Algea (again)

[Thomas and Jennifer]

Okay, thanks! I've been wanting to add some live plants, but have not made it that far, so that is not a concern.

[mnemenoi]

Gotcha, somehow thought there was plants in the tank, lol. Yeah, once you add plants they tend to out-compete algaes for nutrients. During set up of planted tanks they recommend packing in as many plants as you can until the tank comes into balance. Plants can uptake Ammonia/Ammonium and Nitrates, keeping those numbers low in sparsely populated tanks. We even hit crazy low (test showed no nitrates) and we started having deficiencies in the plants (what actually alerted us to test the parameters). At that point we had to add more livestock and feed heavier to build the numbers back up to our targets. Most densely planted tanks are water changed as a good measure to avoid mineral buildups, but could be handled with fert dosing and distilled water top offs.

[Thomas and Jennifer]

I would really love to do a planted tank! That was part of the reason for the light upgrade to a high powered LED system. What would be good plants to start with? I have grown plenty of terrestrial plants and trees, but never an aquatic system. I was hoping for a low maintenance system, and not something needing a large amount of time. I like the idea of not needing as many water changes, and having more fish and neat plants. Overstocking a tank would be a lot of fun!

[mnemenoi]

Anubias is fairly bullet proof and slow growing. Mosses (Java/Christmas) are fun to play with and look great when given the time to carpet some wood in the tank. Crypts (Cryptocorne sp.) have a wide range of differing leaf patterns and colors and do well. Ludwigia sp. and Rotala are good introductions into stem plants. Java Ferns are awesome and if you keep an eye out there are many different leaf types/patterns available (narrow, needle, trident, Windelov). Hygro's are another stem, but they get big. Swords are huge as well (those small ones in the store get monstrous). I'd avoid baby's tears and carpeting plants, its tough and almost impossible without CO2 injection. Look for solid low tech plants with no CO2 requirements. Get enough and I recommend doing your research. Sketch out your tank and look at placement. You will thank yourself down the road. Anubias & Java Fern have roots, but do not like being buried in substrate. The same applies to mosses. Use black cotton thread and tie it to wood in the tank and it will eventually root into it and the thread will rot away. Burying the rhizome on these will kill the plant.

[Thomas and Jennifer]

It has been a while, so I thought I would update.

I tried the blackout for 4 days. Pretty simple, just put a heavy blanket over the top and only removed part of it to feed. Did a 50% water change afterwards to be safe. The algae slowed down and even thinned in several places. However, less than a week later it is back with a vengeance!

Still thinking plant, SAE and shrimp. Looks like I need some drift wood for the plants to live on, so that is on the shopping list. Drift wood seems to cost a fortune for a simple chunk of wood. LFS has plenty of plants, so I pick some up and see how that goes. I think it will look really nice and hopefully knock the algae back.

[LooksLater]

:/ algae can be such a bummer. There's got to be some underlying imbalance to make it come back so readily...
Not sure if anyone's asked yet, but are you using any actinic light? That seems to have blown up algae in our tanks in the past.

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[Thomas and Jennifer]

I made a lot of changes at once that all could have helped with an imbalance. First, added 6 cardinals and dwarf gourami, re-hardscaped and a new light. The light is LED and does have actinic diodes on it, but it adds enough blu to really make the fish look nice. I have turned the duration and intensity way down. It was noted I had it on too long, so I have cut the time to 5 hours oer day.

[Thomas and Jennifer]

Another update in this saga.

The imbalance got me thinking. For one, I noticed a bunch of newly added rock had a rich brown exterior and dark blue interior. This got me thinking the rocks are rich in iron (think: Prussian blue for you science geeks). I pulled all of the rocks out and the algae growth has pretty much stopped! Next time you think of adding landscape rocks to your tank, "inert" means a different thing in an aquarium.

[mnemenoi]

Good Catch! We tried to find info on some rock that would not add to the TDS in a soft water low ph tank and quickly decided it was an unanswerable question. Glass and obsidian are the only options we were certain of.