My Tank Looks Horrible

[yabadaba]

Guys, I'm 4 weeks into a fishless cycle on my new 5x2x2ft tank and I must admit that I'm getting pretty disheartened. It's not so much with the cycle itself, which is pretty much going as expected - ammonia is being processed in about 14hrs, but nitrite is still off the scale - it's with the state the tank is in. It's absolutely covered in brown algae. It's on almost every surface and in some places is so thick it looks like dirt that could be sweeped up

I did post about this a couple of weeks ago (before the nitrite appeared) and was advised that it might be worth actually scraping as much off as I could into the water, then getting rid of it by doing a large water change and then re-dosing with ammonia. Foolishly, I never got around to doing that and now it's far worse than before and I can't really do the clean up and water change now as although I could add ammonia afterwards, I wouldn't be able to replace the nitrite and would have to wait for that to build up again naturally. That, I guess, would interfere with the progress of the cycle.

Is this amount of algae normal? Am I ever going to be able to get this looking good again and what about the sand - will I just have to try and remove the top layer when the cycle eventually completes?

You might understand just how fed up I feel if you look at the before and after (the algae) photos below...

When the tank was first set up:

and now...

 

[Truck]

dont fret, turn all of the lights off until the cycle has ended. and cover the panes of glass with a blanket. light plus ammonia = algae

also, my tank didnt see nitrite until week 3 and i dont expect to see it drop until week 6, sit tight.

 

[yabadaba]

dont fret, turn all of the lights off until the cycle has ended. and cover the panes of glass with a blanket. light plus ammonia = algae

also, my tank didnt see nitrite until week 3 and i dont expect to see it drop until week 6, sit tight.

Okay, that makes sense and I'm going to do it right now.....but it's a shame about the plants, as I assume they'll be dead by the time the tank has finished cycling. I guess it's a sacrifice worth making though.

Will the algae that's there now just gradually disappear or will covering the tank only stop new algae growth? It's the state of my sand I'm most concerned about.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Truck]

dont fret, turn all of the lights off until the cycle has ended. and cover the panes of glass with a blanket. light plus ammonia = algae

also, my tank didnt see nitrite until week 3 and i dont expect to see it drop until week 6, sit tight.

Okay, that makes sense and I'm going to do it right now.....but it's a shame about the plants, as I assume they'll be dead by the time the tank has finished cycling. I guess it's a sacrifice worth making though.

Will the algae that's there now just gradually disappear or will covering the tank only stop new algae growth? It's the state of my sand I'm most concerned about.

Thanks for the reply.

a 3 day black out will be fine, and then 2 hours of light a day after and then build it up by an hour weekly...how much light is over the tank? how many watts?

once the cycle is over the algae shouldnt come back but it may! I would add a powerhead for more flow, and get on top of ferts and CO2

 

[yabadaba]

dont fret, turn all of the lights off until the cycle has ended. and cover the panes of glass with a blanket. light plus ammonia = algae

also, my tank didnt see nitrite until week 3 and i dont expect to see it drop until week 6, sit tight.

Okay, that makes sense and I'm going to do it right now.....but it's a shame about the plants, as I assume they'll be dead by the time the tank has finished cycling. I guess it's a sacrifice worth making though.

Will the algae that's there now just gradually disappear or will covering the tank only stop new algae growth? It's the state of my sand I'm most concerned about.

Thanks for the reply.

a 3 day black out will be fine, and then 2 hours of light a day after and then build it up by an hour weekly...how much light is over the tank? how many watts?

once the cycle is over the algae shouldnt come back but it may! I would add a powerhead for more flow, and get on top of ferts and CO2

Thanks for that. The room the tank is in gets lots of natural daylight, but as far as artificial lighting goes I think it's classed as a low-light setup. 2 x 58w (60") Arcadia Freshwater T8 lamps that I currently switch on for around 5-6 hrs per day. I thought the flow was pretty good already, as my filter (an Eheim 2080) is running at the max setting and is producing so much flow that it has slowly eroded and reshaped the lie of the sand, to the extent that it has even cleared a patch at the front of the tank so that the glass bottom is now visible. When I get this up and running properly I am interested in adding more plants, as well as some bogwood/rocks and do want to get into the fertiliser/CO2 thing. But I don't really know much about all that at present.

 

[Truck]

cut down the light and things should improve once the cycle has finished

 

[drobbyb]

Looks like Diatoms. Truck has you on he right path, so listen to him

 

[yabadaba]

Looks like Diatoms. Truck has you on he right path, so listen to him

I have listened to him - totally respect the advice given and it's much appreciated. I've now completely covered the tank with a blanket and will leave it like that until at the least sometime over the weekend. Thanks for your help guys

 

[waterdrop]

Yup, agree with truck and robby. WD

 

[yabadaba]

Just lifted the covers and turned on the tank lights to take a peek and it still looks horrible.....just as before. I take it I should leave it covered and without any light for a few more days?

 

[Truck]

the next course of action, for me would to half lighting, and add a powerhead for better flow. no more black outs

 

[joel.uejio]

I had a similar problem and tried the same steps which the others here have mentioned. Less light definitely helped in my case.

You might also want to consider more plants: More plants eating nutrients -> Less nutrients for algae -> less algae.

Good luck!

 

[Dave Spencer]

This is partly the result of cycling a tank with plants:

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=299827

The link mentions a relationship between brown diatoms and ammonia. I initially thought silica was a major cause, as this type of alga builds itself a silica shell, for want of a better description off the top of my head. All tap water contains silicates to some degree, so this is unlikely to be the cause. Others have attributed this type to low light levels, but higher light tanks experience them too.

Personally, I am not convinced with a three day black out. As the tank matures, and processes ammonia more efficiently, you should see a reduction. For now, turn over the sand, and scrape any off the hardscape and glass. It is a very easy type of alga to beat.

Dave.

 

[yabadaba]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. To be honest, I'm more and more tempted to change tactics a little now and give the whole tank a really good clean tomorrow and then do a large water change to clear all the algae that will then be floating around in the water. Then add ammonia to bring the level back up to 3ppm and hope the procedure doesn't interrupt the cycling too much.

At present I'm having to add about 15ml of 9.5% ammonia each day to raise the level to about 3ppm. If I do that at about 8pm at night and then test again at about 8am it's virtually all been processed (somewhere between the 0.25 and 0 on the API color card)....a couple of hours later and it's a clear 0 ppm reading. But, both nitrite and nitrate are off the scale and have been for about two weeks now. I've read somewhere that too much nitrite can stall the cycling process, which maybe adds a further reason for doing a large water change? What do you reckon'?

 

[JustKia]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I've got my numbers wrong here...
1ppm ammonia converts into 2.5ppm nitrite so you should quite quickly build the nitrite back up if you do do a big water change.
I did a fish-in cycle and so was doing huge water changes every day (sometimes twice a day) and my filter still cycled so I guess the bacs found enough nitrites to chow down =)