Finding The Balance.

[Squid]

OK.. story so far..

I started the tank a year or so ago, a Juwel RIO 180, and kicked off the tank with a curtain of valis across the back of the tank, some java fern on some wood, and some anubias on some rocks. The valis has been ok, runners going round the tank. I just need to pluck out the odd brownish one. The anubias died a death when i had some dark algae that was on the rocks, and the java fern has been slow but reasonable. I started to get some hair algae on the valis and the wood, as well as the darker more covering algae. I bought myself a bottle of flora24 (daily fert with iron and minerals) and a BN Plec. The combination of the two helped to keep the hair algae at bay, and the dark agae is a thing of the past. goodo...

Then, I thought i would have a bit more of a go at the planted side of things. I went out and replaced the T8 tubes that come with rio (rubbish), with 1 flora glow and one power glow (just 1.3WPG... so I won't get too excited). The flora glow has a good red section in the spectrum for plants, the power glow has some too but is also good for the fish colour. Perhaps not as good as some tubes, but vastly better than the standard ones. (I have reflectors added too).. I also bought a schotting carbonator. This hasn't done too much as my Co2 levels are only about 10ppm. I have continued with the flora 24..

Unfortunately, the tank seems to have become better than ever at growing hair algae, so something is not right.. I'm hoping somebody can help me with my following ramblings.

i) im thinking of adding a hagen nutrafin fermentation kit to help raise the CO2.. i'm presuming this might help..

ii) I have heard that overdosing of seachem excel helps, but i presume this is more of a short term goal and i should address the problem..

iii) How do you know whether your daily dosing is correct (i'm not ready for EI yet.. im a new low tech noob a the moment). what else should i test for to ensure that i have the dosing balance right, eg. iron, phosphate etc? .. also.. anyone know much about flora24.. any other recommendations?

iv) would even my small amounts of CO2 and new low lighting mean that my lack of loads of plants has increased the algae growth potential.. Would adding more plants (fast growing like hygrophila polysperma) help?

v) any other suggestions?

planted tanks are like women.. there are so many things you have to get right in order for them to be happy.. do just one thing wrong and your in for it.

Squid.

 

[Themuleous]

Well hello there Squid

Sounds like your having a few problems, here's my advice for what its worth (I've yet to get any of my plant tanks 'algae free!' )

1) Yes a nutrafin unit would be a good idea, but for a 180lt tank you'll probably need 3 if not 4 to get a decent Co2 level, so a pressurised kit might work out the same price, especially if you get it second hand. (if you can wait until the weekend I might have a 500g JBL cylinder going spare, just need a reg then, could cost around 60/70quid all told, will let you know). Pressurised would also be an investment for the future, as you'll go high light one day I'm sure!

2) excel overdosing works best on BBA, I have heard it work on other types but BBA is the main one, and as you say its a short term solution and will only come back if you don't sort out the cause.

3) Daily dosing of ferts sounds a lot, I've not used flora24 before, but most of the good ones you dose once a week. Excess trace could be the source of your woes. I see it says to use it in conjunction with flora gro, are you doing this? I cant find any info on what it contains, if it were me I would swap to seachem flourish or tropica plant nutrition as both are excellent and dosed weekly.

4a) IMO CO2 benefits any tank, obviously more so as you get towards higher light levels, but even with 1.3WPG I'm sure the plants would appreciate it. And being lower light you probably wont have to be so ridged about having a stable level, yes as stable as poss but not spot on 30ppm and never moving.

4b) Adding more fast growers would probably help. Do you have a pic of the tank? You might be understocked plant wise, adding more can hurst if it doesn't help!

5) AOB - don't go shouting that bit about women to loud, you'll get lynched! BTW what substrate do you have?

Sam

 

[Squid]

Well hello there Squid

Sounds like your having a few problems, here's my advice for what its worth (I've yet to get any of my plant tanks 'algae free!' )

1) Yes a nutrafin unit would be a good idea, but for a 180lt tank you'll probably need 3 if not 4 to get a decent Co2 level, so a pressurised kit might work out the same price, especially if you get it second hand. (if you can wait until the weekend I might have a 500g JBL cylinder going spare, just need a reg then, could cost around 60/70quid all told, will let you know). Pressurised would also be an investment for the future, as you'll go high light one day I'm sure!

