# Minutes away from firebombing my tank. Algae.



## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

I'm half serious. Right now the idea of mixing up some molotov cocktails in my garage sounds like a good idea, however I thought I'd ask for some help as a last ditch effort.

Below are a couple of pictures of what I'm facing right now:










Click here for larger image










Click here for larger image

Everything in the tank is literally covered with this brownish goo that pearls like mad. I mean everything. I suck it out as best I can off the substrate and driftwood, but as you can see in the image of the ludwigia and friends, it's covering the leaves of nearly all of the plants.

I've defeated BBA, clado, hair and thread algae, but this stuff is getting me ready to start bottling kerosene and stuffing jars with rags.

Since I'm sure someone is going to ask, here's what I've got going:


75 gallon
Eheim 2213
Pressurized CO2 with Pinpoint controller
324W T5 lighting (suspended up 5")
KH 2.0, GH 2.0, PH 6.1
Dosing EI, 50% weekly WC with RO + some tap.

Changes I've made within the past few days is boosting GH and upping KNO3 to 1 tsp Su, Tu, Th from 1/2 tsp. NO3 ranges are 5-10 ppm. PO4 was above 5 so I've stopped dosing that until the levels stabilize. Starting last week I added in more tapwater to my change (about 3 gallons) plus have supplemented calcium and magnesium to raise the GH.

I've also turned off a bank of lights tonight so that I'm only running 216W for the time being.

I've tried to suck the crap out the best I can, but with it adhered to the plants I'm not sure what I can do at this point. If I need to throw the plants out, well, there's literally nothing salvageable and I might as well start over.

Any thoughts/help would be appreciated.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Does this stuff grow on the glass too? If so, it may be green dust algae or a variation of it, and its partner which seems to grow all over the plants too, while it is growing on the glass.


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

*Don't blow it up yet! *

You did a smart move with reducing the lights, that should help dramatically. I also thing a stronger filter with increased flow will help remove some of the brown dust that is appearing on some of the plants. In terms of nutrients it looks like you got it all there, so that leaves a variable CO2 and light. Since you already reduced the light, how about increasing the CO2 too. That will probably produce good conditions were plants will thrive, and algae will back down. 

Stronger Filter with Higher Flow
Reduce Light Intensity or Reduce Photo Period
Increase CO2

-John N.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

I don't have much to add to the good advice already given except maybe to ask how long you keep your lights on? It varies from tank to tank but I find that strong lighting for anything above 10 hours can be risky.

Since it sounds like you can control seperate banks of lights, why not try the "noon burst" method? Run half your lights for a couple of hours, then all of the lights for lets say four or five hours and then half again for a couple of hours.

I've had pretty good results with this method. Maybe worth a try?

And welcome to APC!


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## yildirim (Nov 25, 2004)

I second John esp on increased flow. Even if you have a good filter it still may not produce enough circulation in a dense planted or hardscaped tank. You may also consider adding a powerhead to increase the circulation for a quicker fix.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

Thanks for the replies. 

Sorry I forgot to mention my photoperiod; it's 8.5 hours. Unfortunately I can't control the banks of lights independently because it is a dual switch, single cord TEK model. Come to think of it, I can probably rig something up by removing the switch and hard wiring. Maybe I'll look into that later.

I started a blackout last night (no CO2, no ferts, no light) based on some other older threads I found which described somewhat similar problems. I'll give it three days and do a big WC on Saturday.

Regarding upping the CO2, that's a definitely possibility after the blackout ends -- but I'll have to raise my KH slightly because I really don't want to go much lower than the 6.1 that my Pinpoint is set to (which is, in reality, 6.0-6.2). 

Additional flow is also relatively easy to accomplish. I can set up my Magnum 350 rigged with a spraybar at the opposite end of the tank.

I'll keep this thread posted with the outcome of the battle.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

Oh, I also just realize that I mis-stated my filter in the original message. The 2213 was what I used on my 29 gallon -- this 75 has an Eheim Pro II 2126. 

Obviously that's a much bigger filter than the 2213, so not sure if that invalidates the flow idea.


