Algae

[natalie265]

I recently upgraded my lights (4 wks ago), added pressurized CO2(2 wks ago) and added a bunch more live plants (1 wk ago) to my 55 gallon tank. I knew that adding the lights before the co2 might cause an aglae problem, and it did, but i thought that adding the co2 would clear it up. It hasn't.

I read the pinned article on algae and made a couple of changes based on that. I upped my bubbles from about 1-2 per second to about 4 per second and i added a pump to agitate the surface of the water (i always thought that surface agitation was bad for planted tanks and i had very little).

I'm thinking about adding some cherry shrimp and ottos to the tank as well.

Any other advice?

I'm dosing macro, micro and nitrate 3 times weekly and doing a 25% water change weekly. ph is 7. I have about 4 wpg.

 

[ian]

that's a proper high light tank!

Firstly, do you have a drop counter in there? as you may be introducing lethal amounts of C02. Do you have the pump running whilst the C02 is on, remember you only need a ripple, this is enough to oxygenate the water. As above though, you'll need a drop checker, to keep an eye on things.

The water changes need upping and increasing to at least 50% a week, when dosing macros, micros etc, this will get rid of any organic build up. What is your actual dosing regimen?

 

[natalie265]

I'm not sure i know what a drop counter is. I had a little gadget that would tell me if my CO2 was too little, too much or just enough, but it kept coming unstuck off the glass and i was worried about it leaking into my tank, so i took it out.

I have the pump running 24/7. Currently, i have it hooked up to a sponge filter and it IS kind of noisy and seems a bit much. I was thinking about getting one of those long air stones instead. I don't know.


As for the dosing regiment, i am kind of flying by the seat of my pants. 1/2 a cap full of micros, 1/2 a cap full of nitrogen, and a full cap of potassium phosphate and a full cap of potassium nitrate. Yes, i realize that those amounts are completely meaningless.

 

[natalie265]

Oh, okay, i'll up my water changes to 50%. Ugh. I need my own RO unit.