Algae hates me...

[Mordachai]

I'm beginning to suspect I have whatever the opposite of a "green thumb" is when it comes to freshwater planted tanks.

55 Gallon planted, high-light, CO2 injection, PPS-Pro.

I've struggled with algae... well, thought I was struggling because I had noticeable stag-horn and green spot algae on many plants. Initially mostly GSA, later more stag-horn.

I've tried:

• Increasing the CO2 (ph 6.7 - drop checker = green)
• Reducing the light to 7hrs / day
• Strict... to very strict with feeding 1/ day only
• Reducing KNO3 (half the PPS-Pro recommendation)
• Weekly 40-50% WCs
• Aggressively pruning the worst affected leaves & stems
• 

Tap water (well) is PH 7.7, 0ppm Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, low hardness
Current water is PH 6.7, 0ppm Ammonia, Nitrites, ~10ppm Nitrates, 0.5 phosphates, a little harder water.

Currently my tank has a TON of stag-horn, a fair bit of green thread or perhaps green hair algae, and a growing set of BBA colonies.

Things I haven't tried:

1. Increasing the PPS-Pro feeding
2. Other water tests?
3. ...?

I believe I understand that fundamentally, algae is a sign of nutrients / light out of balance with the plants. My nitrates tend to run high (though they're better since I halved the PPS-Pro formula for KNO3). But having reduced nitrates, and massively increased CO2, I am experiencing the worst surge of algae yet.

Ideas?

NOTE: the water is very clear, and I have good water flow throughout the tank.

Current PPS-Pro dosing:
5ml of macros and 5ml of TE / day
Macros: 29g K2SO4, 16g KNO3, 3g MgSO4.
TE: 40g

 

[misterc007]

Just a couple thought's

Reduce light to 5 hrs a day
Reduce fert's to twice a week
cut your TE to 20g and dose 5 ml. Up it to 10ml if you see a problem


Get some floating plants, to shield the tank from direct light

Get some nerite snails

I don't know what your plant load is or how high your light out put is so i'm just guessing

 

[aqua_chem]

When you say "high light", what do you mean? There is a certain level of light beyond which I have a lot of trouble with staghorn (and other similar thread algae) regardless of CO2, ferts etc. I've found that the best way to get rid of it is to reduce light level, not duration, and supplement with excel until the problem goes away.

Also, what's the pH of your tank without CO2?

 

[Mordachai]

I have a 48" buildmyled LED light. I don't know what the PAR values are for it - I had it built about 5 months ago, before they upgraded their site to offer much better tools for customizing and evaluating the LED design. Mine is based on their "planted" recommendation, which I think is about a 6500K color temperature, but of unknown PAR.

My well water is about PH 7.7. I've actually got my current tank water at about 6.6 with the CO2 injection (it takes a lot of it to make that much difference, but the drop-checker appears to be green - i.e. "ideal").

The well water is GH of around 3 degrees. So not very hard water, and the tank water is only about 4 GH.

I can certainly cut TE and lighting time. I would love to have some control over the intensity, but I don't currently have a dimmer control. Maybe it's worth the investment.

 

[flitabout]

GSA is showing a phosphate deficiency. I am having the same issue. To get the phosphates up as per OS I took 1/4tsp of the phosphate powder mix to some tank water till I dissolved most of it and then added it to the tank which got me up to 5ppm of phosphate. That was Friday or Saturday. This isn't as drastic as it sounds. Right know my phosphate is sitting at 1ppm and I am probably going to dose it back up again. I personally don't dose the nitrate at all in my tanks.
Sometimes the intensity can be an issue. If you don't have the dimmer you can also cut up the photo period with a siesta. I do mine at 3 hours on 4 off and 4 on. It has kept my algae at very low levels. Some algeas need a longer photo period so it really helps in stopping them from developing in the first place. Well other than the gsa.
Don't cut your dosing pps is made to be dosed everyday.

 

[Mordachai]

So, I'll try:

• Drop nitrates out entirely from the next batch of PPS-pro I mix. (although it is down to 5-10ppm now - and maybe that is good enough?)
• Split lighting periods (I've tried this in the past, but maybe it's time to try that again)
• I'll try adding phosphate directly when I do a WC tomorrow. Try adding some dry directly to the water.
• Add some extra flourish excel
• Inject some HO directly on the algae... I should post a few pics - it's pretty intense right now (think fur on a long-hair dog).
• Increase phosphates in next PPS-pro batch, try to keep them at 5ppm.

Thanks for the help. I keep seeing tanks everywhere else and not seeing folks struggling with algae. I don't get why I have to struggle with this.

 

[flitabout]

Oh we have all struggled!!! I am in a constant battle to keep it under control. I literally spend no less than hour a day going over my tanks. Ok that is a freakish amount of time, but I am a bit type A. The only reason I am good a getting rid of algae is I am really good a growing it!!!!

