Dreaded Algae

[Mr Wild]

Ok I have a planted 325litre tank with driftwood. I mainly have anubias, java fern, amazon swords. It is lit by a new T5 2 x 39W and I use 1 capful of seachem a week. I usually have the light on from around 10am in the morning until 10 or 11 at night. No CO2.

Algae on the leaves and driftwood start green / brown. It is so thick on the leaves I take the plants out and wash them under fresh water. It comes off easliy but it is very very thick. I have 3 small BN in the tank but they do not appear to llike it or there is too much of it.

Any ideas?

[Eddie]

Hey Kath, what type bulbs do you have in the fixture? 10K, 6700K or 4500K?

Eddie

[Mr Wild]

Ummmmm not sure....hang on

Ok now I have read it they are twin 54w @14000K
Does that tell you something? I have only just set the light up in the last week, initially all I had was an old fluro so the algae is an old problem but with the new light it is really noticeable.

[Mr Wild]

Here are some pics of what has been happening HTH.

[Eddie]

Ummmmm not sure....hang on

Ok now I have read it they are twin 54w @14000K
Does that tell you something? I have only just set the light up in the last week, initially all I had was an old fluro so the algae is an old problem but with the new light it is really noticeable.

Yup, that is quite a bit of color temperature for your tank. 10000K and up are primarily used in reef/salt tanks. There are some people who use 10000K for an hour or so but anything longer will kick algae into OVERDRIVE.

You may want to go down to 6700K bulbs or even lower.

Eddie

[Mr Wild]

Actually this light is to go on my 4x2x2 tank so I will see how that goes, I have to move things around this week. Getting new babies from Rod! Whoopeeeeee

[KDodds]

You can probably kick your photoperiod down to about 8 hours. Changing out the bulbs for a closer to daylight spectral output might help, but, IME, it's hit or miss and likely involves other factors. Other than your swords, you have some real slow growers in there. When you say you're dosing Seachem is it Flourish or Flourish Excel? Flourish is a fertilizer, Flourish Excel a bio-available carbon supplement, so the two are mutually exclusive but can be used together for balance. If you have few plants, i.e. less than 1 per 4 liters, it's not very likely that you'll need Excel at all, IMO. And, with the slow growers and sword (more on the sword later) dosing liquid ferts could indeed be directly causing your problems. I'd halt the fertilizer dosing as well, especially if there are fish in the tank. Some algae growth on plants is to be expected. Unless you're totally obsessive about keeping the leaves clean and/or about keeping things perfectly balanced, some algae will, eventually, accumulate, especially on Anubias. But plant choking algal growth is not acceptable or healthy. So you'll likely still need to clean leaves, but maybe not as frequently or vigorously as you have been. Additional help in this task can be found in some fish, but BN plecos aren't one of these fish. Otocinclus spp. are probably about the best you'll find that are plant-safe AND plant cleaners. The more wood you have, though, the less time they'll spend cleaning your plants. And, for a tank that large, you'll need a smallish army of them (12 minimum) that will need to be supplemented if algae growth becomes sparse (IME, they'll readily consume algae wafers fed in the evening). Since the sword is a relatively fast grower, it will need some fertilization. The good news is that swords prefer root fertilizer, meaning that you can use root tablets/pellets, which produce less nutrients in the water column than liquid ferts. Maybe one pellet every two to three months for a smallish plant, possibly more frequently for a larger plant, would be in order. These are aquarium root tabs I'm talking about and they're about the size of half a Tylenol tablet. So, in short, I'd halt dosing, do a few large WCs, and feed the sword and see where that gets you. Adding any fish like Otos would be optional.

[Mr Wild]

Thanks for that Kieron, I appreciate your input. I have to change out the lot anyway to put it into the 4x2x2 for next week so that will be my chance to give it all a good clean and start again. In the new tank I am having sand substrate and will be trying to pot the amazon etc so I will get some root tabs and just use that for awhile. I have been using Seachem Flourish so I can easily stop that. But to be honest this has been a problem well before I got this new light. But as I said the new light will go on the larger volume tank and with a change is fertilising them I hope all will be well.!

Thanks so much for you help again!