# Very frustrated. Still have serious issues with tank (pictures)



## Greendot (Jun 3, 2012)

Hey all,

I have the tank running now since august. It is an 18" cube tank, 25 gallon, with three CFL bulbs - 23w,23w, and 26w - all are 6500k.

The substrate is Eco complete, my filtration is eheim 2213, pressurized co2, my temp ranges from 77-80, and I do 50% water change once a week.

I have a betta, 2 tetras, 3 sparkling gourami, 2 young altums, and 2 cory.

The lights are on from about 3pm to 9pm and the co2 from 2pm to 9pm.

I dose EI with dry ferts. Dose regime: 
3x a week: N - 0.53 gr (I use measuring spoons so this one is the tad 1/4)
3x a week: (but I do two drops one day of that week): Phosphate - 0.033 gr (drop 1/64)
3x a week: potassium - 0.264 gr (dash 1/8

I also add flourish three times a week about half cup full and iron (flourish) two times a week.

Issues:

I have a lot of algae and the plants seem to die off or barely grow. Snails die in 24 hours from when I add them... When I started the tank I got a lot of snails with the plants and they were multiplying. Then they ALL died off and now when I add a few - they die very quickly.

Also, I got some floaters on Friday and now their roots, that were white and healthy, are now getting brown and short...

The photos were taken right after a water change which is the reason for that crazy pearling. I do not have any pearling in general.

I am obviously doing something really wrong. Please help me fix this.


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## joshvito (Apr 6, 2009)

> I dose EI with dry ferts. Dose regime:
> 3x a week: N - 0.53 gr (I use measuring spoons so this one is the tad 1/4)
> 3x a week: (but I do two drops one day of that week): Phosphate - 0.033 gr (drop 1/64)
> 3x a week: potassium - 0.264 gr (dash 1/8


What do you mean by "gr"?
You don't indicate what your CO2 ppm measurement is? How are you diffusing the gas?

I would try to keep your Phosphate to 0.05 ppm.
Try cutting your phosphate in half and follow the directions on the bottle for dosing the Seachem ferts. The snails may be dying from too much ferts in the water. 
I would also cut your light/co2 down to 5/6hrs respectively.

If you want to follow the EI method of running your tank, I suggest that you visit TheBarrReport and check your method with the source.

You may also be interested in another thread here on APC, discussing the very issues you are having, the thread is at http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/general-aquarium-plants-discussions/86006-niko-says-high-tech-cant-go.html


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

I think the first step here is to clean the tank. Clean all the glass. Remove the plants and discard anything that is not healthy. Vacuum the substrate. Do a 50% water change. What’s the filter? Clean it out in the tank water you remove. Turn off one or two of the lights. Don’t add anything for a few days and then repeat the whole cleaning process.


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## junglefowl (Nov 16, 2012)

You can try to divide the time the lights on...like 3 hours in the morning and maybe 3-4 hours in the afternoon...I keep my diy CO2 on 24/7...
Now you need to do a 30% water change three times a week and clean the algea off your tank every time you do it...as much as you can...and maybe just dose excel only


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## Greendot (Jun 3, 2012)

joshvito said:


> What do you mean by "gr"?
> You don't indicate what your CO2 ppm measurement is? How are you diffusing the gas?
> 
> I would try to keep your Phosphate to 0.05 ppm.
> ...


Sorry about that. gr = grams

I do not know what is the PPM of my CO2. I have a drop checker and it is quite yellow. I built a diy co2 reactor like this http://www.rexgrigg.com/diy-reactor_old.htm

I will cut the light/co2 hours. I will try to lower my phosphate. BTW - I am using the calculator on this site for my EI and then I use the higher levels of the range over there.


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## Silenced (Sep 27, 2012)

try one by one
reduce the times of fert from several times a week to once a week
then
I would first start the increase the duration of the light from 6hr to 8 or 10 hours.
brown algae sometimes due to the fact that not much light though you have good light source.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Well this is a strange one.

Lets break this down. All plants are doing not growing well. The fertilizers are adequate, and general conditions seem ok or at least do not account for the plants dying.

Things that I can think of that can both affect the growth of every plant species in your tank and kill snails are: a toxin, not enough light, or too high of a temperature.

Toxin:
I noticed you say you add flourish 3x a week at half a cup. Is this flourish excel? If so be sure you do not overdose the *daily* recommended dose (not the initial one time only dose!) by more than 3x or you will have problems. Half a cup is more than I use in my 90g tank in a whole week at 3x the recommended dose, so if you are adding 1.5 cups a week I think that might have something to do with your problems. Oh, also, flourish excel kills vals and riccia.

