Algae problem with sufficient CO2

[XAnhLe]

So I just noticed algae started growing a day or two ago.

Tank size: 90 Gallon Dimension: 48 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 25 3/8

Light: 2 x Finnex Ray II 30"

Plants: One amazon sword, about 12 italian vals, a bunch of red cabomba, 2 anubias, 5 purple waffles, and 5 temples.

Pressurized CO2 injected: 20-26 ppm

80-100% Water change every 2-3 days

Used Root tab and micro-nutrients dry fertilizer.

Is it possible that algae is growing because my plants don't require this much lighting and CO2?

How can I stop it? I already turned off one of my Finnex and leave the other one on.

Picture:

http://i.imgur.com/YNf9vGL.jpg

[musicmarn1]

you dont have enough plants to take up all those nutrients, best thing you can do, get some fast growing plants in there quickly ! wisteria, anything floating like Naja grass, Phyllanthus fluitans and Salvinia minima....

then dial back the nutrients and the light i like riccia fluitans but im thinking of things that wont take floor space or block out light for the other things, i tie mine to rocks but we want your clean feeding area and keep your cleaning regime easy !

more val, like jungle val on the back would be awesome, onion plants, omg just go to my friend PEABODY'S PARADISE and email him, his name is Dave he is AMAZING and godly and knows his plants, but basically algae grows in too many nutrients and lights, the CO2 i left alone for the discus seem happy right?

you have driftwood, get some needleleaf java ferns on there , not super fast growing but ...well anyway trust me Dave from Peabody's is just uber and a great fishkeeper though tell him i sent you because he can be a little prejudiced to those darn picky discus :evilgrin:

turn off lights for 2-3 hours in the photo period, algae hates that !

what kind of algae are we dealing with? my last algae was the dreaded black beard so if im seeming intense, its because that stuff......hurts:scared:

[XAnhLe]

you dont have enough plants to take up all those nutrients, best thing you can do, get some fast growing plants in there quickly ! wisteria, anything floating like Naja grass, Phyllanthus fluitans and Salvinia minima....

then dial back the nutrients and the light i like riccia fluitans but im thinking of things that wont take floor space or block out light for the other things, i tie mine to rocks but we want your clean feeding area and keep your cleaning regime easy !

more val, like jungle val on the back would be awesome, onion plants, omg just go to my friend PEABODY'S PARADISE and email him, his name is Dave he is AMAZING and godly and knows his plants, but basically algae grows in too many nutrients and lights, the CO2 i left alone for the discus seem happy right?

you have driftwood, get some needleleaf java ferns on there , not super fast growing but ...well anyway trust me Dave from Peabody's is just uber and a great fishkeeper though tell him i sent you because he can be a little prejudiced to those darn picky discus :evilgrin:

turn off lights for 2-3 hours in the photo period, algae hates that !

what kind of algae are we dealing with? my last algae was the dreaded black beard so if im seeming intense, its because that stuff......hurts:scared:

Woah! That's a lot of great info! The vals in my tank are propagating like crazy! Exactly what I wanted. Do you think I can go with dwarf baby tears carpet? I tried that with my other tank and failed miserably :(

I'm also thinking about getting Rotala wallichii. need some red in my tank haha

I will take a look at his website. Thank you for the awesome advice!

Seems like hair algae and bba. x.x

[mwood3]

I agree with musicmarn1. My best discus planted tank had a huge piece of driftwood to soften the water, lots of jungle val and large amazon swords, and duckweed on top. T5 dual bulb light with 6000K bulb and a pink plant bulb. I bubbled in CO2 and didn't have an algae problem. I know aquarists either love or hate duckweed but it grows like crazy and consumes nutrients to keep algae growth down. Heck, I could have sold a pound of duckweed a week! This tank's top brace separated so I had to tear it down and move my discus into a bb tank. THe val went into a dirted tank and now I have jungle val over 8' long - yep, eight feet! Zero algae in the dirted tank.

[XAnhLe]

I agree with musicmarn1. My best discus planted tank had a huge piece of driftwood to soften the water, lots of jungle val and large amazon swords, and duckweed on top. T5 dual bulb light with 6000K bulb and a pink plant bulb. I bubbled in CO2 and didn't have an algae problem. I know aquarists either love or hate duckweed but it grows like crazy and consumes nutrients to keep algae growth down. Heck, I could have sold a pound of duckweed a week! This tank's top brace separated so I had to tear it down and move my discus into a bb tank. THe val went into a dirted tank and now I have jungle val over 8' long - yep, eight feet! Zero algae in the dirted tank.

Duckweed... mhmm eat in extra nutrients and lower the light intensity a bit. They can be such a mess during water change though.

