# New Soil Substrate and Algae Problems



## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Hello

My name is Peter. I come form Poland.

I have read your book and it really opened my eyes. Me and many of my friends have chosen to start a "Low-Tech" aquarium. We really like the idea.

Sadly, I write to you with a problem. Algae. Thank God it's not green water. I have a problem with short green hair algae that slowly corrupts my tank.

I have a 240 liter tank. Garden soil about 3 cm covered with the same amount of gravel 2-4 mm. Many plants: egeria najas, saggitaria, echinodorus, vallisneria, pistia, cerathoperis, bacopa, hygrophila, athernathera, cerathopylum, rotala, blyxa, eleocharis. The plants seem to grow, they have new leaves and new small plants are emerging. I have a filter and a heater.

The tank is almost 3 weeks old and the algae is constantly growing.

My main suspect is the light. I have two 54W neon lights 6500k. The light is "white". In first week I lighted for 6 hours, next week 7, now is 8.

Is it too much light? The tank doesnt get any sunlight. The neon bulbs are attached 20 cm above the water surface.

The algae cover almost all plants, even the roots of pistia. The walls of the tank are covered in green dust.

I have about 30 fish: guppies, otocinclus, corydoras.

I don't know what to do. Should I get more fast growing plants, or reduce the light? Yesterday I changed about 30% of water and cleaned the biggest algae...

Peter
__________
Hi Peter,

Nice to hear from Poland! And a well-written letter, I might add.

Your tank is going through a fairly typical problem during setup. The soil is temporarily releasing lots of nutrients and stimulating algae (my book, pp 130-135, "Chaos in Freshly Submerged Terrestrial Soils") .

I'm not sure what "neon lighting" is. However, the wattage and spectrum (6500 K) sound fine to me.

What went wrong here? You started with a 6 hr photoperiod. I don't think that's enough hours for all those nice plants you've got. It certainly didn't discourage the algae. I would have started with a 12 hr photoperiod on "Day One" to get the plants growing full-steam right from the start. Many of the emergent ones probably could use much more than the 8 hr you've got now.

Also, emergent growth (the best "algae-buster") is greatly stimulated by a photoperiod greater than 12 hr. If you've got any emergent plants doing fairly well in this tank, you might try keeping the lights on 14 hr a day to stimulate their growth.

Remember, that a freshly submerged terrestrial soil really doesn't start releasing nutrients right away. It takes a week or two before the nutrients start pouring into the water (my book, Fig VIII-6 on p. 131)-- and stimulating algae. Hobbyists need to do everything they can to get their plants growing quickly that first couple weeks. That way, the plants can better compete with algae *before* the big nutrient release. Timing is everything!

What to do? I would remove as much algae as you can by hand, if possible. I'd also do a major water change and add carbon to the filter. Then, I'd be patient and just wait out the plant-algae competition.

The soil will settle down, eventually. Since the plants are growing, there is hope. I would add floating plants and encourage emergent growth of all those stem plants.

Good luck!


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

thanks... i will buy carbon and ad it to the filter, i will make another water chage and remove as mush algae i can...

at this time i already have many floating plants

after doing that i will set my timer to 12 hours a day and wait

PS. below you cn see my tank as it evolved during 2 weeks

day one










day 16


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Thanks for sending the two photos. As I (being Low-tech) still have a dial-up Internet connection, I also appreciate your shrinking photos to a small KB size.

Pictures like these are truly worth a thousand words.

It looks like you've got about 3 plants doing very well- the Elodea or Hornwort, the Althernanthera (red stem plant), and the floating plants. The rest are just sitting there, which suggests a problem.

The yellowish tint to water is from tannins showing a lot of decomposition in the soil and/or that the wood in your tank is releasing tannins. Water changes and charcoal should remove the tannins, but I see a bigger problem-- the wood itself. 

Wood in tanks can be a problem. Honestly, a lot of folks have had major problems resulting from having wood in their tanks. It decomposes anaerobically underneathe where you can't see it. 

