# Please help me figure this out.



## pzuzu (Mar 3, 2006)

Hello...so I've been having a bit of an algae problem in my 55g...nothing too terrible, but enough to bother me. In the process, I've been trying to rethink my fertilizing regime a little bit. Don't worry, this isn't about algae, it just started with algae. So please bear with me a moment. I've been fertilizing what I thought was a good schedule. I minded my co2 as well (I have lots of pearling everyday, not just after WCs), and lighting periods throughout the day. I still have some staghorn, some dusty stuff on my tall plants, and even a little bit of green water. Not a lot, I can still see everything when viewing from the front of my tank. It's a bit fuzzier from the sides of the tank. At least I think it's green water, cuz there is a slight greenish haze in my tank and I can tell that my water isn't very clear. After a 50% WC, it clears up perfectly. Two days later, a little fuzzy again. So I figured I would toy around with my test kits again, though I have been very good about not using them for nearly a month (okay a little less).

First off I wanted to calibrate my NO3 test kit. I use hagen master freshwater test kits. I took an empty 250mL bottle of flourish, and put a 1/4 tsp of KNO3, filled it with warm water and shook it a lot. I then took a bucket and filled it with 1g of water. Using Chuck's calculator, I figured it would take roughly 11.5mL of the 250mL solution to bring that gallon of water to 10ppm of NO3. I tested the tap => 0ppm. I tested the bucket => 10ppm. So the test kit looks pretty good to me. My tank (55g, though I always plug in 47g for water volume) just had a 50% WC and I had used 1/2tsp of KNO3. I did a test on it, and it's at 80ppm of NO3 when it should be at 10ppm.

What could be causing this NO3 increase? I have been feeding my fish very lightly. I keep 6 SAE, 4 ottos, 1 golden algae eater, 2 rubber lipped plecos, 1 albino rainbow shark. I seriously doubt my tank is overstocked. Hopefully it's not...I've been waiting to get my plants figured out before I add 2 or 3 angels.

So basically, I'm thinking that my plants haven't been using all the NO3 before the weekly WCs and it has just been accumulating over time in the left over 50%. Which makes me wonder if that's not the case for every other nutrient I throw in there. I keep a fairly well stocked tank as far as plants are concerned (I actually have 2 more orders from two different sources coming in this week, yay!!!). I still have enough room for more plants, hence the orders. Perhaps none of the plants I keep are little nitrate sponges? I don't know.

But one thing I definately don't understand is that everywhere I read, I see that it's okay for tanks to be overfertilized because algae only occurs when there are deficiancies. But then I also read that algae doesn't need a lot of nutrients to live. So these two facts puzzle me as to how in the world they can work together. If a tank is slightly overfertilized, how can algae NOT grow? I'm constantly reading about people with great fertilizing regimes and they are still fighting algae. How do you starve algae when there are leftover nutrients in the water?

So is it not okay for me to assume that algae will thrive in aquariums that are a little more than perfect for plants?

I feel I should also mention I get incredible growth from my plants. I've been having a bit of a problem with my ammania, new leaves coming in a little wrinkled up (but only the ones close to the surface of the water, which makes me wonder if my lights could be scorching it a little, cuz I'm pretty sure it's not a nutrient defiency.)

I'm kinda hoping all of this will just take care of itself this week when I add all my new beauties. I hope so.

I think that for maybe two weeks I will not dose until my test kits tell me to. See what happens. If it's disastrous, I'll go back to where I am now and deal with plucking out staghorn on my days off. Lovely. (I've actually been collecting the staghorn in a quarantine tank and dosing it for giggles...it's quite amazing, I should put a picture up. Next tank: no plants, algae only!)

Well, if anyone has any thoughts on this, please share. I am still relatively new at this and have lots to learn, so insights on anything are very welcomed.

Thanks,
Fernando


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

pzuzu said:


> ...My tank (55g, though I always plug in 47g for water volume) just had a 50% WC and I had used 1/2tsp of KNO3. I did a test on it, and it's at 80ppm of NO3 when it should be at 10ppm.
> 
> ...
> 
> So basically, I'm thinking that my plants haven't been using all the NO3 before the weekly WCs and it has just been accumulating over time in the left over 50%. ...


Assuming your tap water has 0 NO3, 80mg/l of NO3 after a 50% water change and the addition of 10mg/l means that before your water change your NO3 levels must have been at 140mg/l (50% wc brought it down to 70mg/l then you added 10mg/l).

Assuming that the 140mg/l is a maximum level reached after two or more weeks of fertilizing, and you do 50% water changes every week, that means that you add 70mg/l of NO3 per week. In addition, this assumes *no* uptake by the plants.

70mg/l of NO3 a week in 47g of water works out to about 3.6 teaspoons per week. In your other post you say you add 1.5 tsps of Grant Sump remover per week (3x 0.5tsp)...

So something is off here. How densely planted is the tank? and with what type of plants? If the tank is well planted then you probably don't have enough CO2. In your other post you mention that you let tank water sit for several hours and the pH went down by 0.3. This doesn't tell you much. You need to let the water sit for 24 hours and then see what the pH is.


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## pzuzu (Mar 3, 2006)

Laith...thank you very much for your response.