2) excel overdosing works best on BBA, I have heard it work on other types but BBA is the main one, and as you say its a short term solution and will only come back if you don't sort out the cause.

3) Daily dosing of ferts sounds a lot, I've not used flora24 before, but most of the good ones you dose once a week. Excess trace could be the source of your woes. I see it says to use it in conjunction with flora gro, are you doing this? I cant find any info on what it contains, if it were me I would swap to seachem flourish or tropica plant nutrition as both are excellent and dosed weekly.

4a) IMO CO2 benefits any tank, obviously more so as you get towards higher light levels, but even with 1.3WPG I'm sure the plants would appreciate it. And being lower light you probably wont have to be so ridged about having a stable level, yes as stable as poss but not spot on 30ppm and never moving.

4b) Adding more fast growers would probably help. Do you have a pic of the tank? You might be understocked plant wise, adding more can hurst if it doesn't help!

5) AOB - don't go shouting that bit about women to loud, you'll get lynched! BTW what substrate do you have?

Sam

thanks for the response sam.

1.. will do then.. i have the one CO2 kit at the moment with the schotting, but I will add one more and see where that takes me.. may consider pressurised at some point then.

2.. confirms my thoughts..

3.. i have just been using the flora 24, so i think i will swap to the seachem flourish, as this would keep the need for me to do stiff down..

4a.. thx

4b.. I don't have an up to date pic.. its not heavily planted yet, or even medium, so i best get planting.. On that note to help me with stocking of plants. If you order Tropica's Sagittaria subulata from someone like aquaessentials.com, is one lot one plant, or is it a bunch/pot of a number of individual plants that can be spaced out??

5. hmm.. you're right, i might get lynched.. & Substrate is 1yr old laterite and then sand. Probably need some of those ADA root tab things from aquaessentials.com

Cheers
Squid

 

[Themuleous]

Email Richard at AE re the sagittaria, but one pot probably includes a number of plants (let me know what he says, I've wondered this myself ). Sagittria can get quite tall, especially in lower light tanks, which isn't a problem just something to be aware of.

Substrate sounds fine, it'll still be in relatively good nick as the plants wont have sucked lots of nutrient out of it yet. Add root tabs under plants that are particularly heavy feeders, like swords and lilies.

BTW unfortunately that SÖchting Carbonator will be next to useless, its got a tiny surface area and so diffusion is slow. Nutrafin units would work much better.

Sam

 

[Squid]

Email Richard at AE re the sagittaria, but one pot probably includes a number of plants (let me know what he says, I've wondered this myself ). Sagittria can get quite tall, especially in lower light tanks, which isn't a problem just something to be aware of.

Substrate sounds fine, it'll still be in relatively good nick as the plants wont have sucked lots of nutrient out of it yet. Add root tabs under plants that are particularly heavy feeders, like swords and lilies.

BTW unfortunately that SÖchting Carbonator will be next to useless, its got a tiny surface area and so diffusion is slow. Nutrafin units would work much better.

Sam

I will email him cheers... I will let you know what he says.. (unless george or anyone has any experience of this??)

I'm my own worst enemy on the sochting thing.. I do remember your original reply on your thoughts, but the guy in the LFS swore by it over and above the nutrafin one. But now i understand it better, and the way that diffusion works in different methods I can understand why the bell diffuser is not as effective as the ladder. The bell has a good surface area, but is slow to diffuse, where the ladder has more co2/water movement up the ladder to aid the diffusion...

I'm off back for the nutrafin kit..

Squid

 

[Themuleous]

Take the carbonator back and tell him I said it's useless the bell might look like its got a large surface area, but compared to bubbles its tiny. You can tell him that as well! BTW was it more expensive than the nurtafin one? Seems to me like he was taking you for a ride, if so get the nutrafin one from somewhere else, hell you can have my old one! 10quid.

