Mordachai
Aquarium Advice Regular
****. I thought that two 50% WC would do the trick last weekend.
It started as I noticed that there was too much GSA growing (Green Spot Algae). That's not the worst thing in the universe, so I didn't think too much of it. I rechecked my ferts, and realized that I'd been underfeeding TE (trace elements) by 1/2. So, I mixed up a new batch, cleaned out the GSA by scraping it off of the walls with a razor, culled plant leaves and other surfaces that was inundated by it, and figured it would balance.
A week later, I discover I have a ton of BBA (black beard algae). !@#!@#$
So, crud. I take a water sample, and lo & behold, my Nitrates are maybe 40ppm. That must be it! (I think to myself). So I do a 50% WC immediately, then two days later, check - it's around 20ppm, so I do another, and now it's pretty far down.
I figure that must be it - I'd ignored it for a while, and nitrates were the fundamental problem.
Now, it's a week later, and my BBA has only continued to flourish! Huh? So I just did another nitrate test (surely it can't be that much higher in less than a week since I dropped it to 10ppm), but !@#!@# It's 40ppm again!
What the snork.
Anyway, I'll do another 50% WC in the morning, but now I'm confused. How are my nitrates skyrocketing like this?
Currently I Have a 55 US gallon tank. Nitrite and Ammonia are undetectable. I run CO2 during light-cycle, starting 1hr before lights, stopping 1hr before dark. I have a PH sensor that controls the solenoid, and it's set to turn off CO2 if PH ever drops to 7.0. PH cycles from about 7.8 in the morning, to 7.3 after a full day of light+CO2. So the CO2 has never turned off during an injection period.
I have a drop-checker as a secondary test - it remains blue all of the time.
I'm running a build-my-led - 48" strip (what was their "planted" spectrum before the revamped their site to give many more options).
I run the lights 7:30 hrs / day. The room is relatively insulated from outside light (north facing, we're in the woods, tank's farthest spot from windows).
The tank has a LOT of plant growth at this point. It did before the GSA ramped up, and even more now. So a lot of competition for resources.
The substrate is Eco Complete. Tank has been planted and cycled with fish for about 4 months. I've got a Fluvial 306 and a whisper 60, both recently cleaned, for filtration duties.
The water is crystal clear, no green tint to it, the fish are generally healthy & happy.
I have:
7 checkered barbs
2 cherry barbs
5 neon tetras
4 phantom tetras
6 lamp eyes
2 ottocinculous
2 bushy nosed plecos
1 red tail shark
20 crystal shrimp (10 red/10 black)
4 amano shrimp
4 coolie loaches
2 apple snails (aka mystery snails)
I normally feed 1/day TetraMin tropical flakes - about what they eat in < 1 min. I supplement that with the occasional few mini algae wafers (more before the plants had really matured), and some Shirakura shrimp ball food.
I have never seen the algae wafers or shrimp food last more than a day. I only use it sometimes (more before the algae breakout, but even then only about every 3rd day).
I dose my plants using PPA pro daily.
Any ideas? Why the very high rate of nitrates? Is it due to rapid break-down of plant matter? Am I overfeeding (my fish don't seem to think so). Have I overcrowded?
It started as I noticed that there was too much GSA growing (Green Spot Algae). That's not the worst thing in the universe, so I didn't think too much of it. I rechecked my ferts, and realized that I'd been underfeeding TE (trace elements) by 1/2. So, I mixed up a new batch, cleaned out the GSA by scraping it off of the walls with a razor, culled plant leaves and other surfaces that was inundated by it, and figured it would balance.
A week later, I discover I have a ton of BBA (black beard algae). !@#!@#$
So, crud. I take a water sample, and lo & behold, my Nitrates are maybe 40ppm. That must be it! (I think to myself). So I do a 50% WC immediately, then two days later, check - it's around 20ppm, so I do another, and now it's pretty far down.
I figure that must be it - I'd ignored it for a while, and nitrates were the fundamental problem.
Now, it's a week later, and my BBA has only continued to flourish! Huh? So I just did another nitrate test (surely it can't be that much higher in less than a week since I dropped it to 10ppm), but !@#!@# It's 40ppm again!
What the snork.
Anyway, I'll do another 50% WC in the morning, but now I'm confused. How are my nitrates skyrocketing like this?
Currently I Have a 55 US gallon tank. Nitrite and Ammonia are undetectable. I run CO2 during light-cycle, starting 1hr before lights, stopping 1hr before dark. I have a PH sensor that controls the solenoid, and it's set to turn off CO2 if PH ever drops to 7.0. PH cycles from about 7.8 in the morning, to 7.3 after a full day of light+CO2. So the CO2 has never turned off during an injection period.
I have a drop-checker as a secondary test - it remains blue all of the time.
I'm running a build-my-led - 48" strip (what was their "planted" spectrum before the revamped their site to give many more options).
I run the lights 7:30 hrs / day. The room is relatively insulated from outside light (north facing, we're in the woods, tank's farthest spot from windows).
The tank has a LOT of plant growth at this point. It did before the GSA ramped up, and even more now. So a lot of competition for resources.
The substrate is Eco Complete. Tank has been planted and cycled with fish for about 4 months. I've got a Fluvial 306 and a whisper 60, both recently cleaned, for filtration duties.
The water is crystal clear, no green tint to it, the fish are generally healthy & happy.
I have:
7 checkered barbs
2 cherry barbs
5 neon tetras
4 phantom tetras
6 lamp eyes
2 ottocinculous
2 bushy nosed plecos
1 red tail shark
20 crystal shrimp (10 red/10 black)
4 amano shrimp
4 coolie loaches
2 apple snails (aka mystery snails)
I normally feed 1/day TetraMin tropical flakes - about what they eat in < 1 min. I supplement that with the occasional few mini algae wafers (more before the plants had really matured), and some Shirakura shrimp ball food.
I have never seen the algae wafers or shrimp food last more than a day. I only use it sometimes (more before the algae breakout, but even then only about every 3rd day).
I dose my plants using PPA pro daily.
Any ideas? Why the very high rate of nitrates? Is it due to rapid break-down of plant matter? Am I overfeeding (my fish don't seem to think so). Have I overcrowded?