Cause Of Algae ?

[awilson360]

My tank finished cycling over a week ago now and I've noticed Algae appearing on the glass. Weirdly its only on the front glass pane and barely on the sides or back. Coincidentally all my plants are located in the background of midground with none in the foreground. Could this be why Algae is turning up on the front inside glass.

I've looked at the causes of Green Spot Algae and it says that it's common in newly setup aquariums and causes are lack of CO2, lack of nutrients or Ammonia spikes.

Well I've been testing Ammonia still daily and it's been 0 now for well over 3-4 weeks.
How would there be insufficient nutrients when I have 2 goldfish in the aquarium?
I read that when you change the water it causes CO2 fluctuations and this is my only reasonable explanation.

I don't dose ferts, well I did dose P@H Plant Food but it was absolute rubbish. It's a low light set up with about 1 WPG. Light on for 8 hours a day.

Cheers.
AW

 

[Verminator89]

2 goldfish won't produce all the required nutrients to grow plants. You have macro and micro nutrients, now i don't know it all well enough to go into detail but i can tell you that its really common to have algae no matter how good your tank doing. So common that your quite possibly doing nothing wrong as such. First off check your water flow, algae often grows first where theres less flow (atleast thats what i've found in my tanks). Water changes do indeed cause fluctuations in CO2 levels and this can unduce algae, although GSA doesnt tend to be the first algae type to take full advantage of this. Usually thread algae or black beard algae are caused by fluctuating CO2 levels. Some things that might enable people to help more would be if they knew the following;

How heavily planted is your tank?
What lighting are you using (wattage?, T5? T8?)
What size tank?
Do you have a CO2 dosing regime?

One thing to note is you stated that its a low light tank of 1WPG, if your trying to grow plants that require higher light levels than this then algae will take over them because they won't be able to photosynthesise fast enough for them to thrive, and algae being the pest it is will grow on the leaves. Also no matter how clean your tank, however good the plant growth GSA is just as likely to grow. Most people will have to scrape their glass every week during water change anyway. I know i do, and its not down to bad tank management, its just part of the maintenance of running a tank.

One last thing from me. Goldfish are notoriously messy eaters and will cause alot of waste. Even with a good filter they can produce enough waste for algae to thrive. Make sure your not over feeding, left over food will quickly foul the water, giving the upper hand to algae.

 

[awilson360]

2 goldfish won't produce all the required nutrients to grow plants. You have macro and micro nutrients, now i don't know it all well enough to go into detail but i can tell you that its really common to have algae no matter how good your tank doing. So common that your quite possibly doing nothing wrong as such. First off check your water flow, algae often grows first where theres less flow (atleast thats what i've found in my tanks). Water changes do indeed cause fluctuations in CO2 levels and this can unduce algae, although GSA doesnt tend to be the first algae type to take full advantage of this. Usually thread algae or black beard algae are caused by fluctuating CO2 levels. Some things that might enable people to help more would be if they knew the following;

How heavily planted is your tank?
What lighting are you using (wattage?, T5? T8?)
What size tank?
Do you have a CO2 dosing regime?

One thing to note is you stated that its a low light tank of 1WPG, if your trying to grow plants that require higher light levels than this then algae will take over them because they won't be able to photosynthesise fast enough for them to thrive, and algae being the pest it is will grow on the leaves. Also no matter how clean your tank, however good the plant growth GSA is just as likely to grow. Most people will have to scrape their glass every week during water change anyway. I know i do, and its not down to bad tank management, its just part of the maintenance of running a tank.

One last thing from me. Goldfish are notoriously messy eaters and will cause alot of waste. Even with a good filter they can produce enough waste for algae to thrive. Make sure your not over feeding, left over food will quickly foul the water, giving the upper hand to algae.

Hi, Thanks for the reply Verminator89.

I have Elodea Densa, Java Fern and a Vallis in the tank. All the plants seem ok apart from the Vallis which is slowly beginning to get pale green and having leaves fall off regularly. The Filter output is actually pointed towards the algae so I don't think its insufficient flow causing the algae.

I'm feeding the goldfish with about a flake and a pellet each, twice a day. So I don't think they are being overfed.
I have good water quality with relatively low nitrates, depending how accurate the water test kit was.

I'm using a T8 25W bulb and the tank is just over 25g. I can't comment on whether its lightly planted, moderately or heavily as this is my first tank and I don't really know. You can see from my avatar.

Could it have been due to overdosing the required amount of trace elements?

Thanks.
AW

 

[BethK]

what are you using to feed your plants?

is your tank in any path of natural strong day light?

