This algae is doing my head !!!

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Phil the fish

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I have two 130 litre tanks, one with a tiny bit of greenspot algae and the other tank, I have had diatoms black beard and currently green hair and slime algae.

Here are some photos









PH 6.8
A 0
No2 0
No3 20
Po4 0.01

The problem tank uses LED lighting ( the non problem tank has fluro lighting ) which is on for 6 hrs a day, I have recently added a pressure co2 kit about a month ago though this latest green monster started about 6 months ago, any suggestions as I am stumped !
 
Welcome to TFF.

In order to hopefully offer suggestions, we need to know all the data. Can you provide the specs for the LED lighting? I'm not much on LED but those who are will need to know what you have. Are you adding any plant additives? Are you overfeeding the fish perhaps? What is the fish load? Is there bright ambient light in the room (from windows)? How often and what volume are partial water changes? Do you vacuum into the substrate? How often is the filter cleaned?

I can say that algae occurs from light and nutrients. You need to get these in balance to control algae.
 
Thanks for reply, all I have on the led lights is the output of 14w, I cannot find any info of the spectrum of it, in the tank are three red bellied Piranha, one 6" two 4", fed twice a week ( Frozen Prawn and Cod chunks defrosted, no live food ! ) and any uneaten food removed after 10 minutes though they don't leave much if any most of the time.
30% water change once a week hoovering at the same time and liquid plant fertilizer added at the time, no bright ambient light as ten feet from a single bedroom window.
1400 litre UV external filter cleaned every six months and internal UV filter to provide oxygen only as no filter material added.
 
in the tank are three red bellied Piranha, one 6" two 4"

are you saying you have 3 red bellies in a 130 liter tank?

that tank would only be suitable for ONE red belly, and even that could be debatable,

i would not put 3 red bellies in anything smaller then a 250-300 liter

fed twice a week ( Frozen Prawn and Cod chunks defrosted, no live food ! )

red bellies are predators, they should be fed live at least a few times a month, you are robbing them of their natural instincts......

i have kept red bellies for years....they need LIVE food once in awhile....they also love raw red meat like liver or beef heart for the iron....

there is VERY LITTLE nutrition in the foods you are feeding them
 
There are dozens of different species seen under the common piranha label; presumably the species here is Pygocentgrus natgtereri. I have never kept piranha but I do know they need much larger quarters, so I will agree with mikey and move to the algae issue.

This fish produces a lot of waste, and that is undoubtedly one issue, as this becomes nutrient for algae. I would increase the volume of water changes to at least 60-65% of the tank volume, once a week, though more often might be advisable to get this algae under some control. Dig well into the substrate during water changes to remove as much organics as possible. Obviously, remove as much of the algae especially from the glass and substrate as you can the first W/C.

I am not familiar with UV filters alone, but I would suspect this may not be adequate; ordinary filters such as canister would certainly clog with organics within a few weeks, and these must be kept clean to help. One thing I can say is that UV will not prevent/kill any algae that attaches to surfaces. Unicellular algae such as what causes green water can be killed by UV but only if all the water travels through the UV before any of it returns to the tank.

Nitrates at 20 ppm...have you tested the source water for nitrate? If the 20 ppm is occurring solely from within the aquarium (meaning, nitrate is zero in the source water) this is high which one would expect here. Getting the organics/nutrients under control will lower nitrates, certainly below 10 ppm and down to between 0 and five would be advisable.

The light I can't comment on, but as it is only on for 6 hours I would suspect the organics/nutrients is the main culprit. The higher plants simply cannot utilize all this, hence the algae takes advantage as it is no where near as fussy over such things.

The plant fertilizer...which product and how much? This is a well known cause of algae issues when it is adding nutrients that are not needed by the plants, as here. I had serious brush algae solely from liquid plant fertilizer dosed twice a week; down to once it disappeared, and I tried this twice to confirm. In your situation, even once is probably way too much, given the natural-occurring organics. I would consider stopping this, subject to finding out just what it is. One thing that does help in this sort of situation is to use only substrate tabs and no liquid. I got around algae issues doing this too. Seachem's Flourish Tabs are complete substrate nutrients and ideal with swords and larger substrate-rooted plants. The nutrients do not get into the water column like they do with liquid additives, so that helps avoid algae.
 
bigger water changes (50-75%) and complete gravel cleans, and reduce the lighting period or put some floating plants in to reduce the light.

put some sponge or something in the filter.
 
Hi

Thanks for the replies everyone with good advice there, I forgot to say that they do have beef about once every two weeks as I buy it, I checked with the manufactures about the light spectrum which is 43 at 30cm, this is my sons fish tank so it looks like he will have to get a bigger one as he wants to keep them as he has had them since they were 1" in size.
The liquid plant feed used is easy life pro fito 10ml every two weeks and before that Seachem Flourish.
In the meantime larger water changes and reducing the Nitrates it is !
 
Hi

Thanks for the replies everyone with good advice there, I forgot to say that they do have beef about once every two weeks as I buy it, I checked with the manufactures about the light spectrum which is 43 at 30cm, this is my sons fish tank so it looks like he will have to get a bigger one as he wants to keep them as he has had them since they were 1" in size.
The liquid plant feed used is easy life pro fito 10ml every two weeks and before that Seachem Flourish.
In the meantime larger water changes and reducing the Nitrates it is !

OK, so I know it may not seem like much, but adding this liquid fertilizer is undoubtedly part of the problem. I've had the same. Given the plants are all larger swords, and they do extremely well solely with substrate fertilizer tabs, I would discontinue the liquid completely and get a small package of Seachem's Flourish Tabs (the small is 10 tabs, the larger is 40 tabs). Place one close to the crown of each sword plant (I see three I think?) and replace in 3 months with another next to each. That will eliminate excess nutrients in the water column. Then the larger water changes with good substrate cleaning will help further.

You should see nitrates lowering, which is one sign organics are lessening. And as algae also uses nitrate (more than the higher plants will as they prefer ammonia/ammonium) this will further help rid the tank of the algae. Be vigilant with any algae on the glass, removing it at every water change completely if it is showing. But another thing, always clean the inside of the front glass (and here I would do the sides and back to further help) at every water change whether you see algae or not. A biofilm forms on all surfaces under water, and algae always will take root (so to speak) on a biofilm and will be invisible at first. So cleaning the glass is removing this beginning algae which further pushes it back. Use a sponge scraper or a hand sponge, but one with no chemicals/cleaning agents and used only for your aquarium. We had a thread recently where someone used a sponge that had Lysol in it, and killed the fish.
 
Instead of using liquid fertiliser every 2 weeks, use a lower dose but do it weekly or even twice weekly.

When you add a heap of fertilisers to the tank the plants gorge themselves on it and can often use it all up within a few days. You have very high levels of nutrients for a bit then nothing. If you use a lower dose but do it more frequently, the plants get a steadier supply of food and there will be less food/ nutrients for algae to use.
 

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