yellow and coated with brown algae. Anubias barteri is covered with tiny black dots but still growing.

Now I am a complete noob. I mean I know a thing or 2 about planted tanks and fish keeping and I do my absolute best to keep the tank fresh and healthy, But I am not doing so well as you will see in the pictures down below.

And to be honest I don't know what I am doing wrong or what I should be doing and that's why I am here. I thought I would post some pictures and my tank specs and hope that veterans and people that actually know what they are doing can spot the problem and help me get this tank back on track.

Aquarium specs:
Dimensions: 48"W x 13"D x 24"H (60g).
Lighting: Finnex ray2 48" (LED). On for 10 hours a day.
CO2: Pressurized (120 bpm). On for 10 hours a day.
Diffuser: GLA Atomic+ CO2 inline diffuser
Substrate: ADA Amazonia Aquasoil
Filtration: 2 Hydor Professional External Canister Filters (240 and 345 GPH).
Heater: Hydor ETH 300 In-Line Heater, 300w.

Water Parameters: Temperature 76°, PH 8ppm+ I use crushed coral in the filter to raise the PH, Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppms, Nitrate 5ppm give or take.

Fish stock: 12 neon tetras, 12 glow light tetras, 4 black skirt tetras, 4 red platies, 4 sunset platies and 2 bristlenose (or at least that's what I think they call them).

I dosed 5ml of Seachem Flourish, Potassium and Iron every other day this whole time however I noticed that the brown stuff that is growing on the plant leaves gets a rapid boost whenever I does Seachem Flourish so (2 weeks ago) I stopped dosing altogether and used root tabs as Delapool suggested but I chose the DIY method (Osmocote Plus in gel capsules) to see if that has any effect on algae in general but it didn't get any better nor did it help the plants especially the dwarf hair grass. I also introduced the 2 bristlenose into the tank to help combat algae and they did a great job (they are the reason why you only see the brown stuff at the tip of the leaves they clean the leaf surface but can't clean the tips) but they are not eating it fast enough I guess.

I apologies if I wrote too much but I am trying to get to the bottom of this and I am not getting anywhere, I am desperate at this point. If you are reading this then I am assuming that you read the whole thing which means you care! So please Help!.

Pictures:
Please note: The camera makes the plants look so much greener then they actually are!

 

[Fresh2o]

The reason you are now seeing algae may be due to the increased light duration and/or the increased bioload.
IMO the extended light duration placed higher nutrient requirements by the plants. When those nutrients were not present in adequate supply, plant growth rate slowed down. Algae took advantage of the plentiful light and nutrients.
You did not indicate the drop checker color (should be green to lime green while CO2 is on). Lack of adequate CO2 with a strong light source can contribute to algae.
How much and how often are water changes being performed? The wastes produced by the fish along with insufficient water changes can contribute to black brush algae (BBA).
For testing, I only check nitrates and phosphates. I try to keep the nitrates around 10-20 ppm and the phosphates on the high side (3-5 ppm).
Initially I used API Leaf Zone and Seachem Flourish Comprehensive. As the light increased I switched to Green Leaf Aquatics PPS-Pro dry fertilizers. Much more economical than the bottled variety.
I would decrease the light duration back to 6 hours or do a split light pattern (3-4 hours on; 3-4 hours off; 3-4 hours on). The ray2 is a strong light source.
I would increase the water changes. Spot treatments with hydrogen peroxide or Seachem Excel on the BBA can be used as a short term fix to kill them.


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[Caliban07]

I agree with everything Fresh2o has said. If you didn't keep the co2 running alongside the extra photoperiod theres a risk of the plants being carbon limited.

If you did carry on running the co2 with the extra 4 hours lighting then it's more likely that the co2 bubble rate hasn't been increased to compensate for the growth rate and plant mass.

The increased bioload both from fish and struggling plants has most likely contributed to algae.


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[SqueakyBed]

The reason you are now seeing algae may be due to the increased light duration and/or the increased bioload.
IMO the extended light duration placed higher nutrient requirements by the plants. When those nutrients were not present in adequate supply, plant growth rate slowed down. Algae took advantage of the plentiful light and nutrients.
You did not indicate the drop checker color (should be green to lime green while CO2 is on). Lack of adequate CO2 with a strong light source can contribute to algae.
How much and how often are water changes being performed? The wastes produced by the fish along with insufficient water changes can contribute to black brush algae (BBA).
For testing, I only check nitrates and phosphates. I try to keep the nitrates around 10-20 ppm and the phosphates on the high side (3-5 ppm).
Initially I used API Leaf Zone and Seachem Flourish Comprehensive. As the light increased I switched to Green Leaf Aquatics PPS-Pro dry fertilizers. Much more economical than the bottled variety.
I would decrease the light duration back to 6 hours or do a split light pattern (3-4 hours on; 3-4 hours off; 3-4 hours on). The ray2 is a strong light source.
I would increase the water changes. Spot treatments with hydrogen peroxide or Seachem Excel on the BBA can be used as a short term fix to kill them.


