# Algae ID + Plant yellowing (Pics within) Diagnosis Needed Please!



## theteh (Jan 19, 2006)

Is this Staghorn algae? I have a few of these starting to grow on my plants recently. They are quite small at the moment. Did a water change few days ago and dose more Flourish (2ml). My question is how to stop it from growing? My Amano shrimps do not touch it at all.









I am new to aquatic plants, this tank (18G) was started about 4 weeks ago with Eco-Complete with great results for the first three weeks with lots of growth, especiall my Sword (growing very very large leaves, going pale gree and seems very fragile). See pic below:








Grass and pennyworth (right) are also dying:









Even my hygrophilia leaves and roots are turning yellow. funny that just two weeks ago, my pennyworth was perling:









Tank Spec:
22W power compact (I know this is not enough but I can't upgrade without changing the whole hood that comes with my tank). 
60L (about 18G)
pH 7.5
KH 10
GH 18
NO3 25
NO2 0
CO2 15-20 (Hagen Nutrafin yeast reactor)
Top wet/dry filter with bio-ceramics+filterwool
Temperature: 25C
This is how it looks:









Many plants are turning yellow except the Java Fern (middle) and Anubias (at the back). My hairgrass is dying...

After reading in the APC, I realise it may be due to nutrition deficiency, so I started dosing Flourish (double dose) and added 0.2g of KH2PO4 today. Do you think I am doing the right thing? What have I missed?

Any help would be greatly appreciated indeed.

More pics of my setup could be found here:http://www.theteh.com/./html/tropical_planted_aquarium_phot.html


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## fisherelli (Oct 22, 2005)

Hi,

That looks like Staghorn to me. SAE's, Amanos and Ottos don't touch it. I killed Staghorn with 2 weeks of double dosing Excel but it killed my Amano shrimp, so be careful. Sounds like you need to manually remove the algae and get your ferts in order first.

Are you sure your CO2 is 15 to 20ppm? With your PH and KH I make it 10ppm using the calculator on this page : http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

Do you have a PO4 test kit?

Why is your NO3 25ppm? Do you have high NO3 in your tap water, a lot of fish or a dodgy test kit? Not that 25ppm is bad,.. I'm just trying to figure it out.

As for the yellowing - probably ferts, maybe iron? I am far from an expert, maybe someone else will chip in 

I think hairgrass is a medium to high light plant. Stuff your tank with more "light-flexible" plants. Good luck! 

Edit : Just realised you live in London. Your water is probably very high in NO3 and PO4. My test kits made it 25ppm NO3 and 8ppm PO4. These are uncalibrated kits and I suspect the PO4 reading is a little high. Info from the Thames Water Board suggests these readings are not far off though.


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## theteh (Jan 19, 2006)

*London water is Hard!*

Thanks for the analysis indeed! Yes, London water has high NO3 but not sure about PO4 as I do not have a test kit for it yet.

What is the ideal NO3 level anyway?

As for CO2, you may be right with the calculator, because my PH ranges from around 7.2 to 7.6 and KH is generally quite high above 10 usually. So, when it is 7.2/10, then the CO2 is 19ppm.

Just ordered a bottle of Excel yesterday. I will be cautious about this as I ahve heard a lot about dead Amanos...

Yellow leaves and stunted growth could be due to lack of K as I have read???? If I dose KNO3 to replenish K but would this cause over dosing of NO3 instead? Fertilisation expert is required here!


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

For me, yellow leaves usually indicate a nitrogen deficiency if it involves mostly old growth. New growth that shows deep green veins with washed-out light yellow color surrounding it is a sign of Fe deficiency.

In my 46 gallon I keep NO3 at 20 ppm and PO4 at 2 ppm. I add flourish about 30 ml / week and flourish iron about 10-15 ml / week. It sounds like you're dosing much less.

I really suspect the problem with the hairgrass & maybe the sword is lack of light. With what you have you really will be limitted to anubias & ferns, etc.


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## John P. (Nov 24, 2004)

More Co2 will keep the staghorn away.


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## fisherelli (Oct 22, 2005)

More CO2 sorted out my BBA and BGA, but did nothing to the Staghorn. Just my experience!


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## theteh (Jan 19, 2006)

*Update*

I have been dosing 1ml Fluorish, 1ml Fe, and 0.2g KH2PO4 for the past few days and I have noticed regression (shortening/withering) of the Staghorn algae today! I hope to kill them when my Excel arrives tomorrow.


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## jdigiorgio (Jan 29, 2004)

remember he originally stated that this tank was set up 4 weeks ago!!! It could just start to be cycling now. What are you Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate levels. look like you should add more plants also to get it going without the algea blooms.


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## theteh (Jan 19, 2006)

*Cycle*

Because I started this tank using mature substrate and old filter media from my old tank which was more than 8 years old, I guess my new tank went into cycle immediately as I did not have any detectable Ammonia and NO2 is always zero!


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