Algae - Test Results

TommySide

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After a water test last night these are my results:

Nitrate - 25 (this seems high to me, although i dont really know where it should be)
Nitrite - 0
KH - 6od (i read somewhere this should be between 3-10)
pH - 8.0


do any of them suggest why i get a lot of algae?

thanks
 
Your Nitrate reading is fine - as long as it doesnt go above 40 its ok - the lower the better!

We just had a discussion in the other tropical discussion thread and someone posted this link on algea causes:-

Algae
 
Unfortunately, (and I'm the first to admit I'm biased as its one of the things I'm trying to learn), algae is reeeeaaaaaly complicated. Certainly not going to be explained looking at the normal tests we do for healthy water for fish, which are the parameters you've shown.

The usual dialog starts with an examination of the amount, both energy and time, that the lights are transmitting into the tank. There are various suggestions that can be made about amount of light and off and on automatic timing, to help make things more difficult for the algae. There is the matter of what percentage of your substrate is covered with plants (70% or more, ie. heavily planted, will help to out-compete the algae for resources.) Then there is the topic of CO2 (if you've got enough of it and if it doesn't fluctuate, that helps keep algae away.) Then there's the matter of fertilization (when the plants run out of nutrients, the stop using other resources and the opportunistic algae cells move right in!)

Does that start to give the picture? There are tons of discussions to be found with searches on TFF here about the subject and probably all the wisdom we beginners need is there, but it is indeed hard to get the hang of one of the topics, like cycling, where its a real help having all the experienced members giving encouragement and support!

~~waterdrop~~
 

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