 

[Mordachai]

I am considering trying to grow algae. That way, I'll fail miserably and end up with plants taking over...

 

[flitabout]

I have felt the same way! Just to let you know. I just got done treating the hair algae on my anubia. Now my tanks are all bubbly... Stupid slow growing anubia!

 

[aqua_chem]

I have a 48" buildmyled LED light. I don't know what the PAR values are for it - I had it built about 5 months ago, before they upgraded their site to offer much better tools for customizing and evaluating the LED design. Mine is based on their "planted" recommendation, which I think is about a 6500K color temperature, but of unknown PAR. My well water is about PH 7.7. I've actually got my current tank water at about 6.6 with the CO2 injection (it takes a lot of it to make that much difference, but the drop-checker appears to be green - i.e. "ideal"). The well water is GH of around 3 degrees. So not very hard water, and the tank water is only about 4 GH. I can certainly cut TE and lighting time. I would love to have some control over the intensity, but I don't currently have a dimmer control. Maybe it's worth the investment.

The reason I wanted to know your tap pH specifically is because tap water often changes pH significantly in a tank, especially if you've got driftwood, aquasoil, a large stock level, etc. A pH drop of 1 unit in soft water isn't all that much, especially if your pH was already lower than you tap.



I would take a different approach to your algae problem. For your consideration:


Physically remove everything that you can. Time to get those armpits wet.

Try to reduce your light intensity. Obviously a dimmer is by far the easiest way to do that on an led fixture, but that's obviously not practical right now. Other methods would be raising your light or wrapping it in window screening. This will probably be the most effective single step you can take.

Increase all fertilizer. I would try 1.5-2x recommended PPS, or switch to EI until the problem is under control (you can always switch back later). This will rule out any deficiency issues, such as GSA which flit already pointed out is classically a phosphate issue.

Start dosing with glut. You can do recommended dosages or 2x more. Spot dosing isn't necessary although it may be helpful.

Start incrementally increasing your co2. Increase it slowly, dialing back if you start to see your fish act lethargic or suspicious.

 

[Old Scales]

Another tip. Put your nitrate dry fert in a separate bottle from the potassium/phosphate one. That way you can "updose" your K & PO without upping the NO3 which most people have enough of already. As for fighting algae? We ALL walk that tightrope. lol. I bear my green scars with honor. OS.

 

[Alan79]

Haha. I've tried different things to get rid of different algaes with great success. Usually i change something and my Algaes morph to a new type and i lose the old type. It's a solution but not the solution. Had brown diatoms added ferts it morphed to black spot, then BBA turned up when black spot receded due to many hours of leaf scrubbing, now i'm seeing thin green strands appear this week which could be my BBA becoming green hair algae with different nutrients available. I think my tank is having an algae fashion parade. Plants are surviving but not as pretty as i would like. I have used peroxide which worj=ked well but with neon Tetras and some young snails i want to grow up i'm staying away from peroxide now. Using DIY CO2 probably means the levels fluctuate and when it gets hotter the yeast produces CO2 quicker so it's hard to keep things constant to balance the ferts i dose. Had a heatwave last week and a cold snap this week. When i first added ferts all the Algae fropped back a lot over three days then it came back with a vengeance. Guess every two days i should dose. It's going to feel very rewarding when i get things under control. No idea yet what will do the trick but my growing snail population seem to be winning slowly with cleaning leaf surfaces. I had to build a bigger group for them to get busy about cleaning. I have six that are getting big at the moment and an unknown number of babies growing in the tank that are just getting too big to hide in substrate. I'll eventually get free of Algae but who knows how long it will take. Good luck to everyone currently at war.

 

[Mordachai]

Huge thank-you's to everyone for their insights and ideas!

I've increased the PPS pro, added some extra KH2PO4 when I did a 50% WC on Saturday, and I've been adding about 5ml of Excel daily, while keeping the CO2 going enough to maintain a 6.6 PH.

I basically decided that I would learn to live with the algae, since my plants do seem to morph and grow new extensions and it all seems to be okay in the end. The tank is in a state of continuous change. And maybe that's just okay.

But having decided that, and increased ferts & excel, now the algae has become very green. It ... looks ... beautiful!

I'm beginning to get that it isn't that they exist that is upsetting - it's that they usually look gross. And if they're lush and green... well, actually, I like it. I have no idea if it will stay this way, but for the moment I'm really enjoying the aesthetic. My plants look like they've got lush green grasses growing on them, which is far preferable to the black/gray rot they seemed to have before, or the GSA that seemed to be smothering some of them.

Weird, but neon green hair algae of 3-5 mm is acceptable to me.