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## DaveS (Jun 9, 2006)

Even with the larger filter, you would still probably see some long term benfits from adding some more water movement. My 75g tank has a Fluval 404, which I would guess has a flow rate in the same neighborhood as the Eheim 2216. I ended up adding a powerhead with a sponge over the intake (a little extra water polishing never hurts) and I noticed that quite a few of my algae problems started to go away. I put the powerhead at the opposite end of the tank from my cannister's existing output to get rid of some low water movement areas in the tank. If nothing else, I think the extra circulation helps to get the nutrients better spread throughout the tank, and some algaes have a harder time getting established in areas that have decent water movement.

Dave


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

Just to note that a blackout requires covering up the tank so that no light gets in (with blankets, garbage bags, etc), not just turning off the lights...


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

You have a hight light tank that IMO doesn't leave much wiggle room to control algae. My two questions for you are:

1. What is your fish load and how much do you feed?
2. What is your plant load. In other words are you heavily planted with hungry plants.

IMO an Eheim 2126 is a good filter for your tank.


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

Hi,

Second the advice of fellow posters.

IME, too much flow blows detritus everywhere and all the hairy types of algae appears. Had rigged a powerful powerhead to the co2 airline. Months of Beard, BBA, staghorn convinced me too much flow is really not good.

The 2126 is just the right size IMHO.

Not sure if blackout will help. From experience it only helps with BGA.

Maybe your N ratio isn't great. I've heard a 10:1 ratio is desired if i'm not mistaken.

Regards

Stan


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

Laith said:


> Just to note that a blackout requires covering up the tank so that no light gets in (with blankets, garbage bags, etc), not just turning off the lights...


The tank is actually in a basement. The only ambient light it gets is very faint and to the back, and those sides are covered with 95% limo tint.

So the only light getting in is 5% of a feeble, distant basement window. Probably far, far less than moonlight or what would be filtered through a blanket so I'm doubting photosynthesis is possible.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

houseofcards said:


> You have a hight light tank that IMO doesn't leave much wiggle room to control algae. My two questions for you are:
> 
> 1. What is your fish load and how much do you feed?
> 2. What is your plant load. In other words are you heavily planted with hungry plants.
> ...


The thing is, I was running 110W on a 29 gallon tank that was nearly perfect (before I tore it down to transfer to this tank). That's 3.7 WPG, which is far more than the 2.88 I get at 216W and not that far out of line from the 4.32 WPG with the full 324W brightness.

Keep in mind I do try to mitigate this somewhat by raising the light 5" off the top of the tank. It's an in-wall setup so it's very flexible on what I can do with lighting.

Fish load right now is 6 PB discus ranging from about 1.5" to 2.5", 5 rams, 6 cardinal tetras and a few otos and shrimp. I'm just feeding the tank a small amount (about two minutes of feeding) twice daily. I'm not trying to grow out the discus or anything; it's more of an experiment where I'm trying to treat them like angelfish and see what happens.

The tank is moderately heavily planted with blyxa, glosso, rotala as well as ludwigia and cabomba. About 30% of the real-estate is blyxa, the rest stems and glosso. I have let the glosso grow wild for the time being until the problem is sorted out, as a kind of nutrient sponge. Suffice it to say it looks more like a midground now.


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## SnakeIce (May 9, 2005)

tacoshooter said:


> The thing is, I was running 110W on a 29 gallon tank that was nearly perfect (before I tore it down to transfer to this tank). That's 3.7 WPG, which is far more than the 2.88 I get at 216W and not that far out of line from the 4.32 WPG with the full 324W brightness.


The problem with that reasoning is that lighting intensity and wpg does not have a linear relationship as the tank sizes change. 5 or 6 wpg on a 10 gallon is high lighting, but at the same time 2.5 wpg on a 200 gallon tank would be high light. I don't know what the exact scalar would be to be able to make direct comparisons.


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

tacoshooter said:


> So the only light getting in is 5% of a feeble, distant basement window. Probably far, far less than moonlight or what would be filtered through a blanket so I'm doubting photosynthesis is possible.


If you are going to do a blackout you will need to block all light. Even a glimmer of light can allow the algae to come back. Might as well cover the tank completely, allowing zero light, and after 3-4 days waterchange and you're good to go. Leaving a little bit of light, will just fustrate you later as you uncover the partically covered tank a few days later just to find some algae still surviving.

Don't forget to clean out the filter and pack it with extra filter floss to catch whatever detrius starts floating around.

-John N.


