Beginner - Lighting, CO2 and not knowing what I don't know

SilverB

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Hi Everyone!

I'm pretty new to the forum - I posted once before to ask for help on my 21 Litre Nano, because every time I did a water change, my nitrites would go up! I've actually had to break down the tank and nearly gave up on it (and the hobby) altogether - but here I am.

I started having massive issues with algae (I think it was hair algae as it was pretty fluffy, as well as Cyanobacteria), and when I did a water change it would hugely die off and pollute the tank with too much dead bio-load. Became a hell for my poor fish so he's in an emergency space while I cycle another (very minimal and basic) tank.

After some research, I found out that the hair algae might be caused by not having any (or enough) CO2. Which I was initially confused about, but then I saw a lot of mention of light strength. I'd previously popped into my local Aquatic Centre some months before and was admiring their display tanks - the plant growth was gorgeous and of course, I was interested in how I could replicate this in my own tank. The member of staff suggested a different light to my original LED light that came with the Aqua One Nano. Great I thought!

I was looking at the box after researching the algae to find that its a bloody strong light (categorised as sunny!). And I've seen a lot of talk about CO2 being essential if your light is powerful. I didn't know this at the time, I certainly didn't know that I should ask or that it was something to think about (I am a beginner after all) and I feel a bit disappointed that the member of staff didn't mention it either! Now I know to ask at least: what is the impact of using this, not using that etc, even if I don't know exactly what I should ask!

So my question (I bet you're thinking finally after all this text).
If I plan to rebuild my Nano tank, and still use the light (its good quality and a pretty penny), apart from good fertisiliser (recommendations welcome), what would you recommend a beginner for CO2?
  • I've seen on the forum that liquid CO2 isn't recommended because its pretty harmful (disinfectant did you say?!)
  • I'm honestly intimidated by the gas injection...
  • What plants would be best choice for this - I assume carpet plants might now be within reach
  • What other knock off impacts could I expect if I use CO2 (I know Ph is an issue, accident poisoning due to Plants expiring CO2 at night etc)
  • I'm also planning to try out using RO water, since my tap water is high in phosphate (I'd like to use RO water and dose it rather than mixing with tap)
  • I also have a glass heater and previously kept the tank at 25 degrees C
Last but not least, I don't plan to put fish or creatures in this tank for a long time - at least 8-10 months. I want to try and nail down just building a tank, maintaining it and managing the water quality. Its bloody stressful when you have the poor little lives of creatures in your hands as well. At this point I'd be happy with a water garden and I figure that's a good idea if I want to try so many new things. If I put creatures in eventually - likely it would be some Amano shrimp or some tetras - just something small.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!
Thanks!
 
I'm new and still learning, but without CO2 injection, putting the light higher and shortening my aquarium "daytime" made the algae more manageable for me.
It's still there, but I'm closer to finding my tank's balance. Wait for the advice from our more experienced members. Good luck!
 
With algae it all comes down to balancing resources (light, co2 and nutrients) and keeping them consistent. Algae is quicker to adapt than plants and takes advantage of any excess resource(s). Lighting technology these days is pretty good and we often find that we have too much. To counter this, we either have to reduce the lighting (dim the light or reduce the period of time they are on), or increase co2 and ferts.
It also depends on what plants you have and how many. Most plants don't really require high levels of light (and therefore no additional co2). Anubias for example do better in low light. Its a slow growing plant and if you subject it to high light, all that will happen is algae will coat its leaves.
Tropica have a good system for showing the needs of plants.
Newly planted tanks take a little while to establish their root networks and during this time we can expect to see algae.
The only concern I would have with your setup at the moment is that you arent providing a source of nitrogen (fish waste) or phosphate (fish food waste).
Therefore when considering a plant fertilizer, you need to ensure you are providing these as well as the trace elements. As you're in the UK, I'd recommend TNC Complete which would provide everything. However if you did have fish, then TNC Lite would be better so you arent providing too much nitrogen and phosphate.
 
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@mbsqw1d has already said it. I have 4 tanks with LEDs and have dimmers on all of them. 9/10 times reducing the light is all you need. In some of these tanks I only run the lights at 50% intensity. The only one running at 100% has the entire surface covered in frogbit which filters the light reaching the rest of the tank. All have thriving plants and no algae.
This thread has recent pics of all 4 tanks.
 