 

[Verminator89]

From your picture in your avatar your tank has a low plant mass. The more plants in the tank the less nutrients there will be left over for algae to take advantage of. If your dosing ferts with this little plant mass then theres a good chance your just over doing the ferts a little bit. Causing more nutrients to be left over unused by the plants, therefor causing algae blooms. When nutrients get left over algae is the first to take over. This would be your most probable scenario currently. Now you want to know what to do to correct this.

Simply put you could cut down your dosing of ferts. How much are you dosing currently by the way, and with what product? To put it into comparison i have a moderately planted 2ft tank. It has 4 crypt stalks, approx 10 stalks of an unknown hairgrass, and a lawn of HC. Its in its early stages and i dose 2ml of EasyLife ProFito 3 times a week, I dose EasyLife Easy Carbo 2ml daily and i run x2 24W T5 bulbs for 8 hours a day. And even i ahve some algae still! Telling me your dosing regime will help.

Other alternatives would be to add some more plants, easy ones such as;
Echindorus Bleheri - good nutrient consumer, nice big plant to fill space at the back.
Ceratopteris Thalictroides - big central plant with lightly delicate leaves. Grows fast and i found this as a good starter plant.
Cryptocoryne species (wendtii, undulata, becketti) are all good growing plants that don't require alot of help to grow. The ones i listed are the easier ones to grow without alot of help.
Egeria Densa - you already have this, its a great starter plant. Although it can grow very quick and look messy, trim it and replant it. Its supposedly secretes a substance that prevents certain types of algae too, although i'm yet to experience the use of this

Hope this helps somewhat.

 

[awilson360]

what are you using to feed your plants?

is your tank in any path of natural strong day light?

Hello,

I was dosing Pets at Home brand "Plant Food" which contains trace elements. I haven't dosed it for over a week as I don't think it will do any good because it is a Pets at Home brand hehe.

The tank is on the opposite side of the room to a window but I don't think it gets direct sunlight.

AW

 

[Verminator89]

Also the more light and/or CO2 a tank receives the higher its demand for nutrients, as these factors speed up the plants process of consuming nutrients and converting them to energy. The factors are all linked, and its finding the balance, or "happy medium" that enable us to grow lushious tanks of plants without nuisance algae. So if you have high lighting and are dosing nutrients in accordance to how much lighting you have it'll be wasted if you havnt got the right CO2 injection rate into your tank, and thus algae will grow. Works the other way around, if you have low lighting and are pumping in CO2 like no tommorow the exces nutrients still arent being taken up, because you need the lighting and CO2 to match the levels of nutrients you put in. Its gets more complicated as you get further in, but thats the simple truth of it.

 

[awilson360]

From your picture in your avatar your tank has a low plant mass. The more plants in the tank the less nutrients there will be left over for algae to take advantage of. If your dosing ferts with this little plant mass then theres a good chance your just over doing the ferts a little bit. Causing more nutrients to be left over unused by the plants, therefor causing algae blooms. When nutrients get left over algae is the first to take over. This would be your most probable scenario currently. Now you want to know what to do to correct this.

Simply put you could cut down your dosing of ferts. How much are you dosing currently by the way, and with what product? To put it into comparison i have a moderately planted 2ft tank. It has 4 crypt stalks, approx 10 stalks of an unknown hairgrass, and a lawn of HC. Its in its early stages and i dose 2ml of EasyLife ProFito 3 times a week, I dose EasyLife Easy Carbo 2ml daily and i run x2 24W T5 bulbs for 8 hours a day. And even i ahve some algae still! Telling me your dosing regime will help.

Other alternatives would be to add some more plants, easy ones such as;
Echindorus Bleheri - good nutrient consumer, nice big plant to fill space at the back.
Ceratopteris Thalictroides - big central plant with lightly delicate leaves. Grows fast and i found this as a good starter plant.
Cryptocoryne species (wendtii, undulata, becketti) are all good growing plants that don't require alot of help to grow. The ones i listed are the easier ones to grow without alot of help.
Egeria Densa - you already have this, its a great starter plant. Although it can grow very quick and look messy, trim it and replant it. Its supposedly secretes a substance that prevents certain types of algae too, although i'm yet to experience the use of this

Hope this helps somewhat.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply.
I was dosing "Pets at Home, Plant Food", it says to dose fort-nightly so I have dose it twice in the last 3 weeks, I haven't bothered dosing it this week as it hasn't seemed to help my Vallis and I thought it could be the source of Algae.

As I am a University student I would prefer to get away without having to dose ferts, I wouldn't mind using capsules/tablets if I do have to dose as I don't think my Dad has enough spare time to dose ferts everyday when I go back to Uni in September.