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

Is the GH of 2 where you are at after boosting the GH? You really want a minimum GH of 5.

Also, I would not suggest cutting back on any nutrients. That's never a good way to fight algae, and you'll just hurt your plants. 5 ppm of PO4 isn't a problem, lots of folks get their PO4 that high.

As others have said, cutting back lighting is a good first step, as well I would suggest cutting back lighting period to maybe 5 hours. I found this to be highly effective in my algae battles.

Also I found great success with over-dosing Flourish excel. Once you erradicate the algae and get your plants nice and happy and growing you can begin to increase lighting, lighting period, and stop dosing excel. But keep those nutrients up!! The sure fire way to let algae get started is to let your nutrients bottom out.


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

_The thing is, I was running 110W on a 29 gallon tank that was nearly perfect (before I tore it down to transfer to this tank). That's 3.7 WPG, which is far more than the 2.88 I get at 216W and not that far out of line from the 4.32 WPG with the full 324W brightness. _
From my experience 2.9wpg on a 75g is probably close to 3.7wpg on a 29g I would even say it's stronger. 4.3wpg on a 75g which is really the lighting you've been using when you wrote this thread is in another stratosphere. Point I'm making is with that kind of light any waste or if you move things around (plants, etc.) usually results in algae. In a high light tank like that you need to feed very little and keep very little fauna. I'm not a discus expert, but feeding twice a day every day to me is alot in your type of setup.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

*Update*

Well, I spent about three hours today post-blackout working over the tank. Did a > 50% water change (w/4 gallons tap) and really paid attention to the nutrients.

But the good news is that the brown pearling algae seems to be beat back. I'll know for sure later today, but things looked a whole lot better.

Dosing wise, I added 1.5 tsp of KNO3, 2 tsp baking soda, 20mL Excel, 1.5 mL of Kent Liquid Calcium (I have some on hand for my reef tank) and 1/4 tsp epsom salts. I didn't add any phosphate today because it tested out to about 1.5 ppm which seems pretty reasonable.

Testing shortly after the dosing showed nitrates in the 20 ppm range, KH of 3 and a GH of 2. As I mentioned before, phosphates were 1.5 ppm-ish, so I'll try to figure out what dosing keeps me at that level if all goes well.

I may try to boost GH later on in the day after I'm sure all of the Cl has dissolved.

I'm going to leave the tank at 216W for the time being, although I may lower the light fixture so it's closer to the water.


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## Avalon (Mar 7, 2005)

Oh man....so many things wrong here. I too have a 75g, Tek light, Eheim filters, etc. I've also had this crazy brown pearling algae you speak of in another tank. It's like a mix between diatom & a weak BGA, but when you toss it in the trash on white paper, it's green. Nasty stuff. Easy to remove, but failure to remove will result in it smothering your plants.

First of all, you have WAY too much light on that tank. 216w T5HO is very bright. I suggest you use only two lights for 10-12 hours per day. It's plenty until you get your algae issues cleared up. When you get it figured out, up it to 4. You don't need all 6. I run only two, and it works fine.

Secondly, your fert regimine needs help! Stop doing EI; it's only a theoretical dosing point, and it's way off for this particular tank. I've found under a fairly wide range of plants, light, mass, etc., a rounded 1/2 tsp of KNO3, 3x week. You need 1/8 tsp (maybe a rice grain more) of KH2PO4, 2x week. 15-20mL of trace, 3x week. And a rounded 1/2 tsp. of K2SO4 once per week, on water change day--if you go longer than 1 week between water changes, you will need to redose this. You can dose it however you want.

For the algae, you should pull all the plants out, give them a Hydrogen Peroxide dip, and scrape off what you can with a toothbrush. Try to get rid of as much algae as you can. In my experimental tank I use RO water on, this algae was a nuiscance. You need to pester it to death with your handy toothbrush and try to get the plants growing the best you can. It makes a mess, but let the filter suck it up. Speaking of filters, you may need more. I use an Eheim 2028 & a 2026 on my 75g, and I find it's just right. You may benefit from more water movement, but you don't need a lot.