Sam

 

[Squid]

Thirty odd quid.. saw me coming

Im sure it does a bit.. but just not a lot.. perhaps he just likes the no tubes approach it provides.. ( i hid it behind some rocks)

Squid

 

[Squid]

Email Richard at AE re the sagittaria, but one pot probably includes a number of plants (let me know what he says, I've wondered this myself ). Sagittria can get quite tall, especially in lower light tanks, which isn't a problem just something to be aware of.

Sam

Richards prompt response was:

They're all potted with roots. The pot has lots of leaves and to be honest the image on the site is very accurate as to how it looks.

You will be able to split the pot though as you can do with every Tropica plants.

Hope this helps and once you've tried Tropica you'll never look back!!

Which is gooood...! Hope that helps you too..

I was expecting to use it as a foreground plant, as i had seen it work well in jimbooo's low light tank.. but if it gets too tall in a low light tank, i may have to reconsider...?

Anything else similar you would recommend as a low light foreground plant... experience of others is my favourite recommendation rather than wild guesses..

Squid

 

[Themuleous]

Yep it does, cheers

Sam

 

[Underwurlde]

Plants need certain elements in order to grow. I think of it as a chian of requirements.

First off light. They've got that. So they'll want to grow...

Next they'll need carbon, so now they'll need CO2. Ooops, none of that around. Hence very little growth, hence algae (which does not need as much CO2 as plants) takes over the race....

As said, get some CO2 in there.

Once that is done, they'll then need primary nutrients NPK...
And then secondary nutrients.
And then trace to be healthy.

Andy

 

[Squid]

Plants need certain elements in order to grow. I think of it as a chian of requirements.

First off light. They've got that. So they'll want to grow...

Next they'll need carbon, so now they'll need CO2. Ooops, none of that around. Hence very little growth, hence algae (which does not need as much CO2 as plants) takes over the race....

As said, get some CO2 in there.

Once that is done, they'll then need primary nutrients NPK...
And then secondary nutrients.
And then trace to be healthy.

Andy

Thanks..

I do have one CO2 thingy in there.. it just didn't turn out so great.. (its only low light)

I think the ferts is a problem, and the ferts with slightly better lighting has just made the problem a little worse.. .

SO its flourish and nurtafin for me...

My tank is about as balanced as a Drunk John Prescot on a Unicycle..

Squid

 

[Underwurlde]

OK, what levels of CO2 do you think you have in there (sorry if you've mentioned this)?

Like I said, no CO2, they're not gunna grow, not gunna need to take up ferts....

Andy

 

[Squid]

OK, what levels of CO2 do you think you have in there (sorry if you've mentioned this)?

Like I said, no CO2, they're not gunna grow, not gunna need to take up ferts....

Andy

I think with my KH of 11 and ph of 7.4 its not far over 10, perhaps 12-13..

I have noticed that the kits all say the tank size they are suitable for, but give no indication of the levels of CO2 you should expect..

Squid

 

[Underwurlde]

13ppm CO2. This assumes accurate KH measurement - they rarely are however.

Hard to predict a level of CO2 because of unknown water conditions.

You'll need at least 3 nutrafin kits in there and a better method of getting the CO2 in there than those poxy ladder things (been there, seen ut. Got the Blue Peter badge).

Like already pointed out, by the time you've done all that, might as well go compressed etc.

BTW, some ferts come with 'added' CO2 (kind of) e.g. the excel version of SeaChem Flourish or TMG plus etc.

I'd say that without CO2, you are wasting time & money with regular dosing really....

Andy

 

[Squid]

I'd say that without CO2, you are wasting time & money with regular dosing really....

Andy

Not sure i entirely agree with that point. Before i started using any dose i had a a bit of algae. At that point (as i hadn't changed lighting and co2) the algae may have been thriving because the plant did not have all that they need to grow. after adding the dose, the alage was less of a problem. I now have the problem again due to the balance now being a little out.. ho hum... i will keep tinkering...

I do however think maybe i need a little less dose.. perhaps that might help.

Otherwise, i agree with what you are saying.. what do you use as a diffuser? anything you would recommend?

Squid