Algae Problem

[yabadaba]

Hi guys,

I've got a 60 litre planted tank that was almost totally algae free up to about 2 or 3 months ago when I started seeing brown (creamy colour) algae appearing on the glass just above the gravel. Soon after that I noticed green spots of algae appearing all over the glass and over the last week or two I've started getting more and more of this hair like green algae that trails off the plants and is now covering some of the decor. I've got 3 Otos in there that I used to think were earning their keep, but now I'm doubtful!

I've read up a bit on this problem and know it can be caused by a combo of high nutrients and lots of natural daylight. I've cut down a little on the feeding, but can't really push that much further so I really think the main culprit is the substantial amount of natural light that comes into the room (it's south facing)....especially since the problem pretty much started as the daylight hours and light intensity started ramping up in the spring.

So, what would you suggest I do? I've been doing 40-50% water changes once a week and cleaning the gravel at the same time and I'll continue with that. Also, I'm being careful to remove all dead plant matter. My plan right now is to introduce an additional mid-week water change and try leaving the tank light off for a couple of days or more and see if that helps...but I'm thinking that might make the plants suffer more than the algae. Or maybe leave the light on during the day, but with the curtains closed to try and starve the algae of natural light?

Help!

 

[aaronnorth]

if you believe daylight is the problem, which sounds as though it is then you will have to close the curtains, or move the tank.

To get rid, you could buy some easycarbo, and spot dose - take the daily dosage in a syringe or a pipette then squirt it directly onto the affected areas. Or if it is throughout the whole tank sometimes adding it normally is more pheasable.

 

[lljdma06]

What are the other details of your setup, wattage, CO2, ferts, etc.

Did you do anything funny to the tank lately? Decomposing plants, fish deaths, substrate cleaning, rescape, add new fish, etc? Algae is triggered by ammonia spikes, so something must have caused the spike.

The extra lighting may have created an imbalance, but I want to rule out other factors first.

 

[yabadaba]

What are the other details of your setup, wattage, CO2, ferts, etc.

Did you do anything funny to the tank lately? Decomposing plants, fish deaths, substrate cleaning, rescape, add new fish, etc? Algae is triggered by ammonia spikes, so something must have caused the spike.

The extra lighting may have created an imbalance, but I want to rule out other factors first.

Hi and thanks for the reply. My setup is nothing fancy - no CO2, no fertilisers and just a single 15w T8 tube. But plants seem to thrive, which I attribute to the high ambient light levels in the room.

To answer your other questions, I'm pretty good at clearing out decomposing plant matter, haven't had any fish deaths recently, but have changed my stocking a little. I managed to find a home for my increasing gang of guppy's a few weeks ago and replaced them with 3 Peppered Cory and 2 Bolivian Rams. Could that have anything to do with it....would they produce more waste? Also, I started feeding a sprinkle of Spectrum Thera A in the morning, in addition to the frozen bloodworm or brine shrimp that I feed in the evening (about half a cube). About once a week I skip a days feeding, especially since I've become a bit paranoid about having too many nutrients in the water!

 

[lljdma06]

Don't worry so much about nutrients, worry about ammonia build-up more. Changing the stocking could have done something to throw off the balance. The brown algae sounds like diatoms which is caused by ammonia spikes. The green spot and the hairy stuff can also be caused by ammonia spikes, though they often have other causes too, mostly low CO2 levels or fluctuating CO2 levels. Have you been doing a lot of water changes lately, especially since you don't use CO2 and you just added new stock? you may be messing with your CO2 levels in your tank, causing them to be unstable.

What is your filtration? Do you know the gph rating on it? What is your photo period = How long are the lights on?

Sorry about the questions, but I'd rather find the cause of the algae rather than offer a bandaid solution.

llj

 

[yabadaba]

Don't worry so much about nutrients, worry about ammonia build-up more. Changing the stocking could have done something to throw off the balance. The brown algae sounds like diatoms which is caused by ammonia spikes. The green spot and the hairy stuff can also be caused by ammonia spikes, though they often have other causes too, mostly low CO2 levels or fluctuating CO2 levels. Have you been doing a lot of water changes lately, especially since you don't use CO2 and you just added new stock? you may be messing with your CO2 levels in your tank, causing them to be unstable.

What is your filtration? Do you know the gph rating on it? What is your photo period = How long are the lights on?

Sorry about the questions, but I'd rather find the cause of the algae rather than offer a bandaid solution.

llj

The questions are no problem at all, I'm very grateful for your help.

I've been doing what is approximately a 40-50% (2 buckets) water change once per week. I used to do about 25% (1 bucket) but increased that to try and keep my water looking clear as it now takes on a green tint within 2 or 3 days, which (again) I assume is algae related. I am careful to add Aqua Plus to remove any chlorine in the water. If doing too many/too big water changes might be making matters worse then I've probably done myself no favours by doing an additional midweek water change last night to try and help the situation!

I 'upgraded' to a Fluval U3 filter a couple of months ago, which is way over specified for the size of my tank, so I'd hope that lack of filtration wouldn't be the problem. I have it on full flow (via the built-in spray bar) and think it's rated at 155 gph. The light tends to be on for about 12hrs per day (approx 8am to 8pm).