Light:
If that is not the case, then lighting may be causing the snail death and the plants to do poorly. 6 hours a day is not very long to have lights on for. I'm not entirely convinced this is your problem but it is usually the issue when plants start deteriorating across all species. As the plants decay they release ammonia which kills the snails. The brown "algae" is also a sign of low light. This dinoflagellate does not do well with high light, so it seems to lend a third line of evidence to the light theory.

Temperature:
High temperature can also uniformly kill plants and snails, but I doubt this is the case since plant death occurs around 86F and snail death probably around 90-95 (along with fish death).

My Conclusion:
The three issues that can globally affect plants and fish in your tank. Looks like it is probably either excel overdose, or low light issues, or a combination of both.


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## MissileBear (Feb 28, 2013)

I don't see anything mentioned about your water. Let's start at the bottom.

Are you using tap water, RO? Are you using well water? What are your water parameters? pH/GH/KH? Are you using dechloronator? Is there chloromine in your water?

While I initially agree with Zapins on the Excel overdose, I'd like to know about your water.


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## R_Andersen (Mar 14, 2012)

I'm guessing you meant to say 1/2 a CAP full of excell, not half a cup full 3x a week? Otherwise that is likely your problem.

I also had similar issues when starting out and my problem was a few things. I had a big bio load and when using EI dosing I was overdoing the Nitrates. I cut the Nitrate dosing in half and things started to improve. I also had a lot of decaying plant matter I wasn't removing that causes issues as well.

You really need to test the water parameter for Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate and make sure you remove any dead plant matter from the tank regulalry.

-Rob


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## Smcoyle87 (Jan 30, 2013)

I absolutely agree with a diagnosis of overdosing excel. Let's hope you meant CAP and not CUP. 
If it's not that, I would say it's an overdose of ferts, which is causing insufficient Co2 levels. Those 3 CFL's at 23w,23w and 26w seem, to me, to be enough lighting. I'm thinking it's a Co2 problem. With DiY C02, it's important to maintain the Co2 output and not let the level fluctuate too much. Again, this is just my humble opinion. We'll probably need more information. For now, I would do a big tank cleaning.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Hey this is easy folk! That tank has some kind of poisoning going on. It's either from the tons of stuff that he is adding to the tank or from his water. What he describes is not over/underdosing problem, lack of CO2 or light over/under. Snails don't die like he says because of ferts overdose/underdose.

I suggest you look carefully at every single thing you do. Look inside your filter to start with. Is everything as is should be (no funky commercial medias in it). Then the tap water is the next to suspect. If you have a way get distilled water from the store or RO if you can find it where you live.

Second thing to do is to make sure you are indeed adding what you think you are adding. Look at the chemical formulas of each fertilizer. Is it exactly what you think it is? Use the Fertilator to see how much N or P or K you are actually adding. 

There is another simple possibility: Some time in the past you severely overdosed with something. Now you think your ferts are at certain levels but one or a few of them are sky high. 

Your lights are not enough for that tank. CFL's are a bad choice of light bulbs. Divide their wattage in half to find out how many watts per gallon you are actually supplying. That works out to 36 watts - or 1.44 watts per gallon. Do you see your brown algae? They develop in tanks with low light. Consider that.

The picture where you can see the surface of the water looks like the water surface is not moving very well. Do the bubbles just sit there and never pop? Do they accumulate and just sit on the surface? If that is so you need more flow. And part of it should stir the surface. Just that will be a big step forward.

If you have different kinds of algae in different areas that tells you one thing - your flow is not enough. Basically you have areas in your tank where the environment is very different. Good flow evens that out.

Also please know that aquatic plants absolutely love to have substrate that is acidic. You find out if your Eco Complete is acidic. Many people have used it successfully but that does not change the fact that acidic substrate is vastly superior.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Reading over the many suggestions posted in this thread I think that many people are slightly confused about the difference between what a fertilizer issue looks like and what a global issue looks like. 

There have been a lot of people advising you to check your fertilizers or keep CO2 up or clean the tank out etc... etc... The issue is not your fertilizer regime. 

If the problem was caused by incorrect fertilization of nutrients or of CO2 then you WILL see some plants growing better than others and even more specifically you will see some areas of each individual plant growing better or worse than other areas. This is because plants have the ability to pull out some of the nutrients they need to keep growing from older less useful tissue. This is why you will often see plants that have deteriorating old growth but fresh new growth, or sometimes the other way around - depending on which nutrient they are lacking.