Even if that wood is not decomposing or it is plastic, it still can cause problems. A large object like this covering the soil will smother the soil underneathe making it even more anaerobic. It could eventually cause major problems (ammonia and H2S) for the fish. 

If this wood is not covering (and smothering) the gravel/soil, it has less potential to cause problems. You want soil to be able "to breathe". 

I would remove the wood until you get the plants growing well and the tank stabilized-- clear water, less algae, and better plant growth. Once the tank is stabilized, you can add the wood back and see what happens. But right now, I'd remove it.


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

i have a question about the wood... well it doesn't touch with the gravel by much... the smaller root stands on 5 "fingers", like an open hand, and the "cave" touches the gravel ith only a thin line like a halfmoon.... to small rocks inside cover about the same area.... but if it's still a problem i will remove them... 

yesterday i changed the water, added carbon to the filter, removed by hand most of algae and cut out most of the algae infected leaves, and increased teh time of light to 12 hours... 

i can say that the tank today looks... different... it's brighter... plants are clean and have sharp colours...

i was away the hole day, therefore i can really see the difference...


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## Koi-fantast (Feb 2, 2008)

Hi, how old are those 54w lights? Lights age and should probably be replaces by newer after a year. Good thing you got two and can change them every 6 months or so. If it's possible I would set upp one 54w to run 4 houres middle of the day and the other 12 houres. To replicate real life sun.

I alwo saw you got some catfish who love wood in the water to digest properly. Check my link for pictures on how I prepared my wood for the tank. The principle is to boil out as much yellow tannines from the wood as possible. So, change water reguraly during the process. The yellow as such I don't think it's that of an issue if you can stand looking at a yellow tank. The problem would be if you have too much organik material in the tank so you get a quick ph-drop when it dicompose.

Cheers and best off luch //Matti


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## tkos (Oct 30, 2006)

Would MTS (those snails with ice cream cone shaped shells) be an option for preventing compacting of the soil and anerobic layers from forming?


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

Koi - the both of the 54W lights are on 12 hours work hours i have also a 39 W sae if something should go worng, but i don't use it at the moment

the lights are 2 months old

the wood is out of the tank... i hope that it will not affect the health of my ottos... i think that the ancistrus species are more dependent on wood then ottos...

my wood is always properly prepared... i don't have any problems with it...

tkos - yes, i think they would


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## tkos (Oct 30, 2006)

While many pleco species require wood in their diet, I don't think that otos do.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

tkos said:


> Would MTS (those snails with ice cream cone shaped shells) be an option for preventing compacting of the soil and anerobic layers from forming?


They would probably help, and if you can easily get them, I'd say go for it. In the meantime, you can pretend that you are a snail and poke a knife into the soil layer and introduce a little oxygen.

Right now, the main thing, though, is just be patient. Let's hope that the plants win the battle in your tank and everything settles down to your liking. It sounds like you've done about everything you can do.

Good luck!


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## Oliversdad (Dec 17, 2006)

Sorry to hijack this thread, but the discussion here made me think. I can gather that soil substrates add nutrients, including CO2 to the aquarium. From this discussion, it sounds like the trick is to balance the amount of available nutrients, plants, and light to avoid algae? Because there is no formula for how much nutrients the soil will produce, or how much the plants will take up, it is kind of a guessing game, with the standard advice being to plant heavily at the outset? My question is, do rooted plants such as echinodorus use more of the nutrients than floating plants such as hornwort? If so, is it wiser to pot the rooted plants with enough soil to keep them happy than to use a soil underlayment that covers the whole tank bottom?


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

in my tank root plants like echinodorus are doing as good as floating pistia, hornwort

the soil on the whole bottom


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

Sorry to pop in here but I thought that increasing the amount of light would make the algae grow even faster. Does an increase in lighting only help fight algae in newly established tanks? Not only that but I noticed something that I mentioned in another thread of mine about the carbon. I thought it was generally not a good idea to use carbon in NPT's?


