Planted tank bga and nitrates help pls

[Dragon3383]

First time poster after some help with bga and nitrates.

My tank has been running for a number of years and about 4 months ago I went fully planted with soil. My parameters have barely changed water wise and pH level still all the same and my fish loving life. My rainbow is 11 years old and some of my rummys are probably about 5-6.

My issue is bga has started breaking out. Lights are on 8hrs a day I don't dose ferts at present cos my plants growing too quick and look perfect and bubbling away.

My nitrates are hard to control I can dose 20ppm a day and they go within 24 hrs I here this could be a reason for bga. I'm after some help or suggestions to one combat bga and two how can I bump my nitrates so I don't have to dose loads daily.

Ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrates 0-20 a day.. pH 6.5-7 kh 4 gh 2 135l tank running a fluval 207 hugger lights and a fluval sky 2.0. injecting co2 at 2bpm. 15 rummy nose tetras one rainbow fish(doesn't like any other he's a lone wolf) & a pleco 2 nitrate snails 1 mystery snail.

Do you recon I could add more fish to increase my nitrates?

Any ideas on bga?

 

[Ram419]

Blue green algae (aka cyanobacteria). I've had it in a couple of my freshwater tanks. Only thing that worked for me was using Ultralife Blue Green Slime Stain Remover. It didn't take much to get rid of it.

As for the nitrates, I'm not sure I understand. You say you want to increase them, why is that? Usually you want as close to zero nitrates as possible. Some water bodies can have enough of a bio-filter to making it stay at zero. Nitrates increase due to fish waste from the nitrogen cycle. They can also increase from the food you feed (some cheaper foods add more ammonia to the water so the nitrates increase more). Also, the source tap water you use can contribute to increased nitrates if it has ammonia in it.

 

[Uberhoust]

In my experience overfeeding, too much light, and or too many nutrients lead to outbreaks of BGA, cyanobacteria. I had more issues when I was using aquarium soil but now that I don't it doesn't occur often.

I have used Ultralife the first couple of times it showed up, but eventually it came back.

If it were me, I would not add more fish. I will say that having some ramshorn snails in the tank seem to help with algae and BGA.

 

[seangee]

None of your plants are particulalry demanding.
If you are not using ferts and only have your lights on 8 hours you don't need CO2.
You don't need nitrates. Plants will use ammonia provided by the fish and their food.
As @Uberhoust mentions aquarium soil often causes more problems than its worth - personally I just use sand.
The Fluval sky is more than adequate for your plants - ditch the Hygger. In my 200l I run the Fluval Sky at only 50% - see my signature pic. FWIW this tank gets no ferts, no nitrate, no CO2 and has inert river sand.