You don't see that at all here. You see every plant dying all over. There are no bits of good growth on the easier to keep species, everything is uniformly dying. This points to an issue above a lack of nutrients, something that can kill a plant outright. 

In my previous post I outlined the three main global issues that can lead to plants dying all over. Those were bad lighting, toxicity, and temperature too high (disease would be one as well but aquatic plants have extremely few diseases). 

We quickly ruled out that it was not temperature. The excel issue is probably just a typo as others have said which leaves lighting.

Niko is quite correct when he says halve the watts you think you are getting from your bulbs. This is because of restrike. Most CFLs are not single tubes with individual reflectors (like T5 high output lights). They are multiple tubes that are lined up next to each other. As the glass tube emits light that light hits another tube and is more or less wasted. This is called restrike. 

From the wattages you mentioned it sounds like you are using spiral CFL which put out even less useful light because they have such high restrike due to the many spirals in the bulb. 

Another important piece of information that was not mentioned in your original post is whether the bulbs have reflectors or not. If the bulbs are lying flat on top of the glass cover with no reflectors then you are getting less than 25% of the light into the tank. Probably around 15-18% into the tank. With reflectors you might get a little more into the tank. That combined with only 6 hours of light is essentially the same as keeping your plants in a dark closet. They have used up their reserve sugar supplies and now no longer have enough energy to maintain themselves. Tissue dies, and begins to rot, which kills the snails (invertebrates are more sensitive than fish).

I hope this sheds a bit of light )) on what is going on beneath the surface of the problem.


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## evanluke (Jan 26, 2010)

Sorry the tank has been so frustrating. Lots of good advice here.

What about low oxygen levels because of excess CO2. You say your drop checker is quite yellow. I see lots of microbubbles on the surface of the tank indicating a very still top. If your lighting is on the lower side, you definitely do not need so much CO2.

This condition would kill snails, cause chaos with aerobic bacteria (leading to brown algae), and contribute to universally poor plants.

Do you see fish moving towards the surface searching for more oxygen (especially later in your light cycle)

+1 on Niko's suggestion to increase flow and surface movement.

How fast do the plants die? In my experience in conditions where lighting is low but all other conditions are adequate, plants take a long time to die. If they are dying / deteriorating quickly I believe the root cause is oxygen related rather than lighting.

Also could not hurt to follow BruceF's suggestion to clean the tank, substrate, and remove any unhealthy plant material. This would lower organics and increase oxygen.

Then I would back your CO2 off so that your drop checker is lime green.

If you suspect that there could be some kind of poisoning, you could run activated carbon in the filter for a few weeks. My instinct is that the root problem is more related to oxygen levels.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

High CO2, especially when not used (so no oxygen is made) combined with low oxygen can directly kill the snails (and fish). Indirectly high CO2 and low oxygen is killing the bacteria in your tank leading to high ammonia, nitrite, because the bacteria do no longer convert it into nitrate. But this can (and should) easily be tested. Same things apply for an overdosis excel.

Another thing that comes to mind is water. What is your tapwater like? Hardness/pH. I've seen something similar ones with someone using pure RO water. He told me he added everything his plants needed and had nice soft water. But with 0 KH and 0 GH, everything was dying in his tank. Outragious hard water, is another posibility. I think I see some rocks. CO2 dissolves rock and raises KH. But with 50% water changes with normal water this should not be possible, unless this had high KH as well. Chlorine comes to mind, this can kill flora and fauna. Do you use dechlorinator?

Hope you find the solution, a tank should be a pleasure, not a headache.


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## rowdaddy (Mar 21, 2013)

Apart from all of the recalculations, etc. 

After you work that out. The bunch plants you have should.be trimmed of all dead/dying/algae plagued leaves. Then apostate them, and plant the stems individually. When their all.bunch together, they choke each other out. Between the decay and the inability to properly absorb the nutrients in the water, algae moves in.

I am Rowdaddy. 
SC Aquaria

75 Community
20H Community
20L Convict "Bedroom" 
20L Growout
10gal RCS
1.5gal in progress
55 gal Paludarium/Vivarium coming soon


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Unfortunately Greendot has been inactive on the forum from about 2 months ago, so I assume he has not seen any of our suggestions. I assume he faced the issue alone and whatever happened is probably long since finished happening. 

Last Activity: 02-03-2013 08:39 AM


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