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

if i understand it right you should:

- apply more hours of light so the plants can win the fight with algae, we have to remember that plants need light more then algae, they are more dependent on it

- carbon is a good thing during algae fight... it takes all the DOC and other "things" out of the water, so that tehe algae can't use them... algae can only absorb nutritients out of the water, while the plants can always use the ones stored in the soil, that are not reachable for algae

so in conclusion... more light and carbon work like this:

the carbon pulls out of the water all the nutrition elements so they are unavailable for algae... at the same time you increase the time of light duration so that the plants that are still "powered" by the soil can win the fight with the algae...

that's how i see it...

PS. sorry for my english


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

Dzidek1983 said:


> if i understand it right you should:
> 
> - apply more hours of light so the plants can win the fight with algae, we have to remember that plants need light more then algae, they are more dependent on it
> 
> ...


Actually, your english was rather good. 

But I could've swore that DOC helps to chelate heavy metals so by removing it, wouldn't that put plants and fish at risk for metal toxicity? Not only that but if you have floating plants in the tank, they need the nutrients that are in the water column so wouldn't removing them cause the floaters to die from a lack of nutrients?


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

i think that this in not right...

- NPT needs hard alcalic water... in that water metal toxity is reduced to zero.... 

- i also have floating plants... they are doing great


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

dwalstad said:


> I'm not sure there's any reason to add activated carbon under normal circumstances. I've added it to help control algae, but it doesn't really seem to make any difference.
> 
> I would save it for unusual circumstances and emergencies when you need to remove excessive dissolved organic carbon:
> 
> ...


Here's here's the link to the thread the post is in if you would like to read it.

I found this during a search. Carbon does remove DOC which is why a lot of people with NPT's tend to use it mainly to remove access tannins.

To get rid of algae, I'd rather add algae eating fish or snails to the tank instead of taking the chance of removing nutrients.


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

But by adding algae eating creatures you aren't fighting the cause of the algae...

eventually it will come back to your tank... 

you are only removing it like "by hand" only using fish or other animals... after you remove the fisch (or they die) the algae will return

i think that you always should fight the cause 

fish can be helpfull in this task, by they can't replace the biological stabilization of your tank


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

I have a 55 NPT with lots of rooted plants that got covered with brown sticky algae a while back. I did a major trim to remove as much as I could, vacuumed and tried to get most of the debris out and added a bunch of fast growing floating plants (e.g. hornwort and water lettucs). That didn't make a dent in it, so this weekend, I did another partial water change with vacuuming and dosed it with 3% peroxide. I started with 1ml per gallon but I think the organics in the tank ate that up fairly quickly. So I drained it down to around 20 gallons and spot treated the end that's the worst with a higher dose swirling it around that area to make sure it contacted all the algae. then vacuumed a bit more and refilled. I also removed the originally added floaters that were covered with algae and added more floaters. Now, the green hair algae that was growing on some sword leaves is white and the other algae looks somewhat lessened. I'll try and remember to post back on how it does.


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

Dzidek1983 said:


> But by adding algae eating creatures you aren't fighting the cause of the algae...
> 
> eventually it will come back to your tank...
> 
> ...


It may not fight the cause but algae eating animals are quite capable of completely getting rid of algae. I came across a person during a search on snails who had algae so bad in their tank that you couldn't even see the fish inside but once they added some Olive Nerite snails in there, they ate up all of the algae and it has yet to return. Some people will actually intentionally grow algae for these animals because they are so efficient at removing algae that they grow it so they always have a food source.

In my opinion, if it wasn't for algae eating fish and snails, many bodies of water that have had algae problems at one time or another would be a lot worse. Algae is normal and there are different ways of dealing with it. Some prefer to go to great lengths to try to get rid of it and others like to get the help of other animals in order to remove it.

Most people don't even bother to remove these fish or snails. I'm currently trying to get some olives or zebras and I plan on keeping them in the tank. Why bother removing them when you can just keep them in there?


