Algae

[TomD]

I am starting to develop a problem with algae. I have a fuzz algae on the plants but also seem to have some sort of slime algae on plants as well. This is a new tank, approximately 3 weeks old. It is now heavily planted. In an effort to combat this algae bloom I have corrected my co2 level (was low), I also have begun to fertilize (Flourish Comprehensive) and have reduced the photo period from ten to seven hours (I have 500 watts of metal halide lights on a 110g tank.) I also have added 24 Octo Cats, 2 Pleco Cats, 1Whiptail Cat, 12 Pygmy Cats and 6 Cory Cats.

Any suggestions on anything esle that I may do to correct this problem.

[jweis]

New tanks often have algae bloom. When I first set up my tank I didn't understand why I had these weird green algae floating all around. No one else had the same problem. My CO2 and lighting levels seemed to be fine.

Then, I read one of Amano's product books/magazines that I pick up at a GWAPA mtg. It showed that this is typical and the suggested remedy was manual removal (think net), water changes and LOTS of Amano shrimp. Dosing with Excel also seems to work.

Good luck. I know it is frustrating to try and get algae under control.

[Cristy Keister]

Whenever you make a change (light, ferts, whatever) give it a week or so before you make any other changes to see if that change made a good difference.

[150EH]

Or even two weeks if you feel it's headed in the right direction, but you made good moves and I would guess it will come around. Sometime I will have a 30 or 60 minute 'lights out' in the middle of the day to let the CO2 build and help shade out the algae, it works well for me because I like to keep my tanks in a reasonable range of CO2, where my drop checker gets close to lime green in the last hour of the photo period but is back to a dark green in the morning.

I use RO/DI water so after I add CO2 the water is so acidic it's a BBA breeding ground and the above regime helps with this problem, good luck and keep us posted.

Also depending on your substrate and/or plants fertilizers may not be needed in a new tank if the substrate is nutrient rich. Wait you better nix what I just said because you have 4.55 watts per gallon so your plants will be hungry and growing super fast.

[tug]

With the amount of light you are providing you will have a difficult time providing CO2 at non-limiting levels. Algae is going to continue to be a problem and Flourish Comprehensive will become very expensive. Dry dose CSM+B and Macros.

30-50micromol along the sediment is ample light for ANY species.

Diagram courtesy of VaughnH

[Aaron]

Flourish comprehensive really only covers micro nutrients. True, it does contain NPK, but not nearly in the amounts you need to be dosing to keep up with that very bright light.

I went back and read your intro that you are big into reef keeping. Planted tanks don't need nearly the PAR a reef does. 80-90 PAR at the substrate level is considered high light. Is it possible to replace the 250 watt bulbs with 150 watt bulbs? Or could you possibly raise the light higher to reduce intensity?

Reducing the photoperiod from 10-7 hours won't fix the problem with this much light. Many of us use T5 lights with two banks of lights and only keep half the bulbs on for the full photoperiod and all bulbs on for 4-5 hours in the middle of the "day."

The club has a PAR meter you can request to borrow. See the post in this thread by halak about halfway down for details.
http://www.gwapa.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... r&start=10

[tug]

As Aaron states so clearly, Flourish Comprehensive will provide a little NPK, but not at the levels your plants will require with CO2 supplementation under very, very bright light.

To reach your target dose for micro nutrients, (using Fe as a proxy) 65 mL Flourish Comprehensive provides a 110 gal. tank with 0.5ppm Fe. That's just to provide non-limmiting levels of the micro nutrients. Do not attempt using Flourish Comprehensive to dose NPK.

A recommended EI dose of KNO3 (7.5ppm nitrate, 3x week) for heavily planted, CO2 enriched tanks, under bright lights. Some dose higher levels of NO3, some hobbyists get away with a lower dose under less light with fewer plants. A 65 mL dose of Flourish Comprehensive provides a 110 gal. tank with approximately, 0.48ppm of NO3, 0.02ppm of PO4 and 0.48ppm of K. So, supplemental sources for PO4 & K need to be provided or you will have growth issues.

Use a cheap, tried and true source for adding nutrients - KNO3, KH2PO4 and Plantex CSM+B

I hope this helps.

[krisw]

I definitely agree with Mike using KNO3 + KH2PO4 for macros. There can be a lot of debate over Plantex CSM+B vs other commercial micro mixes. For me, Flourish produces far better results than CSM+B, but YMMV. I order Flourish in 4 gallon jugs to make the price a bit more attractive.

[tug]

With the level of light being provided, a 1.5% Glutaraldehyde solution is an attractive option as an algicide as well.

Mostly, it's a debate over chelating agents. For soft water tanks, most planted tanks, Flourish is fine for adding trace. With moderately hard water, some chelators are said to hold up better then sugar. But, YMMV.

... I order Flourish in 4 gallon jugs to make the price a bit more attractive.

The size doesn't change the fact that most of what we are paying for when using premixed commercial products, is water.