Sudden algae bloom - help required

[ojdewet]

I have been running a planted discus tank for the last few months and I have never had a problem with algae until recently where I have experienced a sudden bloom of algae growing on the plants especially.

Could anyone give me some advice as to what I should be looking out for and testing for?

I have a 70 gallon tank with 8 2 inch discuses, one pleco and 8 neons. My tank is densely planted with bogwood.

I have an external canister filter with loads of filter media and I also have a silica sand fluidised bed filter.

My gravel is a combination of silica sand and intert gravel.

I have a 14W light that switches on at 08:00 with my fluerescent lights (two 60W) switching on at 09:00. The bright lights switch off at 19:00 and the 14W light switches off at 20:00.

Regards
OJ

[plecocicho]

Oj, algae bloom usally ocour, when there is a sudden change of light conditions, fertilizers, or any other disturbance. Did you recentelly change any water parameters, fertilizing,co2 adding, lighting, added new fish, etc?

[ojdewet]

I recently changed my gravel - I used to have a very course gravel in my tank and the pleco did not look to happy with it so I put my fish in a quarantine tank and took out all the gravel and mixed it with silica sand to ensure a finer consistency. I had to remove the plants and replant them.

I also added a piece of matured bogwood.

I also put my lights on a timer where I previously switched it off manually.

Other than that nothing has changed that I can think of except that my charcoal could be saturated and releasing toxins into the water?

OJ

[plecocicho]

You rerooted your plants, changed the substratum. If you kept the old aquarium water (i presume, that you removed most of the water in aquarium for easy change of substratum) and filter alive, the algal bloom is hte consequence of your remodelling of aquarium setup, plants have been under stress and algae used thta opurtunity. Monitor water parameters, do wcs at will and wait. When the plants recover, they will use all nutrients and starve algae to death.

[ojdewet]

When I changed the substrate I kept my filter and fluidised bed running and I tried to reuse as much of my tank water as possible but I ended up having to do a 50% water change when I changed the tank layout.

I will increase my water changes. In the meantime, would it be effective to harvest the algae by hand and / or prune the worst affected plants until the tank settles again?

Just another question: since I replanted the plants are rooting well (even making roots out of some of the stems) but the plants are suddenly much more stringy and growing very quickly to the surface while they were quite bushy previously. Is this a factor of too much available nutrients or lighting or a combination?

The irony is that I have not had a day's problems with my discus but the plants seem to be much more of a challenge...

[plecocicho]

1. Yes you can prune thew most afected plants and leaves.
2.Your plants are growing more in height than wide preciselly because of lighting as light conditions are best on the surface.