I think I did have the Ceratopteris Thalictroides you listed however after removing it from its pot and planting it in the Aquarium the bottom of the stems began to rot a week or so later so I removed them from the aquarium and placed them in my Dad's community tank where they now have shoots and are growing healthy. The community tank in our Lounge is moderately planted and is pretty much self sustaining with only an UG filter. It has a shoal of White Cloud Mountain Minnows that are fed 2 times a day and are successfully breeding. My dad doesn't do any regular maintenance and hasn't done a partial water change for literally over half a year! Yet everything is healthy, water stats good, Nitrate sustaining at 20-40 ppm. He doesn't have any major algae problems just the same as me, peppering of the glass.

So if this Peppering of the glass is fairly normal it might be alright to leave the tank and water as it is for a few weeks and see how everything goes. In the planted section is does suggest a Low Tech setup could get away with dosing no ferts and seeing as I'm not injecting CO2 and don't have a high WPG it may be better just using fish waste for the mean time.

AW

 

[BethK]

try fertilizer pellets/tablets, about 50-80p per one, chuck 3 (depending on amount of plants and tank size)in the tank and they should last 6 - 12 months, i find these a lot better for my plants, than liquids etc

 

[awilson360]

try fertilizer pellets/tablets, about 50-80p per one, chuck 3 (depending on amount of plants and tank size)in the tank and they should last 6 - 12 months, i find these a lot better for my plants, than liquids etc

What type of fert tablets are you using BethK? Is it anything like TPN+? Do you also have low tech setup?

I'm thinking of getting some Anubias, read that they don't need alot of light or nutrients and aren't that easy to eat for goldies!

AW

 

[Verminator89]

It certainly sounds like thats the easiest and safest bet for you. I would advise you to have a little look at some plants that are classed as "easy", mainly the ones i noted for you in that post. If you bump up your plant mass a little you'll find any algae will be staved off, also the tank will look a little better. The goldies should produce enough waste to supplyment the plants in some way, however they won't be able to cater for all the macro + micro they would need. But for what your trying to achieve it should be more than enough. Certainly cease dosing the P@H ferts for a while, see how it goes. If the plants look like they're suffering then your may need to supplement them a little bit. Root tabs can be purchased, these can be quite handy, especially if your going off to university soon.

On the subject of your dads tank, i would advise him to do a water change. Nitrate, no matter how high/low is bad for fish. It really aught to be 0. Things may be fine and cosha now, but nitrate isnt good for fish, and if he hasnt done water changes for over a year and a half thats pretty neglectfull Poor fish. Are you awar of the cycle - Ammonia --> Nitrite --> Nitrate. Nitrate being the most lethal form to fish if allowed to turn into this potent substance.

Get Anubias when your certain your algae issues arent spreading. Anubias is so slow growing that its an algae magnet when in a tank with algae. And its a b*tch to get off again once it starts growing

 

[Twinklecaz]

Hey

I have exactly the same thing (even that it's only on the front glass) and I have no idea why either. I dose TPN+ and Easy Carbo (both highly recommended by the plant people) daily and have done for a few weeks so i don't think mine can be down to a lack of nutrients. I also have the odd patch of brown algae on the glass but I dunno what the cause of that is.

There was a point to this point...........oh yeah, TPN+ and Easy Carbo - fab, you should get them!

 

[awilson360]

haha thanks for the reply twinklecaz! The algae on my front glass was just green peppering but I can see some small spoldges of brown/yellow.
Maybe the algae is just something that accompanies planted tanks and requires removing with the regular weekly maintenance!
I think I will just scrape mine off!

AW

 

[OldMan47]

Algae is simply a plant that we don't care for in our tanks. It needs light and nutrients much like any other plant. The various strategies used to control algae revolve around the basic idea that you can strike a balance between having enough nutrients for your desired plants but not enough for the algae to thrive. As far as dosing nutrients for the plants, you do not need to dose artificial nutrients in a low light setup or even in a moderate light setup if you are willing to accept a bit slower plant growth. Many planted tanks, not the high tech stuff, are run in what is called the Walstad approach. The essence of that approach is to accept the fact that plants grow all the time in the wild with no help from us. The method involves giving the plant a decent organic growing medium and plenty of light. Next you add in some water circulation, there is very little that grows in a stagnant swamp. Finally there is some need for a minimal amount of nutrients so you add in some fish and feed them well. When you have done all of that, you have an environment that will grow plants so you plant every type of plant you can get your hands on. Now you stand back for a few weeks and just feed the fish. The plants that live will end up prospering and the ones that die did not find proper conditions in the tank to truly thrive. The end result, after a year or two, looks like this.
No added CO2. No artificial fertilizers. Almost no water changes. About 2.5 WPG lighting.

It gets some algae now and then but the algae never runs out of control.