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I don't use a drop checker. It never works. The drop checker I bought said to use aquarium water which I did but it didn't work it stayed yellow the whole time and would form a thick film at water level every few days. making my own solution didn't work either (I am sure I screwed up somewhere while making it).

I do a 40% water change once a week and I vacuum out as much waste as I can.

I will set the timer back to 6 hours a day and do more water changes see if that helps. I will also buy Seachem Excel and spot treat the algae see if it kills it.

I agree with everything Fresh2o has said. If you didn't keep the co2 running alongside the extra photoperiod theres a risk of the plants being carbon limited.

If you did carry on running the co2 with the extra 4 hours lighting then it's more likely that the co2 bubble rate hasn't been increased to compensate for the growth rate and plant mass.

The increased bioload both from fish and struggling plants has most likely contributed to algae.


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Yeah I am running both the CO2 and the light on a timer so both were increased together except that the bubble rate stayed the same. I just thought same rate longer period means more CO2!

It's getting worse by the day

EDIT:
What puzzles me is that I have a bunch of Limnophila hippuridoides planted on one side of the tank. And these grew like crazy! while other plants suffered. So I thought to myself maybe the Limnophila hippuridoides is sucking up all the nutrients from the water leaving nothing to other plants. So I measure it (it grew from root level to 10.5" in 2 months and was very healthy) and then trimmed it back to root level. Now it too stopped growing and is covered with brown stuff

Before:

And 10 days after trimming:

 

[Caliban07]

It's strange. I know you have replied but I can't see anything ?


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[Caliban07]

Had a bit of trouble reading this thread due to a technical malfunction.

How's progress?


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[SqueakyBed]

Had a bit of trouble reading this thread due to a technical malfunction.

How's progress?

Very slow.

I set the timer back to 6 hours a day. That's for both CO2 and lighting. I started doing more water changes (every other day). And instead of dosing Seachem Excel I chose to go with the siamese algae eaters (the true ones) since they are the only species known to eat BBA.
Well It's been 8 days and the good news is that the brown algae seems to have stopped advancing. The old growth still has it but new growth seems to be free of it.
The siamese algae eaters are not doing a really good job with the BBA. I mean I see them nibbling at it every now and then, but that's all. They are however eating the brown algae too so it's a win win. Very skittish fish though, and they get spooked easily.

During water changes I manually remove any visible clusters of BBA and I vacuum the soil to remove fish waste as much as I can. I am also doing less feeding since the fish I have seems to produce tons of waste without me even feeding them

Thank you for following up!

 

[Caliban07]

Very slow.

I set the timer back to 6 hours a day. That's for both CO2 and lighting. I started doing more water changes (every other day). And instead of dosing Seachem Excel I chose to go with the siamese algae eaters (the true ones) since they are the only species known to eat BBA.
Well It's been 8 days and the good news is that the brown algae seems to have stopped advancing. The old growth still has it but new growth seems to be free of it.
The siamese algae eaters are not doing a really good job with the BBA. I mean I see them nibbling at it every now and then, but that's all. They are however eating the brown algae too so it's a win win. Very skittish fish though, and they get spooked easily.

During water changes I manually remove any visible clusters of BBA and I vacuum the soil to remove fish waste as much as I can. I am also doing less feeding since the fish I have seems to produce tons of waste without me even feeding them

Thank you for following up!

This seems like a better schedule.

Probably not the best idea adding more fish to combat an algae that is usually attributed to high organics/low co2 but the water changes will help.

The infested leaves should be removed too as they are now likely contributing to the organic waste.

No problem and good luck.


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[plantnoob]

Squeaky, any luck with the brown slimy stuff near the substrate and if yes, ideas on what helped? I have a similar problem, I got rid of a pretty good carpet of Staurogyne due to stunted growth and death from brown algae which I took to be diatoms.


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[KingKoopa512]

The reason you are now seeing algae may be due to the increased light duration and/or the increased bioload.
IMO the extended light duration placed higher nutrient requirements by the plants. When those nutrients were not present in adequate supply, plant growth rate slowed down. Algae took advantage of the plentiful light and nutrients.
You did not indicate the drop checker color (should be green to lime green while CO2 is on). Lack of adequate CO2 with a strong light source can contribute to algae.
How much and how often are water changes being performed? The wastes produced by the fish along with insufficient water changes can contribute to black brush algae (BBA).
For testing, I only check nitrates and phosphates. I try to keep the nitrates around 10-20 ppm and the phosphates on the high side (3-5 ppm).
Initially I used API Leaf Zone and Seachem Flourish Comprehensive. As the light increased I switched to Green Leaf Aquatics PPS-Pro dry fertilizers. Much more economical than the bottled variety.
I would decrease the light duration back to 6 hours or do a split light pattern (3-4 hours on; 3-4 hours off; 3-4 hours on). The ray2 is a strong light source.
I would increase the water changes. Spot treatments with hydrogen peroxide or Seachem Excel on the BBA can be used as a short term fix to kill them.


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Im with fresh had the same problem cut my light duration to 5 hrs till i get the right amount of ferts in there

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