Trimming Jungle Val Amongst Other Problems

[Tsi_User]

Hey guys, my tank specs are as follows:

29 gallon
3wpg
Nutrafin CO2 injection
All water parameters (ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, etc.. are in check)
Sand substrate w/root tabs and daily Seachem dosing (Flourish, excel, iron, potassium, trace, etc..)
30% water change once a week

I have been following a fertilizer regiment for a couple weeks now, but I am still having some trouble with algae. So here are my problems:

-My Jungle Val grows like mad. I pull out at least 10 new plants a week and have to trim the tops down twice a week to keep them from slowing down the water movement. I always snip them with a sharp pair of scissors at a 45 deg. angle. However, the top inch or two always turns a yellowish brown after doing this and grows alot of hair algae. Is there a way around this?

- I have had dwarf hairgrass in my tank going on two weeks now, and it is definately spreading with nice bright green sprouts! However, the origional grass, which has seemed to stop growing, collects small bits of algae on it also. This is only on the old blades, not the new ones. And can you trim back dwarf hairgrass with a pair of scissors?

-There is a whisper 40 filter in the tank along with a small powerhead, however both of them seemed to get clogged very fast. I have to clean them at least twice a week to keep crap from stopping the flow of water. I consider my tank pretty healthy and i get some great growth, so it's not like there are massive amounts of plant debris floating around the tank. What can I do to make this less of a problem?

If you guys can help me out with any or all of these problems I would really appreciate it! -Skip

 

[Wolfenrook]

Sounds to me like your filtration isn't up to the job Skip to be honest, both from your description of how clogged they get and your algade problems. You might want to consider upgrading to a larger external filter, preferably the largest you can afford (one that moves about 10x the volume of the tank per hour would be perfect, but even one with a 700lph rating will be better than what you have now), don't go mad though as you can always improve the circulation in your tank by using some flow pumps/powerheads to assist your filter in circulating the water around the tank. Also of note, if you are serious about wanting to run a planted tank then hang on filters are far from ideal, the create a lot of agitation driving off the CO2, and do very little for create currents to circulate water, nutrients and CO2 around the tank.

Val- Sounds like normal val to me. I throw a good load of plants away every month as it is so invasive and fast growing. As to your pruning, sounds fine. The algae problems are most likely again related to poor circulation.

Dwarf hairgrass - Yes you can trim it quite happily, but if you keep shrimp take care you don't chop their antenae off! Again the algae build up is most likely related to circulation problems. It also takes a couple of weeks to 'settle in' when first planted, and then picks up and grows a lot faster, spreading to form a nice 'lawn' fairly rapidly.

Finally your CO2 and lighting. You need to be getting a rough idea of how much CO2 you have in your tank, as again fluctuating levels can trigger algae growth. Easiest way to do this is with a plastic permanent CO2 tester (glass drop checkers look lovely, but are near on impossible to read easily) using 4dKH water instead of tank water (you can buy this from Aqua Essentials in the UK who ship internationally, or make your own by baking bicarbonate of soda and then using this to buffer distilled water to 4dKH hardness) and the provided reagent. With your level of lighting I would say that you are looking for somewhere between 20-30ppm CO2, so a nice green with little blue or lime green colour in the checker. If it is fluctuating a lot then consider either adding more nutrafin units and staggering refills, making your own DIY yeast kit or switching to a pressurised CO2 system. Your lighting is fairly high, so circulation, regular fert dosing and good stable CO2 levels are very important if you don't wish to farm algae. Oh and look for a lighting period of between 8-10 hours per day (10 hours been a max), some folks also find that a 1 hour 'siesta' during the day (break in the lighting period) helps them to reduce algae growth.

Ade

 

[Tsi_User]

You know, I was just sitting here thinking that it's probably a lack of filtration... There's a local place that sells lots of used equipment so maybe I can scoop one up for dirt cheap. I would like to go external, but dont know much about them and unfortunately I dont have too much extra money. I'll see what I can find after work tonight!

 

[frozenbarb]

You aren't surpose to trim the vals like that. They will always turn brown and attach algae. The only way is to take out the long ones.

 

[SuperColey1]

You aren't surpose to trim the vals like that. They will always turn brown and attach algae. The only way is to take out the long ones.

Tell Jimboo thats not how to trim them. lol

However you will always get algae growing around damaged parts of leaves as they release ammonia triggering localised algae outbreaks.

filtration is key to the rest.

There are a lot of plants including hairgrass that do better if you trime them once they've anchored and let them regrow. I assume it is a water parameter thing like Crypt melt that makes them die off before regrowing. Like Crypt Melt it happens to some and not to others.

Andy

 

[Wolfenrook]

You aren't surpose to trim the vals like that. They will always turn brown and attach algae. The only way is to take out the long ones.

Actually you are. Yes it turns brown at the tips sometimes, and in a tank with the balance out of whack you might get some algae growing there (more a sign that you have other problems really though), but this does no harm to the plant on the whole. There is absolutely no need to 'take out the long ones', the one val plants I remove are ones that are on runners that are where they don't belong.

Ade

PS. It's not just ammonia that stimulates the algae, but also the carbohydrates released from the cut phloem vessels in the leaf.

 

[Tsi_User]

So I managed to get a steal on a new filter, i know it's still HOB, but it's a whisper 60, basically 2x the filter I had and I got it for $10. I did the water and CO2 change today, so I'll keep you guys updated

So I managed to get a steal on a new filter, i know it's still HOB, but it's a whisper 60, basically 2x the filter I had and I got it for $10. I did the water and CO2 change today, so I'll keep you guys updated