Algae Problem Lurking.

[TMills27]

Water Wisteria
Java Moss
Valisneria
Anubias
Hornwort

A while ago I tried setting up a 20g planted aquarium and had it running awhile before I almost lost everything due to a very low light from a standard aquarium hood. After doing a lot of research into plants i decided to upgrade the lighting to 2wpg of 6500K and insert a diy Co2 system. I have the co2 going into a HOB filter, and i cut back the surface agitation of the filter significantly by place a piece of plastic over the waterfall to reduce co2 loss. I also bought Flourish Iron, the wisteria was growing, but yellow-white colour, and I think i read they need a bit more iron.
I know all this stuff might not be neccessary for most or all these plants but I wanted to see if there was any benefit from it. After about a week, the plants are growing like crazy! The wisteria is now a lush beutiful green, with huge leaves, the vals are spreading babies all over the place and are green too, the hornwort is bushier than i ever seen it before. Anubias is pearling like an airstone..lol.

However yesterday i noticed a short green hairy algae growing on the leaves of the wisteria, Spots of hairy green all over the anubias, And dense, fluffy clumps of dark red algae on the wood. I'm a little concerned now. Does this mean another plant meltdown coming up?

I left out something very important. I did something very risky, but thought i would deal with the consequences after. Near the wisteria i buried a small peice of Jobes Plant stick food for house plant deep under the substrate. I didn't feel it would be drastic for water parameters because the nitrates were below 10ppm for quite awhile (thanks to hornwort i presume). The formula for the plant stick had relatively low Nitrogen levels. (relative to other Jobes plant sticks that i have seen) the formula numbers for it are 13-4-5. Let me state again it was just a small piece, not a whole stick. To this day the nitrate still has not rose above 10ppm.

So i'm guessing there might be a nutrient imbalance. (The plants sure aren't showing it!..lol) Maybe all i need to do is wait a bit longer for the plants to out-compete? Feed more sparingly? I have the lights on 12 hours, then complete blackness for 12 hours (these guys are in the basement). Would it hurt to have less hours of light? Every week i have a checklist with my water changes and that includes scrubbing algae from the glass walls. (it grows back quickly with green spot algae and a red algae). Algae eaters are out of the question because this is only 20g.

Today i bought a java-fern. Nope, not a fast grower and it will probably be plagued by algae too soon enough, but perhaps with a little more plant will mean a little less algae. Maybe i'm wrong. Any ideas?

 

[Philly33]

First- get a timer and reduce to 7-8 hrs.
Second- livestock clean up crew ( otos 1", pitbull pleco 2.5",) are suggestions

I'll let the professionals chime in on the technical aspects.

 

[TMills27]

Hey Philly thanks for the reply. I have the lights on a timer. I will reduce to 8 hours then.
Funny story, the person at the fish store told me that fish and plants don't need any light at all! She told me lights are just asthetics and to just unplug and leave it that way...lol.

 

[TMills27]

I also read that plecos and algae eaters need lots of space to swim. I'm not sure about otos but i don't think i have enough space for plecos to swim.

 

[Fdsh5]

I run my lights 4 hrs on 3 hrs off then back on for 4 hours. No algae problems in those tanks.

 

[TMills27]

I did a bit of reading on otos. Sounds like a good fish for a cleanup crew! One site said a minimum of 33 gallons and 2 other sites say a minimum of 20 gallons. Since they are docile it might be a good choice for me.

 

[akagochi]

algae usually means you have low levels of CO2 in your tank. try dosing with Seachem's Excel flourish; it is a liquid organic carbon. Yes reduce the lights for a while.

 

[TMills27]

I haven't seen any Excel in any of the petstores down here. Is there a better way to get CO2 dissolved in my tank. Right now its going up into the HOB filter.

 

[aqua_chem]

1) 20L or 20H
2) WPG is a mostly useless metric. What kind of light is it (T5HO, T8, etc)
3) Consider getting a drop checker so you have a better idea of your CO2 levels.
4) Do you know that you need shake the nitrate test kits very hard in order for them to work?

 

[TMills27]

Aqua chem,
It is a 20 gallon tall. I also have 2 10 gallons. I have two 26 watt CFL with a Kelvin temperature of 6500 (Daylight).
I am not getting a ton of CO2 into the tank, but i beleive the tiny bit that is dissolving is helping the plants a lot. I don't have a co2 test kit, but i get somewhat of a general idea by doing a water change with water that has been sitting out for 2 days. I take the ph of the water on that day (tap water's ph is 7.8 so it brings the ph up a bit) then after 24 hours or so i see how much the ph has dropped. It does drop close to 7.0 so i'm GUESSING that the co2 is doing it. I realize there are other things that drop the ph of the water over-night. I don't think ive seen co2 titration kits at the pet-store.
On my nitrate test-kit instructions, it states in bold capital letters to not shake off the water from the test-strips. Also the nitrate test kits read a higher level of NO3- in my 10 gallons (25ppm) then my 20 gallon tall, my guess is because the plants in there aren't getting a light-co2-nutrient boost like my 20 gallon is. No algae in the 10 gallons either, must be true that higher nitrate does not cause algae growth..lol.
Probably the BEST thing i could do is get a phosphate, iron test kit as well. I'm trying to boost plant growth without these and probably a big mistake.

 

[TMills27]

Anyways heres my game plan. I'm reducing the lights, feed more sparingly, do bigger water changes. I'm going to let the horwort grow as big as it wants without pruning and maybe it will lower the amount of light over the anubias and java fern. The wisteria and valisneria will still get there normal intake of light. I'll see about getting some oto's

 

[aqua_chem]

Otos won't help any of the algae you have described.

 

[akagochi]

I haven't seen any Excel in any of the petstores down here. Is there a better way to get CO2 dissolved in my tank. Right now its going up into the HOB filter.

Amazon!

 

[JesseMessykinn]

Amazon!

Evilbay!

 

[TMills27]

*Update* (A good one!)

I didn't buy any algae eating fish, and i don't have excel just yet (A very good LFS around here is ordering some for me). However i did a 33% water change last night. First I used a magnet brush to remove algae from the glass.I took all the rocks with algae out and removed all the 'unrooted' plants and went nuts vacuum gravelling. I replaced the plants and kept the rocks out for later boiling. I believe this removed most of the phosphates and other out-of-wack nutrients out of the water. Now today (about 15 hours later), the red beard algae is gone. The dime sized big fluffy red clumps that were growing on the driftwood has been reduced to nothing more than a faint white fluff. The green algae is still on the anubias and wisteria, however, but the algae does not seem like it has grown any more. Anubias surprised me, it just grew a leaf overnight..lol.