Struggling to maintain balance

[hartgirl]

My 40b tank is kind of a hot mess right now, and I'm getting frustrated finding the right balance in this tank. 30" beamswork pent LED, diy CO2, just started dosing PPS Pro method this week (dry fert mix). Honestly I hadn't been very religious about dosing before (using flourish comp) so I partially attribute this algae mess to that. Now that I'm regularly dosing and have co2 in check and stable, I think (hope?!) things will get better...there is hair algae everywhere (stringy, black, and coarse...or is that beard algae because it looks kind of like, well, a scraggly beard?) I'll find some pics soon.

I guess my question is there anything I can do to save the plants while I find balance? I try manually removing it, but the Ludwigia that is mostly infected has such fine leaves that I end up breaking them. I'm thinking of doing a hydrogen peroxide dip on the affected plants and installing some young SAEs to help...?

Any advice you all can give me would be great. If you happen to know the par values for the light I am using, that would be amazing...heard its high light but no hard facts to back that up....


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[Brookster123]

Oh hartgirl.. why do we always meet like this ok.. tell me all about your tank. Light cycle? Parameters, plants, substrate.. everything please. Finding a balance can be rather tricky and frustrating, trust me! Tanks can swing to heck so fast it makes you want to have a firesale. A few quick things I can add based off... well.... nothing..
Buy a proper co2 system as diy will do more bad than good on a 40b
Get a calendar and document everything about your practices and routines, it helps.
Get a huge syringe, load it with 45 ml of hydrogen peroxide, kill the flow for 20 min and napalm that algae, watch it fizz, fun stuff!
Dose 20 ml of straight metricide every morning
Split photo period 3.5 on, 4 off, 3 .5 on..
Be patient!
Win!!!

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[BBradbury]

Your Tank

Hello hart...

The water needs to be cleaned up. Start an aggressive water change routine and work up to the point you're changing half the tank's volume weekly. This will balance the water chemistry. Review the lighting requirements of the plants you have and provide that amount. Putting chemicals into the tank water with the exception of a good water treatment product like Seachem's "Safe" is a sure way to create a water chemistry problem.

Back off the fertilizers for now and give the water changes a chance to settle the tank. Once the water is clean, then review the whole fertilizer issue. The best fertilizer comes from the fish. Just feed a little of a balance of flaked, freeze dried and frozen foods and keep the water high in minerals through the large, weekly water change.

Pretty easy.

B

 

[gimmethatfish]

I have used PPS-Pro ferts for a couple of years, but I never have dosed daily as it recommends. The best I usually do is twice a week.

When I set up a CO2 system on my 120 gallon tank, I started dosing every other day, thinking that I'm asking these plants to grow like crazy with the CO2 and I had better give them some food to do so. I ended up with a mess. Green hair algae, black beard algae, algae on the glass that I was cleaning off weekly even though I have about seventy thousand algae eating creatures in the tank (okay not that many). It was horrible. I was still for some reason blaming the CO2. I cut down my photoperiod which helped a little but not much. Then someone suggested stop dosing so much darn ferts. I went back to once a week (or less) dosing, and it has all but cleared up. The hair algae and algae on the glass is gone. The bba really only remains on a little pebble "stream" I have in the tank which I'm just going to pull out and replace the rocks. So I wholeheartedly agree - try backing off the ferts first. It would have saved me months of frustration!

 

[PerfectDepth]

Hello hart...

The water needs to be cleaned up. Start an aggressive water change routine and work up to the point you're changing half the tank's volume weekly. This will balance the water chemistry. Review the lighting requirements of the plants you have and provide that amount. Putting chemicals into the tank water with the exception of a good water treatment product like Seachem's "Safe" is a sure way to create a water chemistry problem.

Back off the fertilizers for now and give the water changes a chance to settle the tank. Once the water is clean, then review the whole fertilizer issue. The best fertilizer comes from the fish. Just feed a little of a balance of flaked, freeze dried and frozen foods and keep the water high in minerals through the large, weekly water change.

Pretty easy.

B

Please don't follow this advice. Your algae will only get worse if you do.

BBradbury, the fixture she mentioned puts out a fairly high amount of light from what I understand. If she limits ferts or CO2, the plants will be starved and algae will totally take over.

Based on my experience, I tend to agree with Tom Barr's approach. People blame algae on excess ferts, but usually what really happens is that when nutrients are in abundance, the CO2 demand increases. If you don't account for the increased demand for CO2, boom.. algae explosion. Flow can be an issue with CO2 as well. The CO2 has to actually make its way to all the plants, so flow is very important and often gets overlooked.

 

[Caliban07]

I agree that when things go out of whack it's better to reset and start again. Unless you are a seasoned veteran at keeping plants in which case it is a just a matter of tweaking.

Your plants and algae will tell you everything you need to know though but when you have lost track of dosing I would recommend a reset. This same thing happened to me recently. I just flushed the system completely and started again. Some plants recovered and new growth looks lovely.

However, I add liquid carbon and now only add it every couple of days and i stretched the fertiliser to every four. Macros every week. Dosing will not remain constant though. As plants grow and your underwater garden gets bigger they will require more nutrients to sustain old leaves and grow new. And unless you have tap water with high nutrient levels you can't get away with relying on fish ferts.

Reset the system and go slow with dosing. See how the planted respond and take it from there. You plants will then begin to tell you what's lacking and you can up the dosing's appropriately.


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[Caliban07]

Having read perfect depths response I should add that I have a low light and low tech set up. I agree that you should work around your own setup.

Because of my set-up I know I can add intermittent nourishment which wouldn't be as critical. I'm not ready for high light yet ☺

This is my set up. Those swords don't even get root tabs and they are taking over!


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[Brookster123]

Hey B, i never post pics of my tanks in other people's threads.. just for you lots of co2! Lots of ferts! Lots of work! It is do able... you should try it! Very rewarding! And yes.. i change 50% a week. Twice in my 5.5! There are so many different ways to run a planted tank. Leds are a whole new world, theyre getting cheap too..hmmm

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[hartgirl]

I just got off work and thanks for all that info!! When this algae situation happened I was using high light, no co2. Added co2, plants took off, but so did algae. The new growth looks better than the old, but still getting algae (much slower algae growth). At the time I was only intermittently dosing Seachem's flourish. A week ago or so I started PPS -pro and results are great in my tank with medium lights (no co2) and negligible in the algae war zone....needless to say it's my first time in co2/high light land.

Ph 6.6-6.8 in this tank, 0 am, 0 nitrites, 5-10 nitrates. 30% pwc weekly...

And Lol Brookster!! We do meet this way a lot, but thanks for the help. My previous diatom issue in the large tank was solved with time and water changes...loooots of water changes.


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[hartgirl]

Happy to report that I have found my balance ....it's actually been a while, but wanted to post an update! My plants are growing SO fast....I'm going to have to do a major cutback and start giving to others! I have some floating plants (mini water lettuce I think?) that help block some of the strongest light. That along with dry ferts and diy co2 are making a huge difference. My red tiger lotus reaches the top of the tank, and I've already had to cut the Ludwigia back significantly, and need to again. The star grass came to me super short and spindly- and it almost reaches the top as well. I don't even want to start with the pearl weed- but I might make a carpet out of it at some point...so I'll leave it for now haha.

Thanks to everyone for help- and Brookster especially because you always answer my questions!


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[Brookster123]

Looks like you're approaching jungle status keep it up#!

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[hartgirl]

Oh yeah- jungle status definitely. At first I was just replanting the tops of plants everywhere because I didn't know where I wanted to keep them- I kind of like the look now though- a kind of random, fun jungle with lots of books and crannies to search


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