Help with plant algae?

[Florio]

Hey guys I have a couple plants that are tending to grow some brownish "algae" and then that part of the plant will go ahead and rot or die? Anyone know what it is and how to stop it?

I have 4 HO t5 fixture running about 9 hours a day. 45 gallon tank. Dosing with flourish comprehensive weekly, and exel every now and then, running pressurized co2.

 

[Mbuna12]

I get that sometimes. Ever considered employing an algae eater. I use golden algae eaters and they control it quite well

 

[Florio]

Yup I have several algae eaters they just never get around to it

 

[Mbuna12]

Do you feed them to much case if you do that they get lazy and eventually useless at there job. I just feed mine a slice of cucumber every week

 

[Florio]

I never feed them, I always have a little bit of algae sitting around so they have plenty to eat, most of it is the good stringy algae, but this specific plant seems to like to grow this brown stuff, and then parts of them die.

Ps you should get rid of your golden china algae eater, they start to eat the slime coat off your flat faced fish once they get bigger.

Better picture incase it helps.

 

[hecurcia]

It does not look like diatoms but rather brown hair algae. I might be wrong. I got that type of algae when i first started my 20 gallon tall high tech tank and using only excel. After i bought my pressurized co2 tank it got worse because i was not adding enough fertilizer. I spent 2 months trying to get the right balance between light, co2 and fertz. You have tons light. how much co2 are you injecting into the tank? I dose fluorish twice a week and i "only"have 2 t5 ho.

 

[Florio]

Hm okay maybe my fert is the problem then cause I noticed some of my other plants have been getting pin holes in the leafs, which is a sign of not having enough nutrients.

I am pumping in about 2-3 bps of pressurized co2 to a glass diffuser.

 

[hecurcia]

Well I am injecting ~ 5bps or about 30 ppm according to ph fluctuations. Like i said before fluorish twice a week and lights stay on for 7 hrs. You may want to dose fertz twice a week and reduce your lighting period. You may need to find out how much co2 (ppm)you are injecting. Hole on leaves is a sing of potassium deficiency. Wait for other people's opinion. I just have one year into the hobby and 6 months of maintaining a high tech tank and i am still learning.

 

[Florio]

Well I am injecting ~ 5bps or about 30 ppm according to ph fluctuations. Like i said before fluorish twice a week and lights stay on for 7 hrs. You may want to dose fertz twice a week and reduce your lighting period. You may need to find out how much co2 (ppm)you are injecting. Hole on leaves is a sing of potassium deficiency. Wait for other people's opinion. I just have one year into the hobby and 6 months of maintaining a high tech tank and i am still learning.

My fert contains potassium so I think aslong as I dose more it will help, 6 bps kinda scares me cause there would be bubbles all over my tank I'd be kinda scared that I would gas my fish, I have DIY pressurized so there's no auto shut of if the ph starts changing or anything like that.

But I will try to reduce lighting time and dose more and report back in a bit unless some one else has a little more experience

Ps I leave 2 t5's running for about 8 hours and I turn on the other two at about mid day so their not always going full blast. They have built in timers so its perfect.

 

[hecurcia]

Ok. Just keep in mind that since you cannot control co2 levels at least you can control light periods. High light needs more sophisticated co2 injection and dIY co2 works better for low to medium light planted tanks. I will just run two bulbs and see what happens. Keep us posted.

 

[Florio]

Ok. Just keep in mind that since you cannot control co2 levels at least you can control light periods. High light needs more sophisticated co2 injection and dIY co2 works better for low to medium light planted tanks. I will just run two bulbs and see what happens. Keep us posted.

Will do, but I do have a drop check so I can keep it relatively close.

 

[Florio]

So I did increase my co2 and I noticed that my plants started pearling ALOT more.

It seems that the algae has gone away off some plants and gone on to others? Maybe my algae eaters got to it. We will see in the next couple days.

 

[hecurcia]

Excellent!

 

[Florio]

Okay so quick update, most of my red algae is gone, now I'm starting to get green stringy algae

Don't know what that means, also I got a timed regulator for my co2, don't know what a good lead and end time are.