With algae it all comes down to balancing resources (light, co2 and nutrients) and keeping them consistent. Algae is quicker to adapt than plants and takes advantage of any excess resource(s). Lighting technology these days is pretty good and we often find that we have too much. To counter this, we either have to reduce the lighting (dim the light or reduce the period of time they are on), or increase co2 and ferts.
It also depends on what plants you have and how many. Most plants don't really require high levels of light (and therefore no additional co2). Anubias for example do better in low light. Its a slow growing plant and if you subject it to high light, all that will happen is algae will coat its leaves.
Tropica have a good system for showing the needs of plants.
Newly planted tanks take a little while to establish their root networks and during this time we can expect to see algae.
The only concern I would have with your setup at the moment is that you arent providing a source of nitrogen (fish waste) or phosphate (fish food waste).
Therefore when considering a plant fertilizer, you need to ensure you are providing these as well as the trace elements. As you're in the UK, I'd recommend TNC Complete which would provide everything. However if you did have fish, then TNC Lite would be better so you arent providing too much nitrogen and phosphate.
Thanks for your guidance on this - and thanks for highlighting the possible issues of having a plant only tank, I'll definitely keep that in mind.
The Tropica site is super useful as well!
 
@mbsqw1d has already said it. I have 4 tanks with LEDs and have dimmers on all of them. 9/10 times reducing the light is all you need. In some of these tanks I only run the lights at 50% intensity. The only one running at 100% has the entire surface covered in frogbit which filters the light reaching the rest of the tank. All have thriving plants and no algae.
This thread has recent pics of all 4 tanks.
Thanks! (your tanks look beautiful) - might be a silly question but can I fit a dimmer onto a standard light or would my best bet just be raising the light higher?

Hilariously my tank in the early days had some floating plants which I had for a couple of months but got so fed up with it as it was getting everywhere - I didn't have any algae problems during that time!
 
Think of a plant as a car. What does it need to run . Well it needs air. For a plant that is CO2, it also needs someone to to tell it how fast to go Throttle. In a plant light is the throttle. And lastly it needs fuel. In a plant that is water PLus, nitrogen, potassium, calcicum, magnesium, phosphorous (phosphate), sulfur, chlorine (in the form of a chloride salt), iron, manganese, boron, zinc, copper, molybdenum, and nickel.

For now I would recommend you forget about CO2 and light. Any light that is good enough for you to easily see inside the aquarium is probably going to work. And as long as you have good water circuilation with ripples on the surface some CO2 from the air will get into the water. Focus on growth first. Once you have growth you can optimize the light more and them maybe add CO2

and focus on all the nutrients that need to be in the water. Commonly called fertilizer. If your water is missing just one of the nutrients I have listed your plant will eventually die or simply not grow. However algae (specifically hair algae) really likes a nutrient deficiency. If the plants cannot grow due to a nutrient deficiency, algae will somehow find a way to take advantage of the nutrients the plants cannot use.

So the first thing you should do is to buy a good aquarium fertilizer, Verify the label states that it has all of the nutrients I have listed. But note most don't include calcium. Calcium is often found in tap water and can be detected with GH (general hardness) test. Also many don't have chloride. This is because chlorine gas is used in the water to kill harmful bacteria. Some of this chlorine will react with calcium in the water to form calcium chloride which the plants can use. But keep in mind that you still need to treat the water with a dechlorinator to neutralize and remaining chlorine gas.

Since many fertilziers assume your water has calcium and chlorides and other elements like copper and zinc I would caution against using 100% RO water. I would recommend you mix tap with RO water. . That way you likely would get many of the things that may not be in the fertilziers available to you. I do use RO water but I had a lot of problems with inconsistent plant growth and a lot of alge issue. I eventually solved my problem by making my own fertilizer. But I would recommend that until you have some experience maintaining a stable tank. Also when using fertilizers it is important to do a weekly water change. The water change will remove excess fertilizer.

every time I did a water change, my nitrites would go up!

I think you actually mean nitrate Nitrate and Nitrite are different be carfull not to confuse them. I have seen post from a number of people living in the London area that found their tap water has elivated levels of nitrate. If so you may need to filter it out of the water. There are products that do that but I am not familur with them.

I've seen on the forum that liquid CO2 isn't recommended because its pretty harmful (disinfectant did you say?!)
There are two types of CO2 used in aquariums. One is that gas that is in the air. The other is a liquid chemical that plants can use as a source of carbon. This chemical is also used in hospitals as a disinfectant. There is some debate on how well plants can use this liquid chemical but any disinfectant can harm animals. So most will not recommend it. I personally didn't find any significant improvment in my plants with it so I stopped using it.
 
Think of a plant as a car. What does it need to run . Well it needs air. For a plant that is CO2, it also needs someone to to tell it how fast to go Throttle. In a plant light is the throttle. And lastly it needs fuel. In a plant that is water PLus, nitrogen, potassium, calcicum, magnesium, phosphorous (phosphate), sulfur, chlorine (in the form of a chloride salt), iron, manganese, boron, zinc, copper, molybdenum, and nickel.