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

Well all my fish eat algae.. i have ottos, corydoras and guppys... also i have amano shrimps and various snails

i did some water tests, here are the results:

Ph - 7,5
Gh - 10
Kh - 8
NO3 - 12,5
NO2 - 0
NH3 - 0

this is how my tank looks now










i removed some plants and got some new... my greatest concern is at the moment Bacopa Monnieri... it's a slow growing plant and the lower leaves are very corrupted by algae

and here are some other pics of my tank


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

With or without algae, your tank looks great! I'd never see my betta again if he was in a tank of that size! lol

Some snails are better at eating algae then others. Nerites are often considered as the best when it comes to removing algae, especially Olive nerites. If you can get them in your area, you should give them a try.


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## [email protected] (Oct 15, 2007)

I love those pistia roots - you have a very good looking tank.

I had similar issues with green thread algae during my tank's first 4 - 6 weeks after set up. The algae initially appeared on the substrate, so as Diana stated, I think the high nutrient release during the soil's initial adjustment to being submerged is the culprit.

At the time I had 64w @ 6700k of compact flourescent 9 cm above the surface for 10 hours per day, no significant natural light. My solution was to split the photoperiod; five hours on, two hours off, five hours on. I also trimmed the most effected plants, as the algae spread through the tank. I am pleased to report that three months after setup I have no visually detectable green thread algae.

I also had a similar experience with the bacopa; it did not appear to grow at all for the first month of the tank. It had lost most of the leaves on the lower 8cm, which worried me as the plants were only about 10cm at the time. I moved the floaters around in my tank to ensure that the bacaopa was receiving plenty of light. I now have two stalks of bacopa at ~15cm and one at ~40cm, with the 40 cm stalk making its way across the surface of the tank.



> Not only that but if you have floating plants in the tank, they need the nutrients that are in the water column so wouldn't removing them cause the floaters to die from a lack of nutrients?


I dont think that is a concern here. My understanding of one of the floaters jobs as a fast growing, easily removable plant is to soak up extra nutrients from the water column for disposal. Dzidek1983 doesn't have a normal amount of nutrients in the column, he has an excess that the floaters (and other plants) can not use due to an abundant nutrient release during the tank's initial set up period. While I agree with you, and prefer to use methods (love my snails) that do not involve modding my tank water, I do not think that the temporary use of charcoal, in my experience, would cause problems for the floaters.


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

In my town i can only get ampularia snails....

but by Allegro... (a Polish E-bay) i can get almost any species f.ex. Physa Gyrina, Clithon Sp., Planorbis Sp., Neritina Sp., Melanoides tuberculata

they are all rather cheap... 

200 Melanoides tuberculata costs about 5 dollars XD

no species costs more then a dollar a piece... 

which do you recommend?


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

Dzidek1983 said:


> In my town i can only get ampularia snails....
> 
> but by Allegro... (a Polish E-bay) i can get almost any species f.ex. Physa Gyrina, Clithon Sp., Planorbis Sp., Neritina Sp., Melanoides tuberculata
> 
> ...


I'd try to get either Zebra Nerites or Olive Nerites. Just make sure they are already acclimated to freshwater since these snails are also found in brack and saltwater. I'd go for the Olives first since they are known to eat almost every type of algae, even blue-green algae(BGA) and diatoms although Zebras tend to prefer BGA more the Olives.

As for how many you should get for your tank, that I can't help you with. You could try asking the people who post in the Shrimp & other inverts for planted aquariums forum here to see how many you should get for your tank.


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

my other, 3 months old tank


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

nerites are ok if you don't mind a bunch of white eggs that won't hatch stuck to things all over the tank.

I have ramshorns snails, pond snails and malayasian trumpet snails in all my tanks. I'm not totally happy with the MTS because they tend to overpopulate and I don't have anyone to eat them. The ramshorns and pond snails do tend to overpopulate as well, however, I have goldfish and cichlids that I can feed those to. You might also look at small plecos or ottos.


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

back to my first tank

i would like to ask you about my light... 

my tank is about 64 gallon and 108W of compact 6500k light

is it to much or maybe there is not enough light???


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## david f (Mar 24, 2006)

To Dzideck1983

Hi, I was just looking at the photo of your water surface movement ,it looks like there's a fair amount good circulation going on, I have always liked the thought of good strong water movement in my tank but have been reluctant to do so because of the thought ,of co2 escaping the surface,would someone please correct me.

thank you ,Dave.


