Please Id This Algae

[donkey]

Thanks again Zig .i will try out what you say by putting my CO2 up to about 40ppm .and i will get hold of some potassium and see if that helps .you might be right about the potassium as the plants look a little washed out . i was looking at the algae again tonight in my tank and some of it now must be over 10 inchs long on the glass braces at the top . its long and thin and stringy .but the stuff on the plants has stayed short . looks like i have a few kinds in there . and i just did a test on the nitrates from the tap and there zero .

ok Zig i will try this for a few weeks and get back to you and let you know how its going .
TA TA for now mate

 

[zig]

Thanks again Zig .i will try out what you say by putting my CO2 up to about 40ppm .and i will get hold of some potassium and see if that helps .you might be right about the potassium as the plants look a little washed out . i was looking at the algae again tonight in my tank and some of it now must be over 10 inchs long on the glass braces at the top . its long and thin and stringy .but the stuff on the plants has stayed short . looks like i have a few kinds in there . and i just did a test on the nitrates from the tap and there zero .

ok Zig i will try this for a few weeks and get back to you and let you know how its going .
TA TA for now mate

Double the dosing anyway of the nitrate and the phosphate if you do this you will be adding more potassium or k, probably nearly enough if you work it out on Chucks calculator without having to add anymore, and if you do have to add anymore after you have doubled the dosing it will only be a tiny amount, you need to be adding 15-20ppm of k.

 

[donkey]

Thanks zig . will do all the above and let you know how it works out

 

[donkey]

well i was going to leave it a little longer before i did an update but as you can see by the pictures this algae is now way out of hand . even after turning the co2 up and adding more potassium its getting worse . even if i pull it off its back the next day. it hangs over my lotus plant like a vail . if anyone has any ideas on this problem please let me know . i am now at my wits end with this stuff


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[jimbooo]

holy crap. i feel for you mate thats the exact same algae as i get. i have been doing EI for a month and all other algae has vanished but that stuff is going from strength to strength. the only thing that may be out of balance in my tank is CO2. i have tested everything else (NitrAte, phosphate, iron) every day for a month so i know all the levels are optimum but the ph kit i have is very vague. i think i'm getting 30ppm but it could easily be 20ppm. hard to tell with those colour chart things.

mine isn't quite as bad as yours but my riccia has the stuff all tangeled up in it. impossible to manually remove so i'm on a mission to find the cure. i'll let you know if i get anywhere.

possibly going to try the flourish excel overdose method. if it's lack of co2 that should sort it.

 

[donkey]

Thanks jimbooo
yes please let me know if you find a cure for yours . my co2 is up to about 50ppm at the moment .and the algae is still there .

i did try and add somemore plants in there to soak things up a little but they got coverd in the stuff after about 2 days

 

[zig]

This is bad allright not very nice to look at that every day, did you add the extra nitrates along with the potassium, something is seriously out of whack here in your dosing regime.

 

[donkey]

yes i did add the extra nitrates and the potassium . but still no luck .its a real pain this stuff

 

[zig]

Just make absolutely sure you are dosing everything in sufficient quantities, just recheck everything you are doing, if you are dosing correctly it should disappear.

Your sure its not some sort of bga?

I dont know what to suggest, reduce the lighting until you have it in some sort of check, you could try a blackout but this wont work if its a type of hair algae, if your really stuck and at wits end try ODing with Excel at 3x the recommended amount, it seems to work for hair algae as well. But that wont cure the underlying problem and it may come back, normally hair algae will be cured with sufficient dosing and co2.

So i dont know mate, id probably reduce the lighting for a start anyway, but you have to find out what its feedng off and correct that.

 

[donkey]

Thanks zig
i dont think its bga as it just seems to grow to long. in some parts of the tank i would say its about 10 inches long .in fact its that long that it sometimes gets wrapped around the fish . the Excel might be worth a go .

 

[Angry_Platy]

That is kinda like what I had in my tank. It kind of looked like green cobwebs through the tank. The BF even asked me if I have spiders in the tank

Last week I took out a LOT of the plants.....it seemed to like attaching to my green sword and lilaeopsis....so they went....as did the ambulia, the ludwigia and a few others. Everything that had the algae attached to it went in the bin

I then turned down my lighting (1/2ed it actually) and stopped E.I. since there weren't that many plants in there.....over the course of 4 days I had NO algae at all. I kept CO2 constant. Yesterday I put some new plants in.....Limnophila aquatica and sessiflora, Micranthemum micranthemoides and Hygrophila rosanervis. So far so good though I am watching the algae vigilantly. For the time being I am going to keep my lighting lower.....I might turn it up eventually but if I can keep the algae at bay with the plants growing well at a lower light level then I may not.

Good luck.....

 

[donkey]

Angry_Platy how much lighting did you have over your tank before you cut it back ? i have just been working out how much light i have over this tank . it works out at 218 watts of light .the tank is about 50 uk gallons it also has a sump under it and i think that holds about 5 gallons as well not sure if you count this ? anyway if you dont then its about 50 uk gallons but less if i count the sand and stuff . so maybe its only about 40 uk gallons .so im thinking there is to much light over this tank

 

[Dubby]

Angry_Platy how much lighting did you have over your tank before you cut it back ? i have just been working out how much light i have over this tank . it works out at 218 watts of light .the tank is about 50 uk gallons it also has a sump under it and i think that holds about 5 gallons as well not sure if you count this ? anyway if you dont then its about 50 uk gallons but less if i count the sand and stuff . so maybe its only about 40 uk gallons .so im thinking there is to much light over this tank

I think you are looking in the right direction.

I had the same kind of algae outbreak, but interestingly, did not have enough light !!! The problem went away when I increased my light to just over 2W/gal and increased the nitrates to around 20. I also replaced all the plants, to give them a fresh start. This was over a year ago and since then my tank seems to have found its balance (touch wood).

 

[donkey]

Hi all
over the last week or so i have used some JBL Algol the good thing about this stuff is that it has no copper in it .anyway 3 days later all the algae was dead .but all my plants stopped pearling .did a 50% w/c and there all pearling like mad again .i have also cut down on my lighting as well .the EI i was using is now been cut in half and fingers crossed up to now all looks fine .