 

[lljdma06]

This helps. You have roughly about 15g. Your filter is rated at 155gph, at 100% efficiency you have about 10x turnover. Filters never run at 100% efficiency due to filter media and debre. Let's say you're at 60% efficiency. 60% of 155 is 93gph. It could be more efficient, but let's be conservative. With this new figure, your filter has 6.2x turnover per hour. You should have about 10x accounting for filter inefficiency. So I would probably recommend another filter.

The green water is another form of algae. This algae is often caused by ammonia and also low nutrient and CO2 levels. This one is more tricky to get rid of. Sometimes large water changes work, but that will disrupt your CO2 levels. A three day black out with a large water change afterwards may also work. Fixing your nutrient and CO2 levels may help things. This is what worked for me when I had greenwater when running a high tech system back in 2005. Fixing my nutrients and upping my CO2 levels helped, but it took longer, a few weeks, for it to clear up. If that doesn't work, then a UV sterilizer or a diatom filter may be a last option. But I'd much rather we get to the source of your problem rather than fix it with an expensive piece of equipment.

I'd try improving your tank's circulation first. Try adding another filter. It may compensate for your added bioload by growing more beneficial bacteria to combat ammonia and you can distribute what nutrients and CO2 you do have in your low-light tank better. That things are happening 2-3 months down the road leads me to believe that your plants have probably exhausted the nutrient load already present in your tank. They are hungry. You might want to consider a simple fertiliser and possibly even CO2. I often will add DIY CO2 to my low-light tanks for the first 6-9 months of their life. This gets them through the maturation process without much algae. I will also dose once in a while with a fert and add rootabs (not that they do much good in the substrate, but they do eventually disolve over time into the water column). Once the tanks own mulm accumilates, I then will abandon CO2 and most ferts, except maybe trace elements once in a blue moon, if my light is low enough and switch to plants that demand less CO2 and nutrients. Granted, this is only what I've done in the past, others have methods that have worked for them and it's up to you to try what you like best.

Can you send a picture of your tank? I'd like to get a sense of the type of plants and how dense you have things in there. Don't be embarrassed we've all had algae here, so you are among friends.

llj

 

[aaronnorth]

This helps. You have roughly about 15g. Your filter is rated at 155gph, at 100% efficiency you have about 10x turnover. Filters never run at 100% efficiency due to filter media and debre. Let's say you're at 60% efficiency. 60% of 155 is 93gph. It could be more efficient, but let's be conservative. With this new figure, your filter has 6.2x turnover per hour. You should have about 10x accounting for filter inefficiency. So I would probably recommend another filter.

The 10x Guideline takes into account the loss of efficiency, so in turnover aspects yabadaba (what a name!) is fine.

 

[lljdma06]

This helps. You have roughly about 15g. Your filter is rated at 155gph, at 100% efficiency you have about 10x turnover. Filters never run at 100% efficiency due to filter media and debre. Let's say you're at 60% efficiency. 60% of 155 is 93gph. It could be more efficient, but let's be conservative. With this new figure, your filter has 6.2x turnover per hour. You should have about 10x accounting for filter inefficiency. So I would probably recommend another filter.

The 10x Guideline takes into account the loss of efficiency, so in turnover aspects yabadaba (what a name!) is fine.

How do you account for enefficiency if you are just given a number of gph based on the packaging? Maybe I'm missing something. Entirely possible, I miss a lot in this hobby. Explain your view of the guideline so I understand. I have always treated it as a quantitative number based on a percentage of the total gph stated in the package, and this to me seems, though conservative, to give you some wiggle room when you calculate your turnover. You take the 60% of the stated gph, which would then take into account filter media and debri, among other things, and then divide it by the gallons in your tank. Sometimes I'll calculate potential turnover with as low as 50% gph efficiency, especially if I'm running variable output filters for fish that do no like current (anabantoids). This is a big reason why I have multiple filters, I know I'm covered even if a filter loses efficiency, which they do over time, especially if your filters are not the best. It just makes sense to me and having over 10x turnover isn't a bad thing. Having below that can lead to problems in planted tanks. How do you know yabadaba's filter is running at 100%? Did you run and check his filter? Is there a filterometer running around that I don't know about? Also, even if he's at 10x turnover, which he could be, and I did say that if he just did the base calculation he was technically fine, he could still have problems with circulation because of distribution of current is only coming from 1 filter.

I agree, the name yabadaba is fantastic. Someone named "doo" needs to show up!

 

[aaronnorth]

This helps. You have roughly about 15g. Your filter is rated at 155gph, at 100% efficiency you have about 10x turnover. Filters never run at 100% efficiency due to filter media and debre. Let's say you're at 60% efficiency. 60% of 155 is 93gph. It could be more efficient, but let's be conservative. With this new figure, your filter has 6.2x turnover per hour. You should have about 10x accounting for filter inefficiency. So I would probably recommend another filter.

The 10x Guideline takes into account the loss of efficiency, so in turnover aspects yabadaba (what a name!) is fine.