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

the water movement isn't that big... it's rather the photo that suggests so... 

it looks nice...


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

this is how my tank looks now... you can see that the pistia has covered the whole water surface

also i added like suggested neritina snails (5), and filtrating shrimp...

i moved in also my primary fish... four angel fish

and that's how my tank looks now


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Dzidek1983 said:


> this is how my tank looks now... you can see that the pistia has covered the whole water surface
> 
> also i added like suggested neritina snails (5), and filtrating shrimp...
> 
> ...


Dear Dzidek,

Love this tank! All those floating plants took care of the algae problem. This tank may not impress the aquascaping crowd, but in my opinion, it looks like a "happy tank".

Good going!


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## PlantMauller (Oct 15, 2007)

dwalstad said:


> Dear Dzidek,
> 
> Love this tank! All those floating plants took care of the algae problem.
> 
> Good going!


I was reading one of your other posts Diana and I'm taking your advice about the floating plants. I already had Hornwort, but I bought some Frogbit yesterday. Hair algae is really tough competitor! But I think w/ the Hornwort, Frogbit, the host of stem plants I have, less intensity of light, 15hrs of lighting, slightly higher water temp, and time...I should be OK...


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Dear PlantMauller,

For controlling algae, I would put my money on your FrogBit. Hornwort, despite being a terrific, fast-growing plant, is still a submerged plant. It gets its CO2 from the water, and therefore, is competing directly with algae for water CO2, which is often limited. In contrast, the FrogBit is tapping into plentiful air CO2 to which the algae has no access. This is the FrogBit's "aerial advantage".

Keep us posted. If the FrogBit takes off, I predict that you will see a gradual decline of the algae.

Good Luck!


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

Pistia roots are now 30 cm long. Will have to cut them soon :-D

Kamikadze Gupis are out of the tank, and 5 Neon Rainbowfish are in. Fish base is complete.

At the moment i have:

- 5 Neon Rainbowfish
- 4 Angel Fish
- 10 Ottos
- 10 Corydoras
- 5 Amano shrimps
- 1 Filtrating shrimp
- 5 Neritina snails

is it to much for a NPT?


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## PlantMauller (Oct 15, 2007)

dwalstad said:


> Dear PlantMauller,
> 
> For controlling algae, I would put my money on your FrogBit. ...
> 
> ...


I'll definitely keep you posted. My Frogbit just shipped and should be here Friday!


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

i did a major trim operation to my Pistia... about half a bucket went to my friends... i left only the big ones... the tank is alot more brighter... 

sadly i inform that all my rainbow fish are dead... i don't know what happened... i was away for the weekend, and when i returned yesterday, they were all in agony...


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

update on my tank


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

hi

i have a problem with one of my plants...

saggitaria subulata... it has been growing very well, spreading very fast

but for about one week it stopped and started to die... the leaves become transparent and fall of

the other plants are doing pretty good, i have an other saggitaria speceis and i have no problems with it...

what could it be?


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## Mr Fishies (Apr 9, 2006)

Dzidek1983 said:


> hi
> 
> i have a problem with one of my plants...
> 
> ...


It's hard to say if it's the same thing that I've encountered, but I've seen my s. subulata go through a die off period a few times where many plants in the group seems to loose 2-4 leaves (they go transparent and just disintegrate) around the same time.

It only started to happen when the plants became very crowded and heavily grown in against each other - I think (just a guess) that this is a mechanism to help when plants become overcrowded. Since no plant completely dies as far as I could see, it seems that once enough leaves were lost and the crowding not as bad things get back to normal.

I can't say for sure, but I think it's after this sort of die off that the plants will start to throw up leaves that are much longer than the existing leaves. I wind up pulling these long leaves manually to keep the plants short.

Or perhaps this is just part of the normal life cycle and the leaves that are dropping are just at the end of their life?

Ian


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## guppyramkrib (Sep 5, 2007)

Nice Tank! Thanks for posting!


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