 

[Rivercats]

When running a high light tank you not only need either CO2 or liquid carbon but you need to be dosing a balanced macro/micro fertilizer. The liquid fert your using isn't enough, not even when you add more. With such light and CO2 you need to be dosing dry ferts which will give your plants all the macro and micro nutrients they need. Also are you keeping track of your nitrates and phosphates? In a planted tank you should have 10-20ppm of nitrate and .5-1.0ppm of phosphate. What is your WC schedule and how much do you change out weekly? Hair algae which is what it sounds like you have is from too much light left on too long and excess nutrients in the water. For now you need to cut lighting back to 6 hours, get some dry ferts (IMO), and possibly even spot treat the hair algae (a picture would help to verify that is what you have) with Excel or Hydrogen Peroxide. I run a very high light (T5HO's and Metal Halides), dose PPS-Pro regime with dry ferts, and dose heavy with liquid carbon and have very very little algae which is what a balanced tank should be like (little to no algae).

 

[Florio]

When running a high light tank you not only need either CO2 or liquid carbon but you need to be dosing a balanced macro/micro fertilizer. The liquid fert your using isn't enough, not even when you add more. With such light and CO2 you need to be dosing dry ferts which will give your plants all the macro and micro nutrients they need. Also are you keeping track of your nitrates and phosphates? In a planted tank you should have 10-20ppm of nitrate and .5-1.0ppm of phosphate. What is your WC schedule and how much do you change out weekly? Hair algae which is what it sounds like you have is from too much light left on too long and excess nutrients in the water. For now you need to cut lighting back to 6 hours, get some dry ferts (IMO), and possibly even spot treat the hair algae (a picture would help to verify that is what you have) with Excel or Hydrogen Peroxide. I run a very high light (T5HO's and Metal Halides), dose PPS-Pro regime with dry ferts, and dose heavy with liquid carbon and have very very little algae which is what a balanced tank should be like (little to no algae).

I WC every Wednesday roughly 30-35%

What dry ferts would you recommend, and ill start dosing exel for a bit, as for my hours, I don't think my algae is so bad where I need to tune my light time down to 6 hours I think 7 would be ok.

Ill have to get a phosphate tester cause I don't monitor that.

Also here's a pic of my hair algae

Also here is my whole tank, the algae is really not all that bad. But I would like to get it to zero.

As well as fix my leaf plant problems ( lots of holes) I think the dry ferts will help that out.

 

[Rivercats]

Looks like you have some thread algae and could be the start of some Green beard algae on the edges of some leaves in the first picture. The reason you take light down to 6 hours is to address the algae issues. Then once they are taken care of you can slowly increase the photoperiod and know you hit your limit when algae begins to appear. The holes is the leaves is usually potassium deficiency which dry ferts would take care of.

This is the dry fert package I use... Micro & Macro | Aquarium Fertilizer | Green Leaf Aquariums

I recommend three of these dosing bottles... Fertilizer Dispenser | 1000 mL (32 oz) | Green Leaf Aquariums. The reason I recommend three bottles instead of the two the PPS-Pro formula states is I use one bottle for micros, one bottle for nitrates, and one bottle for phosphate and potassium. By splitting your nitrates from your phosphates/potassium you can better custom dose your tank to the macro nutrients it needs instead of dosing a specific mixed amount of both.

Here is a good thread to read. You only need the original post info not all the comments after... http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/pps-analysis-feedback/39491-newbie-guide-pps-pro.html/

You will also see the PPS-Pro formula calls for using MgSO4, magnesium, which unless your water is very soft you don't need it. There is usually plenty of magnesium in tap water.

 

[Florio]

Page not found :/

 

[Rivercats]

Try this.... Newbie Guide to PPS-Pro - PPS Analysis and Feedback - Aquatic Plant Central

 

[Florio]

So I've looked over the dry plant stuff, but the website doesn't seem to ship to Canada, and my local fish store is A) extremely over priced and B) doesn't have dry, only prepared separate ferts.