[musicmarn1]

totally true duckweed works great ! yeah mine goes NUTS we have to get it out by the bucketful hahaha

hair algae and bba EWWW lolol, ugh my worst nightmare, right there, i took down my 90g because i put so much stupid stuff in the soil i could not get a handle on those two...i really did everything and wrote some pretty world class experts, went wayyyyy too overboard on making my own MTS and adding too much into it. wont do that again, i will stick to my simple dirt, remineralized but not added to, and whatever topping i like on top.

post updates as you go forward!

[Phreeflow]

All great advice...get fast growing stem plants and there are a lot of lovely floaters aside from duckweed. Giant duckweed, red root floaters, salvinia minima, frogbit, dwarf water lettuce are a few that cone to mind that are much larger than duckweed for nutrient transport.

[XAnhLe]

All great advice...get fast growing stem plants and there are a lot of lovely floaters aside from duckweed. Giant duckweed, red root floaters, salvinia minima, frogbit, dwarf water lettuce are a few that cone to mind that are much larger than duckweed for nutrient transport.

Oh red root floaters would look nice.


totally true duckweed works great ! yeah mine goes NUTS we have to get it out by the bucketful hahaha

hair algae and bba EWWW lolol, ugh my worst nightmare, right there, i took down my 90g because i put so much stupid stuff in the soil i could not get a handle on those two...i really did everything and wrote some pretty world class experts, went wayyyyy too overboard on making my own MTS and adding too much into it. wont do that again, i will stick to my simple dirt, remineralized but not added to, and whatever topping i like on top.

post updates as you go forward!

yeah worst nightmare ever. the three SAEs I had, died in the other tank because of an ammonia spike during water change. But even them couldn't control the population of bba from my other tank.

Will do!

[musicmarn1]

Lol I too had shrimp, sae, you name it, just nothing worked, tried cutting photo period in half, hydrogen peroxide syringed onto each plant, still too many nutrients in the water....fast growing plants helped and lots of water changes but I had really messed up my soil so I started over

Good luck!

[dleblanc]

Something I have noticed with my planted discus tank is that nitrates and algae seem to correlate pretty closely. First experience - I'm on a well, tap water tested very clean in the fall. I live in the NW, it rains a LOT in the winter, washed nitrates into the tap water - about 40 ppm worth. So I'm changing water like mad to get the algae out, turns out that I'm putting nitrates IN, not so good. An expert I spoke with said to test the tap water, once I knew what the problem was, got a RO/DI unit, things got better.

Second episode - was using Purigen to keep nitrates down, came home to find a good bit of algae, turns out the Purigen was done. Measured nitrates, way high. Regenerated the Purigen, lots of water changes, nitrates came down, plants did better, algae went away.

BTW, I use water lettuce to float on the top - looks nice, and it is also the canary in the coal mine - if it grows like mad, the water quality is good. If it slows down, and the duckweed kicks in, something needs fixing.

Just what works for me, YMMV, hope this helps. All the advice above is good - you have to get the plants to outcompete the algae, and once they do, you will have little to no algae.

[XAnhLe]

Thank you David, that's an awesome response. I haven't thought of that. I was always under the assumption that my nitrate was perfect since I do 100% twice a week. I have always want a RO/DI unit, but I have been hesitant about setting up a RO/DI unit. Going to test my water out to see if that's the problem. I have some Purigen (enough for 500 gals and my tank is 90 gals), going to prime that now. I'll probably going with water lettuce, if it gets out of hand, I will just throw it into the pond lololol

Edit: You were absolutely right. My nitrate reading is at 20ppm wow

[dleblanc]

20 ppm isn't horribly bad, about half that would be better. A problem for most people with RO/DI is that you have to have a staging tank to make the water into. I did that to facilitate water changes, made the switch to RO/DI easier. The tank serves to aerate the water, bring it up to temperature, and let me set the KH/GH where I want it - generally 4KH. Instead of 100% twice a week, I'd shoot for 50% every other day, every day if you want to bring nitrates down.

Though there's a lot of variables, and you could well have different issues - though I think your tank loading is about the same per gallon as mine. Keep us posted how it works out.

[XAnhLe]

I will do 50% every day now. It's not that bad since I have two Aqueon water changers.

[Phreeflow]

Great advice on nitrates. Also, tap water tends to have lots of phosphates which leads to algae and cyanobacteria issues. RO or RO/DI would help a lot or again, gets LOTS of fast growing stem plants and floaters. A huge mistake people make is to get nutrients, co2, and high powered lighting and starting out with just a handful of plants thinking they'll grow them out. This leads to algae since your starter plants can never compete. In such an environment, you have to start with a lot of plants. Otherwise, go low tech and you'll do fine with slow growers and a sparser tank