How do you account for enefficiency if you are just given a number of gph based on the packaging? Maybe I'm missing something. Entirely possible, I miss a lot in this hobby. Explain your view of the guideline so I understand. I have always treated it as a quantitative number based on a percentage of the total gph stated in the package, and this to me seems, though conservative, to give you some wiggle room when you calculate your turnover. You take the 60% of the stated gph, which would then take into account filter media and debri, among other things, and then divide it by the gallons in your tank. Sometimes I'll calculate potential turnover with as low as 50% gph efficiency, especially if I'm running variable output filters for fish that do no like current (anabantoids). This is a big reason why I have multiple filters, I know I'm covered even if a filter loses efficiency, which they do over time, especially if your filters are not the best. It just makes sense to me and having over 10x turnover isn't a bad thing. Having below that can lead to problems in planted tanks. How do you know yabadaba's filter is running at 100%? Did you run and check his filter? Is there a filterometer running around that I don't know about? Also, even if he's at 10x turnover, which he could be, and I did say that if he just did the base calculation he was technically fine, he could still have problems with circulation because of distribution of current is only coming from 1 filter.

I agree, the name yabadaba is fantastic. Someone named "doo" needs to show up!

How do you know yabadaba's filter is running at 100%? Did you run and check his filter?

I dont, but that is my point, as long as you, on paper, have 10x turnover the chances are it will be closer to 5x in reality. I could go around saying you need 5x turnover if you are using powerheads, as they are the most efficenct at giving close to 100% but then it gets confusing. Stick to 10x turnover, regardless if it is a powerhead or filter, whether it conttains media or not, there will be no problems and no confusion. Everything is taken into aco####, so there is no need to check what turnover you are actually getting.
The next step is using whatever turnover you are getting, and distributing it evenly throughout the tank.

I could of gone into all your percentages & efficiency calculations but it gets confusing, or i can do it the simple way and say, "yes, you have 10x turnover which is fine, but is circulation ok?"

Does that make sense?

I have to rush off!

 

[lljdma06]

Yeah, you're making sense and we are basically on the same page, but why would this cause confusion? I don't really find the calculations confusing at all, I've seen much more complicated things relating to our hobby. I'm surprised, Aaron, usually I'm the one that's saying "nothing complicated". The one time I actually decide to use math... I don't mind doing some simple percentage work to see where the numbers are. It isn't algebra.

It's not that big a deal and I'm not sweating over it. Especially if we agree.

 

[aaronnorth]

Yeah, you're making sense and we are basically on the same page, but why would this cause confusion? I don't really find the calculations confusing at all, I've seen much more complicated things relating to our hobby. I'm surprised, Aaron, usually I'm the one that's saying "nothing complicated". The one time I actually decide to use math... I don't mind doing some simple percentage work to see where the numbers are. It isn't algebra.

It's not that big a deal and I'm not sweating over it. Especially if we agree.

for some newbies they find it confusing... ok, there are much more confusing information about planted tanks out but why add to the list? Taking everything in at once can be quite daunting, so keeping one thing, even slightly simpler helps.

 

[lljdma06]

Yeah, you're making sense and we are basically on the same page, but why would this cause confusion? I don't really find the calculations confusing at all, I've seen much more complicated things relating to our hobby. I'm surprised, Aaron, usually I'm the one that's saying "nothing complicated". The one time I actually decide to use math... I don't mind doing some simple percentage work to see where the numbers are. It isn't algebra.

It's not that big a deal and I'm not sweating over it. Especially if we agree.

for some newbies they find it confusing... ok, there are much more confusing information about planted tanks out but why add to the list? Taking everything in at once can be quite daunting, so keeping one thing, even slightly simpler helps.

Maybe in your neck of the planted tank woods there is confusing information, but in my neck of the woods, there is a strange lack of gadgets, formulas, gizmos, and other such causes of confusion, so one little tiny calculation won't make a dent.

 

[aaronnorth]

Yeah, you're making sense and we are basically on the same page, but why would this cause confusion? I don't really find the calculations confusing at all, I've seen much more complicated things relating to our hobby. I'm surprised, Aaron, usually I'm the one that's saying "nothing complicated". The one time I actually decide to use math... I don't mind doing some simple percentage work to see where the numbers are. It isn't algebra.

It's not that big a deal and I'm not sweating over it. Especially if we agree.

for some newbies they find it confusing... ok, there are much more confusing information about planted tanks out but why add to the list? Taking everything in at once can be quite daunting, so keeping one thing, even slightly simpler helps.

Maybe in your neck of the planted tank woods there is confusing information, but in my neck of the woods, there is a strange difficiency of gadgets, formulas, gizmos, and other such causes of confusion, so one little tiny calculation won't make a dent.

lol,

 

[yabadaba]

Here's a couple of pictures, as requested. Sorry about the quality, they were pretty rushed and I'm no expert at taking aquarium shots, in fact trying to tak a shot of the whole tank without the flash obscuring everything was tricky!

If you look carefully you can see evidence of the green 'spot' algae on the front glass and also the 'hair' like algae on the castle's roof.