# The battle continues!!!



## tankedfish (Apr 9, 2005)

Hi to all.

I was wondering if anyone here can tell me what can cause algae to never leave my tank. Here are the specs.

90 gallons
260 watts PC
Gravel with laterite
Gh 12 dGH
KH 12 dH
Ph 6.66.8
Nitrate 10-15 ppm
Po4 1-1.5 ppm
Filtered by 1 Eheim 2217 (is that enough?)
UV sterilizer
10 hours of light on a timer.. No direct sunlight either.

The tank as been setup for about 1.5 years. Now here is the problem. No matter how much or little light I put over the tank at some point I have an algae outbreak. There always seems to be something out of balance. The test kit's tell me otherwise. I do regular tests on my tank water and get some good readings there really is nothing out of whack. Here is the routine.
Saturday
Water change
1 tsp K2so4
3\4 tsp KNO3
1\8 tsp KH2PO4
Sunday
25 ml TMG
Monday
3\4 tsp KNO3
1\8 tsp KH2PO4
Tuesday
25 ml TMG
same routine till next water change. 

I just don't understand why I get this brown algae on my plant leafs and I'm starting to get an hair algae issue. I'm not too sure if the tank doesn't have enough plants or if there are too many. I'm desperate here. Just not too sure what too do. 

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

I see no mention of C02... _Do you inject C02_?... This is very important in helping control algae.

The more plants you have the better. You may want to throw in some fast growers to help soak up nutrients.

Your test kit may be off on the readings... I use the plants as a indicator for adding nutrients, I about never use test kits anymore.

You most than likely need to adjust your fert dosing but I will let the fert guru's advise you on that.

For the brown algae, Otto's will clean that up.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

It looks like yu are following Estimative Index soing for CO2 injected tanks but do not mention CO2. Your dosing is similar to what I dosed for a CO2 injected 3wpg 75g tank. 

If you are using pressurized CO2, turn it up some more. You can SLOWLY crank it up until the fish start to stress then back it off a bit.


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## stcyrwm (Apr 20, 2005)

KH 12 dH
Ph 6.66.8

If your KH is at 12 degrees and your pH is at 6.6 then you would have 90ppm co2. Am I reading something wrong or have you written or measured something wrong?

Bill


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## tankedfish (Apr 9, 2005)

Well thanks everyone for you input so far. I did forget to add the fact that I do add co2 into the tank (presurized). I did crank it up some and right away the plants responded. The colors got more vibrant.

Bill I did notice that and I guess that my Ph test kit is going to go visit the garbage can. LOL. Hopefully I'll be able to get a new Ph test kit tonight so that I can get accurate readings or close to it. 

Other then what's written so far I'm not too sure where to go from here. Going to watch and see what goes on. I did turn up the co2 so hopefully that was the problem.

thanks everyone.


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

CO2 is 90% of the algae problems.

Get a good pH measurement and Kh measurement also.

Test often if there apopears to be any issue or lull in growth.

Using EI, you can figure out the CO2 is the issue very easily and quickly since it isolates the CO2 as the only real thing that is not in a good target range.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## tankedfish (Apr 9, 2005)

OK now that I've realized that the Co2 was the problem. 

Should I just do a water change and continue my regular routine and hope that the algea clears up? Or should I do a 3 day lights out\start from scratch? 

The hair algae is not all that alarming. It's there but not growing all that fast and it's not really invading any plants per say. 

Well hopefully my tank can head in the right direction. And I can stop worrying about how I'm going to get ride of the algae. Although I'm pretty good at growing it. LOL

Thanks


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Now that you realize the problem is the C02 you can correct that and the algae should start to fade away once you get a steady flow of C02 at 30ppm. 

I would do a 50% water change and then start dosing ferts again using 
your normal routine.


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