And you're right...I have been adding 1.5tsps of stump remover a week (3x 0.5tsp). But this week, I got curious right before I was supposed to add the next .5tsp. That's when I messed around with the test kits and discovered how high my nitrates were. So I just wanted to make sure that the amount I was adding was the correct amount. It seems to have been. Something is definately off. I know my plants must be using some of it because they are growing extremely well, even the slightly deformed ammania doesn't stop growing. The new leaves on the bottom are nice and healthy, only the ones at tips on the top are coming out a little wrinkled (is this because of the high lights? It gets kinda hot at the top there). Besides that, there are no other signs of deficiencies. Even my micro sword grass is growing much faster than I was told it would.

Here is a quick list of the plants I have in there:

ammannia senegalensis (about seven stems)

cardamine (nice thick bunch)

corkscrew vallisneria (actually, this one is my weakest grower...perhaps that should supply a clue?)

glosso field (all along the middle front of the tank...I recently pruned the heck out of it to give it space so it can start crawling. I think it thought it was a stem plant and it was turning into tall little bushes...but I realized it couldn't move sideways because I cramped it too much...not it's finally starting to crawl all over the place...I'm a genious!)

gymnocoronis (about 7 incredible stems that are loving live)

heteranthera zosterifolia "stargrass" (this plant did a strange thing, perhaps 
this is another clue...I think because I let it grow so thick, no light was permeating to the bottom and it lost all it's stems. Now it's just roots and leaves. I was trying to move it and when I pulled it out, I couldn't find any of the original stems, so I assume they disintegrated due to lack of light at the base. But that didn't stop this plant AT ALL, it was everywhere...now it's trimmed and shaped up and I have replanted it as best I could by roots and whatever little stems I could find)

hygrophila (4 maybe 5 stems...this guy was actually covered up by the stargrass so it is the only plant without any signs of algae...thank goodness it likes low lights...after trimming the stargrass I finally got to see it again since I planted it...it's so beautiful and perfectly shaped I should take a picture and submit it as a perfect example of this species)

Ludwigia needleleaf (only about 4 stems because it didn't acclimate very well when I first planted it...the remaining stems that survived are little troopers and are now growing quite nicely...the leaves finally turned a very pretty shade of red)

mexican oak leaf (about 6 stems. One of my fastest growers...I love how the stems look like little branches from a tree)

micro sword (about a 4x12" field)

potamogeton gayi (about 3 stems that have branched off in different directions...it's been trying to crawl it's way unto my driftwood, but I won't let it...I constantly have to slap its roots away...heh)

red temple (about 5 stems...beautiful, but it gets the most dust of all my plants...I assume it's some kind of dust algae, and this happens at the highest leaves)

some type of sword (I would really like to know what type it is...strangely enough, this guy took a while to acclimate and lost a lot of its leaves when I first planted it...but now it's starting to mean business)

some type of rotala (about 20 stems I purchased from petsmart when I saw the first sign of algae...I thought I should put more plants in the tank to see if this would help...it didn't really...I will probably take some of it out to make room for my new plants...anyone know what type of rotala it is that petsmart carries? I can't remember if it was indica or rotundifolia...it's hard to tell since apparently a lot of websites mix these two different types up...it was very red when I got it, now it's greener)

Well...that pretty much covers them all. Obviously, they must be consuming some of the nitrates because of how well they are growing. And as for the CO2...I will definately take your advice and leave the water out for a 24 hour period...but how do I use this information? How much should the ph go up by in order for me to know my co2 is okay? I'm pretty darn sure it is.

Hopefully this provides more information to figure this problem out. I will check my NO3 again today as it is NO3 dosing day. And by the way...this isn't just happening with NO3, also with PO4...I just don't have more concrete numbers on it because my test kit only measures up to 3ppm of PO4...I know I have more than that in my tank due to the fact it remains a blue color and the test kit only goes to a dark green. My tap water, however, comes out yellow with just a little subtle hint of green...I mean almost not even noticable.

So going back to my main question before I shut the hell up here:

Is it possible for algae to grow when there are excess nutrients?

(assumed) Fact 1: overfertilizing is okay because of WCs, as long as there are no defiencies algae will starve

(assumed) Fact 2: algae only needs a tiny amount of nutrients to live

These two things I have gathered from all my reading makes it so I don't understand how they work together. Which probably means I don't have enough plants eating up the nutrients? Hopefully that will change in a few hours!!! (ring doorbell! ring!!!! orders are coming in...where is that fedex man?)

Thanks for taking the time Laith (you even went back and read my previous posts...I really appreciate it!!!)

Thanks!
Fernando


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

With 50% water changes and assuming no NO3 in your tap water and no uptake by the plants, the maximum level of NO3 you will ever get in your tank will be 2x your weekly dosage. So in your case, at 1.5tsp a week, 58mg/l of NO3 is the maximum you should ever see in your tank (unless you're way overstocked with fish which you are not). Include plant uptake and your NO3 levels will be lower.

The same calculation holds true for all the nutrients you add, no matter what the test kit says!

The general consensus is that if your CO2 injection drops your pH by 1, then that means you are adding approximately 30mg/l of CO2. This is the level you want to reach.

As to your question re nutrients and plants vs algae, give this thread a read:

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...-problems/5514-so-why-does-new-school-no.html


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