Algae Problem..

BadBadger

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Well i posted in here a while back asking for help about my unhealthy plants. Well everything seems to be looking fine now apart from my grasses. The majority of them are covered in a brown algae. The algae is also covering the glass.
I have the lights on from 11am-9pm. Is this maybe too much light?

Cheers
 
reduce it to 8 hours, maybe less I have mine on for 7 hours and its got more plants than yours in, and by that I mean there should be more growth, which will help stop algae growing. The plants are also doing fine so they don't need that much light..
 
Cheers mate. I'll try 8 hours for a couple of weeks and see how it gets on.
I've added more plants and there's been a decent amount of growth since I took the pic down there, but still won't be classed as heavily planted I don't think.

Cheers
 
Easycarbo, 2 packs of Tropica Plant Nutrition+ Capsules dotted about and Ferropol (Dont know if the ferropol is needed but still got the best part of a bottle left)
 
if you're dosing the TPN plus, you don't need the ferropol. As for the brown stuff on the grass, it'll be diatoms, bought on by small algae spikes. It should go on its own accord. You can also give the grass a hair cut if needed, just have a net handy to catch the bits. Can i just add, are you still using the juwel 600 powerhead? If so, i would upgrade to a 1000 lph if you haven't. It'll give you loads more flow around the plants and you'll see a reduction in algae.
 
The TPN is in capsules. Make any difference?
Tomorrow is fish day, so i'll give it a cut then. An inch off enough?
I havent upgraded mate. Whats the best way to do this?
Also, the long slim plants (dont know the name sorry) have reached the top and started acting like a cannopy. Do i need to trim this? Im hoping not as i like the canopy look.

Cheers
 
then keep the canopy, i always like the look of vallis like that. I have never used the caps, but i don't think you need to double dose by using ferropol. You don't 'need' to upgrade, but it will certainly help with the distrubution of easycarbo and the ferts by using a 1000lph powerhead. Maidenhead's normally stock Juwel powerheads, it just means you swopping the powerhead over. You also get a better filtration rate your getting almost double the filtration rate.
 
Cheers mate :) I'll scrap the ferropol
Will definatey look into upgrading then.

Cheers for the help
 
i'm confused...does Ian think you're dosing TPN+? (I've just had a meal..and wine lol). Dosing ferts as well as the tabs should be helping the plants. Its what I do except I have tropica root tabs and TPN+ ferts (and easycarbo)
 
Its TPN plus in a capsule. It releases into the water rather than the substrate from what i understand. They contain NKP like the liquid stuff. Pehaps someone could enlighten us?
 
I didn't even those existed... I have capsules, I hope they aren't what you're describing though!
 
http://www.fluidsensoronline.com/2009/12/tropica-aquacare-plant-nutrition-capsules/

i'm not 100% sure they aren't just root tabs though Si.
 
They are root tabs but they will leech into the water column slowly.

Root tabs are a bit of a waste of money really. Better to have a substrate the has high CEC and then dose the water column only. Then the high CEC will soak up some of the water column dosing.

Ferropol (haven't researched) I would assume is iron (ferro) and therefore again a littl pointless. Another of those oldy beliefs in 'extra iron' as a boost etc.

Another waste. Iron is only available in the water for a very short time before it gets locked so the plants take what they can (or want) and the rest goes to waste.

AC
 
Im totally lost now :crazy:

It says Iron, Manganese, Zinc, Boron and Molybdenum on the ferropol bottle...
 

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