# My 30 gallon high NPT



## cojack22 (Nov 20, 2009)

30 gallon high with organic potting soil base and ecocomplete cap. The tank is about a year old, went though some really bad black slime algae that killed all but a few plants. It cleared up for about two months ago so I replanted. It was going fine for a while even after adding new fish up until last week. I started to see some hair algae and yesterday the water was cloudy. The cloudyness cleared up but the water still looks a little green. I just started added rain water into my tank instead of tap water, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the cloudy water or not.

There are currently six white clouds, one german blue ram, two clown cloaches, and one neon tetra.
The other four pics I took are in this album,


http://imgur.com/a

Sorry about the quality, all I have is my iphone right now.


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## robertw (Jun 28, 2011)

You've got a nice looking ram there!

Although I'm not sure if it's the camera or not, but you're right, the water's looking a little green. You mention using rainwater over the tap, is there a particular reason you made the switch? Especially if all was fine and dandy with the tap water?


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## cojack22 (Nov 20, 2009)

robertw said:


> You've got a nice looking ram there!
> 
> Although I'm not sure if it's the camera or not, but you're right, the water's looking a little green. You mention using rainwater over the tap, is there a particular reason you made the switch? Especially if all was fine and dandy with the tap water?


The water has gone back to clear now. I'm not sure why it got so green. I'm trying to switch over to rain water to help lower my ph and make my water softer. All the plants I added are growing pretty slow, expect for the hornwort and duck weed. There is some brown hair algae starting to grow also. Know any way to keep that algae under control?


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## activesize (Jun 26, 2011)

Maybe the Ecocomplete over soil was a cause of your initial plant die off a year ago. 

I wonder now if your rainwater is contaminated with pollutants. If so, then that would probably contribute to your weird algae problems. What do you collect it in? If it's pollutants in the rainwater than maybe they can be filtered out in a practical way. Also, with the rainwater addition maybe your tds is getting lower than the plants are used to or even prefer. Maybe they will adjust in time but perhaps some not so well. 

You should not be having any problem with the vals. If you want ie. your vals and what looks like wisteria to grow faster than my guess is that you need more fish to contribute nutrients to the soil through fish waste and extra fish food. It looks like you have plenty of light, but the duckweed must still be harvested at least weekly so that it doesn't quickly block the light for plants below and also allows for more nutrients in the water column to be taken up by the other plants.


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## cojack22 (Nov 20, 2009)

Only two of my vals are growing right now. The two red ones I just only have one or two old small leaves left. The new Dwarf sag is not really growing at all also. My rain water is collected by pail from water that runs off my roof. I guess it could be contaminated. Think I should swtich back to the hard water? 

The algae I'm getting now is some brown hair algae, its growing on most of the plants too. Any good ways I can keep that under control?


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## activesize (Jun 26, 2011)

Adding rainwater is problematic and variable. Your Ram looks fine too. If you switch back to hard tap water then this will stabilize your water chemistry, which is important. You can do some water changes to get the tds down to around the normal amount in your tap water (assuming it is fairly consistent), or higher if you prefer. Then, change at least as much water each week with more tap water as you topped off with tap water that week. That will tend to stabilize your tds and ph. Maybe you've got some other weird stuff going on in your tank but I think your plants will grow fine if other factors are not too abnormal.


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## cojack22 (Nov 20, 2009)

I have test strips and I'm getting about a ph of 8 alkalinty of 180 ppm which are the same as it has always been. The algae came when I added new plants. Would a few more fish really help out with the algae?
I've cleaned most of the algae off of the plants and tank walls, also changed about 5 gallons of water


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## activesize (Jun 26, 2011)

I don't test for alkalinity so I can't comment on that, but if your ph is stable then that's good. I think you also need more plant mass. Just do your regular algae and plant maintenance and wait for your plants to grow. Also, see if increasing the water changes will help things along too. 

If you get a lot of algae on the walls of your tank then your clean up crew is not sufficient to handle the load. I have one tank where my cleanup crew is not quite getting the job done and I get a light but steady build up of what appears to be diatoms on the front glass. To remove it I use a long handled windshield sticker removing tool, except that I attached a credit card instead of using those small razor blades. It works very quickly and well.


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## cojack22 (Nov 20, 2009)

Do you think a bristle nose pleco would get the job done? Or would some otos work better? I'm not sure if my local pet store has any otos.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Fish, snails, and shrimp all help with algae, but they cannot get rid of it if conditions in the tank encourage its growth. If you want an algae-eating fish, try the bristle nose. They are easier to keep alive than otos.

From your photos, you need more plants. I suggest you simply use your tap water and let the tank stabilize, then concentrate on very easy, fast growing plants.

After that, work on light. What kind of light do you have? What is your photoperiod?

Good luck!


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## cojack22 (Nov 20, 2009)

I already have lots of fast growing plants, hornwart and duck weed on top. Jungle vale in back, wisteria and dwarf sags. All those are fast growing I believe. I have two 23 watt and two 13 watt CFLs. They are on from 7:00am to 11:00am and then from 4:00pm to 10:00pm. So that is a ten hours in total per day. I'm going to go get a bristle nose right now.


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