api leaf zone

[Toney]

Does this stuff grow anything besides brown algae?

Both tanks I've used it in have it bad... my 40b with plastics hasn't got any.

My ten is the worst, it was half full of elodea with a sword and some wisteria. All the elodea died...

I was running one old unknown 13w cfl, the same time as I replaced the bulb with 2 13w 5000k bulbs I started with the leaf zone. It had some green algae before that but not bad. Now I can almost see the brown stuff growing...

I had always run my lights 24 7, never had nothing like this brown stuff... ever.

 

[Byron]

According to the API website data, LeafZone contains iron and potassium. These are two of 17 nutrients aquatic plants require. I assume API feels that most of the others will be available naturally, and iron and potassium are frequently assumed (wrongly) to be what's needed. Iron can certainly cause algae, plus it will prevent plants from uptaking some other nutrients. Potassium is not as dangerous.

The brown algae, is it diatoms (this will very easily rub off with your fingertips), or a form of brush algae (this will not rub off)?

The bulbs, are these the spiral CFL screw-in bulbs? What size tank are these two bulbs over?

When you say lights 24/7, do you mean they never went off? This is highly stressful on fish, and plants for that matter. Both must have a period of total darkness during each 24 hours.

Byron.

 

[Toney]

I said I used to run my light 24 7, their on now from 10 to 9.30.

This is from about three days... I had cleaned the crap out of it

I'm confused. .. to much light, to little light, and so on...

I've been doing water changes twice a week and removing as much brown crap as I can, the water is good at 0, 0, 5.

my 55 isn't near as bad

Yeah, I had always ran my lights 24 7, never used water conditioner, only changed water when the tank got dirty.

My fish always did fine. I have just stared with the plants

 

[Toney]

Ps I do still run lights 24 7, when the light in the living room go out I turn the ones on in my bedroom

You know the most stupid thing I've see is guys bragging they only run their light 4-6 hours... I like to enjoy my tanks

 

[Byron]

It is sometimes amazing, what we do to our fish and they put up with it. I can guarantee no fish is "fine" with tank light 24/7. But we move on to the issue at hand.

From the photo it might be diatoms...can you answer my question on how it comes off? I assume this is the 10g. I would only use two 9w CFL bulbs (I have this over my own 10g and 20g) and those with 6500K might be better, though the 5000K is not a problem (I have both).

Do you have any idea what is in your tap water, mineral wise?

The excessive iron is likely part of the problem here, but not all of it.

 

[Byron]

Ps I do still run lights 24 7, when the light in the living room go out I turn the ones on in my bedroom

You know the most stupid thing I've see is guys bragging they only run their light 4-6 hours... I like to enjoy my tanks

Fine, but there is a lot more to all this. Tank light, meaning the lights sitting over the tank, is one thing and ambient room or daylight is another. Tank lighting 24/7 does seriously impact fish metabolism, and plants too.

When we have a tank with live plants, we need to find the balance between light intensity/duration and nutrients. The aim is to provide sufficient light intensity and nutrients for the plants (and different species have differing requirements) but no more; if this balance is achieved, the plants will thrive and algae will be at a disadvantage. Problem algae is almost always due to an imbalance. Too much light, or too little, and too much nutrients, or not enough, can all cause the imbalance that favors algae.

I have 8 tanks in my fish room, all have live plants. The tank lighting is on for eight hours, only seven in one tank, and I worked back to this in order to prevent problem brush algae. The additional daylight in the summer months used to cause the algae to re-appear; I have the windows heavily covered now during the summer (being a dedicated fish room this is easy to do)--which only shows how sensitive this balance can be.

Byron.

 

[Toney]

It wipes off easy.

Yeah I wanted 65k bulbs but there isn't any in town

 

[Byron]

It wipes off easy.

Yeah I wanted 65k bulbs but there isn't any in town

The Kelvin shouldn't make much difference, as I said, I have both.

Diatoms are common in new tanks because of the unstable system (biologically). In established tanks, they can occur due to low light (in darker corners, etc), but also from minerals especially silicates, which is why I asked about the tap water. One would expect this to be similar in both tanks, but at the same time each tank will be different biologically, something I learned when dealing with very high organics in only one of 8 tanks.

I still think the iron had something to do with this.

 

[Toney]

I'm pretty sure it is the ferts.

Just got through cleaning the ten again. Unscrewed one of the buds

Wish I would have had the new light running awhile before I started ferts... my sword in the ten has only grown about a third as much as the two I put in the 55, was still using the kit leds in the 55 until about two weeks ago. I've got one 48" 32w light running in it now and the plants are really taking off!

 

[StevenF]

Everything Byron said is correct. The API only has potassium and iron. Some people don't need fertilizer and don't get algae. Their tap was has everything needed. However for many of us our tap was is deficient in something. If you decide to use a fertilizer Seachem Flourish Comprehensive is your best choise. The bottle has everything the plants need.

 

[Toney]

About Our Water

Our City has an excellent water system that collects melting snow from nearly pristine watersheds located high in the mountains. The City stores this water in reservoirs for use in homes and businesses throughout the City.


I found this on our city's Web page, I'm not sure what mountains their talking about... this is oklahoma...

I did find out that we get our water from three different wells,

 

[StevenF]

I found this on our city's Web page, I'm not sure what mountains their talking about... this is oklahoma...

A google serch found this site: https://www.okc.gov/departments/utilities/about-us/okc-water-history. apparently some of oklahoma's water comes from Lake Sardis and the Kiamichi River about 100 miles away from Oklahoma city. But I live in California and I would not call Lake Sardis "high in the mountains"