# Persistent Algae



## algae-king (Dec 23, 2007)

Hi guys,

This is my first post here and am in need of a bit of help.

I've readDiana's book "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" and have tried to follow all the advice supplied there, with the only exception being that I have more artificial light and less natural light. This is because it is not convenient for me to put the tank near a window.

Thus I have the following equipment:
- Coralife 24" - 65 watts of 6500k light
- Coralife 24" - 24 watts of combination 6500k/10,000k light
- quick filter
- 1.5" of soil on bottom, 1" of gravel on top
- 20 gallon tank
- a heater

I have a great variety of plants (about 10 species) and they're all growing fabulously and quickly. Even difficult plants like glosso and rotala macrandra are growing great. Unfortunately the algae is also growing fabulously. It's kind of like a hair/matt algae combination.

I have a fair number of fish, perhaps a little overloaded - about 19 1.5" fish. However they are all very happy, active, and healthy and I have had no deaths.

I have tried the following techniques to get rid of algae as recommended in Diana's book:
- added floating plants (duckweed)
- used soil base
- added lots of plants
- added charcoal to the filter

I have not tried the following steps that Diana recommends:
- adding tape around the bottom of the tank to cover the soil (because the tank gets no direct sunshine)
- substituting the full spectrum bulbs for "cool white" bulbs because my manufacturer does not sell "cool white" bulbs that will fit in my fixtures. The only cool white bulbs I have seen are low wattage and that won't due because of the lack of natural light.

I'm getting rather frustrated and am thinking of tearing the tank down yet again. But of course the algae will probably just come back again.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks.


----------



## Homer_Simpson (Apr 2, 2007)

How long are you running your lights for??

Reducing lighting period to 7 to 7.5 hours may work. However, this is a non-natural planted tank solution. Also if you are on a 12 hour photoperiod as most EL Naturalists follow. You could try a split photoperiod. Leave lights on for 6 hours off for 2 hours and back on for 6 hours. This may help. The two hour siesta some say confuses algae but plants and fish are not too bothered by it. Here is a link that explains the idea behind split photoperiod to prevent or combat algae. Again these things are not ELNatural but personally if I had a choice between tearing a tank down and testing non-natural solutions to algae in a ELNatural tank, I would opt to test the non-natural solutions because it takes less effort than tearing a tank down and starting over and it would be a last resort with nothing to lose. Instead of carbon, you may also want to give Seachem Purigen a try as it does not filter out valuable nutrients like carbon. In my 40 gallon, I saw a major improvement in plant growth when I replaced carbon with Purigen.

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translat...nerle.de/HG10.htm&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

****Edit**** If you decide to tear the tank down and start over. * Jam pack your tank with lots of plants right off the bat, especially fast growing stem plants and some floating plants.* I have yet to see algae develop in tanks that I experimented with where I jam packed them full of plants from the start, this was regardless of c02, no c02, substrate type(although rooting plants did not do as well in Schultz Aquatic Soil) and whether it was high light or low light.


----------



## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

That is a lot of light in that tank. Do you have any way of testing the CO2?

Another thing that might make the tank a little closer to natural is to time the lights to include a dawn and dusk effect. Set the lights with 2 timers. The dimmer lights would come on for a few hours by them selves, then the 10K lights would come on for just a few hours mid day, then the dimmer ones would be on for a few more hours. Think of the sun rising over a tropical rain forest: At dawn the sun is a very low angle, and is filtered through the trees. The river gets direct light when the sun is overhead, shining between the branches, but then there is more filtered light as the sun is again hidden behind the trees. 
You might have the dim lights on for 10-12 hours, but the brightest lights for only 2-3 hours.


----------



## algae-king (Dec 23, 2007)

Thank you both for your responses. Looks like light may be the problem which is partially what I suspected. For the time being I'm going to trying running on just one set of lights and see how that goes. If it doesn't help, I'll try your suggestions about the light timing. 

I have no means of measuring the CO2 but I suspect that the levels are ok because otherwise the plants would not be growing well.


----------