My best advice is to keep the algae brushed away so it doesn't smother the plants to death, and then keep the plants growing by adding the proper nutrients. Do NOT run out of nitrates, but keep the PO4 low and not in extreme excess. If you run out of PO4, it's not nearly as bad as running out of nitrates. Running out of PO4 in lower light is better still than running out of PO4 under extreme lighting. I think you're trying to do too much too quickly. Just be patient. I almost lost an entire tank full of Toninas to this brown slimy crap. Funny thing was, they still grew, and still looked fairly good minus the brown sludge. It seemingly will go away on its own.

Good luck!


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

*Thanks to everyone ...*

... for the suggestions. And for the record, the blackout really did help out a lot for this particular type of algae.

Also, I managed to locate some more amano shrimp locally, and having an extra few of those in there seems to be helpful with cleaning up whatever is still left.

I think I'm going to stick to EI for the time being, since I've done well with it in the past; it's just a matter of getting it "tuned" for this tank. My guess from the past couple of weeks of observation is that I was significantly underdosing, especially with running full light. Also, I wasn't reconstituting my RO water enough by adding in calcium and mg -- with a GH that was 0 at times, well, that couldn't have been good.

Despite some well-reasoned comments to the contrary, I think I'm going to stay at 216W for now instead of dropping further. Reason is that I'm pretty certain my glosso will not come anywhere close to carpeting at that light level, and blyxa japonica seems to need higher light as well to grow correctly.

Since you're probably all wondering, here's a full tank shot from today.



Thanks!


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

Plants and tank look ok but the discus needs to be put on a fattening diet in another tank I think.

Regards

Stan


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

I am by no means an expert but I've found that "excess" PO4 in no way contributes to algae unless you have another problem making your plants unhappy.

I dose EI and never use test kits. I've doubled the amount of ferts after adding a couple new plants, "just in case", and have had no problems even though I have no idea how high my nutrients are getting.

As long as my plant growth is robust and pearling is heavy, indicating to me that I have happy plants, I never get algae.

The times I have noticed a slow down in my plants, or outright stunting, I have seen algae follow shortly after.

I think it safe to say that your nutrient regime has no _direct_ effect on algae. Neither does your CO2 level. What they impact is the health of the plants which in turn dictates whether or not algae will be able to get a foothold.

So my non-expert opinion is that recommendations to reduce nutrient levels as a method to combat algae are bogus and don't help. I recall trying them with absolutely no success. Consider that algae can subsist on far lower nutrient levels than plants can. The bottom line is that you'll just harm your plants by trying to run nutrients low.

Reduction in lighting is a great start to combating algae, and I also had great success with overdosing Flourish excel. (Edit: I notice I already mentioned some of this stuff above a few days ago)


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

By the way tacoshooter, glosso will carpet no matter what- that's how it grows.

Lower light levels will just mean leggier glosso as it reaches for the light.

I would not suggest any less than 4 WPG for glosso if you want a low growing carpet, but I also know that 4 WPG on my 29 gallon is different from 4 WPG on a bigger tank.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

standoyo said:


> Plants and tank look ok but the discus needs to be put on a fattening diet in another tank I think.


The whole point of the discus in that tank is really an experiment. I agree it's nowhere near ideal for growing dinner plate sized discus.

I'm not trying to grow them out, just see what happens when I treat them like angelfish instead of powerfeeding them beefheart in a barebottom with 7 water changes a week.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

banderbe said:


> By the way tacoshooter, glosso will carpet no matter what- that's how it grows.
> 
> Lower light levels will just mean leggier glosso as it reaches for the light.


That's what I mean. At lower light levels I pretty much get a glosso bush. We'll see how the 216W level treats it but past experience hasn't been great. The lower the light, the higher the glosso grows.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

*Update*

I figured I owed an update to this thread because, well, I started it. The good news is that I think the original brown goo is pretty much in the past. I battled it for quite a while changing a bunch of different variables, but finally picked a routine and just decided to stick to it instead of fiddling. Here's what I did:


Added the 2213 in addition to the 2126 to increase flow and act as a utility filter (i.e. UV if necessary, floss).
Upped the light to the full 324W -- yeah, I know, I know, but the tank was struggling for many weeks under reduced lighting.
Settled on a strict dosing schedule: 1 tsp KNO3 and 1/8 tsp KH2PO4 on Su, Tu, Th and 10 ml plantex (2 tbsp in 250 mL water) M, W, F.
Went back to 100% RO changes, 50% of tank volume each Sunday. Re-mineralize/buffer water with 1 tsp Barr GH booster and 1/2 tsp baking soda for KH of 4, GH of 4.
Upped the CO2. Right now I'm running at 6.08-6.18 on the Pinpoint. I removed all the critters except for the oto and cory cats who seem unaffected by this level. Not sure what the true ppm is, but tank water left out in a cup overnight with an airstone running turns up at 7.4 in the morning -- so it's a lot of CO2.
Initially I overdosed Excel (25ml) for roughly three weeks. I'm now easing back off the Excel treatment gradually and am down to 18ml daily. Planning on reducing this to a normal dose 1 ml each day and see where we go from there.

Here's a picture of the tank, taken on 8/6:










Obviously the aquascaping isn't the greatest, but I think it's starting to get healthier, which is the first goal.

My mid-term goal is to get the tank healthy again and then add in my two adult discus. The PB juvies will stay in a grow-out tank for now -- I'm thinking that experiment was a failure.

I hope this thread can help out someone else; I'll update if anything takes a significant turn for the better or the worse.


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

Hey that's great to hear. It sounds like some of the same things that worked for me worked for you too.


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

Ah, glad to see you didn't "Blow Up" your tank after all! 

The tank looks nice and clean compared to what you had to start. Great job. 

-John N.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

Update from today -- I include it because I think this is the best the tank has looked in quite a while:








What's the discussion point here? I'm not sure, but I certainly didn't see better results until I went to higher light and a routine locked in around it. Is the conventional wisdom of lowering lighting to combat algae necessarily 100% in all cases, or is that only in circumstances where it's minimizing a problem brought on by other factors. Such as, the aquarium keeper isn't fertilizing/changing water properly and thus will never get to the root cause and the lower light helps slow the descent.

Just some food for thought.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Hmmm. That's an interesting question regarding light levels. The traditional wisdom has always been that very high light tanks need to be fine tuned to avoid algae problems. For a contrast, I have a 46g bow that I've been lighting with spiral CF's in a DIY wooden box with no real reflector. I use 8x23W 5,000K bulbs for exactly 4 wpg, but this is probably more like 1.5-2 wpg when compared to T-5's with good reflectors.

Despite this, I've had occasional algae issues, even with good CO2 levels, verified by a frequently calibrated pH probe. I'm in the middle of a green water/green dust attack that I set off by messing with the substrate too much. In the back of my mind I think part of the problem is too little light. Most of my plants are doing fine - Blyxa japonica and auberti are growing like crazy. Even P. stellatus is doing OK (not beautiful, but growing). Still, the plants only really look good in the upper zones, closer to the light. I end up with dead & dying leaves from lower regions that really end up cluttering the tank. All of this garbage starts to decay and I think this is making things worse.

That's just my little anecdote. IMO, your light levels are truly colossal. The usual 3wpg=high light really applies to 20g - 40g size tanks. Bigger tanks have a lot more volume, but only a little more surface area. Measurements of light per square inch as opposed to light per gallon would be a more useful comparison for really big and really small tanks. Photosynthesis demands a certain energy level per unit area, not per unit volume. So what does this imply? The jury is still out. My own bias (without proof) is that a brief period of very intense light brings out the best in plants. Even the lower leaves and foreground plants get a nice burst of energy for photosynthesis. Upper regions get tons of light, which brings out the best coloration.

I'm putting together a 180g tank to test this idea. We'll see how it goes.


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## tacoshooter (Oct 25, 2005)

Your message brings up another point about the higher light; when I was down at 216W, all of the lower leaves of the ludwigia and the didiplis were dying off and rotting quickly, which no doubt contributed to problems.

Once I upped the light to the full 324W, those leaves became healthy and no longer foul the tank -- the plants are fine from stem to tip.

I'm leaning toward a new conventional wisdom (for me at least), in that high light plus a solid routine from which you only tweak and make no wholesale deviations equals the best result. I think going full blast makes the tank healthier, but it also tips the scale more quickly into crapland when husbandry slips.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Yeah, I still think things can go south real quick when you let things get out of hand with high light levels. If the CO2 goes out without noticing you'll have a mess in no time. The real bummer is that a big melt or full-blown algae attack takes a month or more to really recover from. Slow and steady still has pretty good benefits.


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