For now I would recommend you forget about CO2 and light. Any light that is good enough for you to easily see inside the aquarium is probably going to work. And as long as you have good water circuilation with ripples on the surface some CO2 from the air will get into the water. Focus on growth first. Once you have growth you can optimize the light more and them maybe add CO2

and focus on all the nutrients that need to be in the water. Commonly called fertilizer. If your water is missing just one of the nutrients I have listed your plant will eventually die or simply not grow. However algae (specifically hair algae) really likes a nutrient deficiency. If the plants cannot grow due to a nutrient deficiency, algae will somehow find a way to take advantage of the nutrients the plants cannot use.

So the first thing you should do is to buy a good aquarium fertilizer, Verify the label states that it has all of the nutrients I have listed. But note most don't include calcium. Calcium is often found in tap water and can be detected with GH (general hardness) test. Also many don't have chloride. This is because chlorine gas is used in the water to kill harmful bacteria. Some of this chlorine will react with calcium in the water to form calcium chloride which the plants can use. But keep in mind that you still need to treat the water with a dechlorinator to neutralize and remaining chlorine gas.

Since many fertilziers assume your water has calcium and chlorides and other elements like copper and zinc I would caution against using 100% RO water. I would recommend you mix tap with RO water. . That way you likely would get many of the things that may not be in the fertilziers available to you. I do use RO water but I had a lot of problems with inconsistent plant growth and a lot of alge issue. I eventually solved my problem by making my own fertilizer. But I would recommend that until you have some experience maintaining a stable tank. Also when using fertilizers it is important to do a weekly water change. The water change will remove excess fertilizer.



I think you actually mean nitrate Nitrate and Nitrite are different be carfull not to confuse them. I have seen post from a number of people living in the London area that found their tap water has elivated levels of nitrate. If so you may need to filter it out of the water. There are products that do that but I am not familur with them.


There are two types of CO2 used in aquariums. One is that gas that is in the air. The other is a liquid chemical that plants can use as a source of carbon. This chemical is also used in hospitals as a disinfectant. There is some debate on how well plants can use this liquid chemical but any disinfectant can harm animals. So most will not recommend it. I personally didn't find any significant improvment in my plants with it so I stopped using it.

Wowzers - thanks StevenF for taking the time to provide such a detailed response.

My previous tank did have fertlizer substrate, but I wasn't dosing with liquid fertilizer, I was honestly a bit unsure about it and wasn't sure if I needed to dose if I also had substrate...but I assume that I do given some plants will take food from the root and others from the water. Is this what you mean with the water changes to remove the excess from the water itself?

Also I did mean Nitrite - I posted on here previously about it, it was a really odd issue that the forum wasn't quite sure on. I don't actually have a test kit for nitrate, but I would test the nitrite levels in my tank a few hours after doing a water change (the levels were 0 before the change) and they would spike up to something like 2.0 and drop again to 0 in two days or so. I couldn't get to the root of the problem (I wasn't excessively cleaning the filter (only rinsing in tank water twice a month).

Do you have a recommendation on the ratio of tap water to RO water? The tank I plan to set this up in is a 21 litre (roughly 5 gallon) tank.

I'll take your advice and keep it low tech when I do set it up :)

Thanks again!
 
Is this what you mean with the water changes to remove the excess from the water itself?



if you don't do water changes and only add water when it evaporates mineral levels naturally present in your water levels will increase. Fish food also has minerals it the fish doesn't need everything in the food it will excrete the excess into the water column If you add fertilizer some nutrients (minerals) will be in excess of the plants need and they will also build up in the water. So you always need to do regular water changes to remove the excess that will build up in the water.

Regular water changes will insure minerals for all sources will stay at a stable levels over time. If you do not do water changes your tank water will eventually get hard and salty and eventually that will kill the fish.

Also I did mean Nitrite - I posted on here previously about it, it was a really odd issue that the forum wasn't quite sure on. I don't actually have a test kit for nitrate, but I would test the nitrite levels in my tank a few hours after doing a water change (the levels were 0 before the change) and they would spike up to something like 2.0 and drop again to 0 in two days or so.

It that is the case I think you should get a proper aquarium ammonia , nitrite, and nitrate test kit. It is very unusual to have just a nitrite test. Also nitrite levels shouldn't drop to zero in a few hours. It is possible the test you have is not working or that it is not actually detecting nitrite. I cannot tell which it is but you really need to have a test kit and results you can trust.

Do you have a recommendation on the ratio of tap water to RO water? The tank I plan to set this up in is a 21 litre (roughly 5 gallon) tank.

Typically people RO and tap to reduce harness. Mixing an equal amount of tap and RO will reduce water harness by 50%. ( parts RO with 1 part tap will result in 90% reduction in hardness. So what most people do is to pick a hardness target and then determine how much water to add to get the needed hardness reduction. This works for everything in the water. So in your case since you want to reduce phosphate, determine with a test kit how much you have and then figure out how much RO water you need to add to reach the target.

Note phosphate is a plant nutrient. You don't want zero phosphate. If you don't fertilizer a nutrient deficiency can cause phosphates from fish waste to build up in the water.
 

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