# I feel like giving up...



## Laurystevens (Apr 12, 2011)

I have algae issues... I'm starting to give up hope for planted tanks + me. I just don't know enouhg about them to fix the issue. I have it growing semi-quickly everywhere and it's stressing me out I'm trying all these dosing things, plants are LOVING it, but I fear the algae might be too...don't know what else to do? Maybe just cut out all dosing and over dose for a few days on Excel? I need guidence!

Algae growing is:
*Common fluffy algae that appears 3-4mm in stranded (not hair algae)
*Spot algae (also some that looks almost black (only on rocks)
*Some toughty brown/black algae on wood (never got rid of but isn;t spreading)
*purple/black smear algae near the top of tank (not bacteria)

I have x3 grobeams (aquarays) + x2 54w sylviana plant tubes (T5) for 8 hours a day


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

How many watts are the 3x grobeams? What size is your tank? How many gallons? How far from the water's surface are your bulbs? Can you give us a px of your tank?

Don't give up. We have ALL been where you are. It's just a learning curve and your on the up side. After a while you'll be coasting down!


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## Laurystevens (Apr 12, 2011)

I tried to find out the watts of the grow beams but didn't find anything! I know I only managed to grow Crypts and Anubias under them before I got the T5's so I'm assuming they're low...any othe rplant eventually died OR grew very leggy. I have a 400 litre tank 5ft in length, 1.5ft deep and 2ft high. The bulbs are probably 6" away from the water surface, there is a glass sliding tray between to stop condensation. I can give a photo but am unsure how....Photobucket IMG?


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## Laurystevens (Apr 12, 2011)




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## hornedtoad1 (Jun 24, 2011)

nice looking tank; don't give up!
i'm fairly new at npt's, and have a 10-gallon that's had lots of tuft algae, and the spot kind too. it's recently improved, the algae looks like it's dying back. there are platies in the tank, they've been eating the algae, and that helps, too.
i got some frogbit a month or so ago, that's spread across the whole top of the tank, and seems to be starving the algae.
you might think about breaking up your light periods, 4/5 hours in the morning and 4/5 again in the evening, with a 4 hour dark period in the middle of the day. the plants benefit, and the algae suffers. 
good luck.


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## AquaBarren (Nov 6, 2009)

2 t5 HO bulbs is already plenty of light w/o the growbeams. Were you having algae challenges before adding the T5s?

Your tank looks great. Too much light seems the likely cause. Also, what cleanup crew do you have? Amano shrimp nerite snails, etc...aren't the solution to algae problems, but they will help strike a balance.

Beef up the clean up crew and reduce light is what I would try.


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## Se7eN (Sep 23, 2010)

Looks like you have too much light, try removing one of the t-5's. 
I have a 55 gal tank and use 2 t-5HO lights 4 inches above the surface and think its still too much light for me.


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## rlswaney73 (Jul 21, 2011)

high light without injecting CO2 and ferts will for sure give you algae... your plants wont be able to out compete the algae, hang in there... your tank is looking nice, I think everyone has a battle with algae sometime or another.


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## wwh2694 (Aug 15, 2008)

You need CO2 with that light or reduce your light and dont do water change. Water change put alot of co2. Co2 fluctuation will give u algae. U need consistent CO2 tru out.


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Your plants look very good.

Read this thread and check out the links to the treads I posted on another site. It may just bring you back!

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/algae/80026-very-good-info-gda-bga-relationship.html


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

You are frustrated because you have followed the trend of overloading the water with nutrients. It works very well and the plants grow fast and healthy. But the tank is unstable and if you don't maintain it well on a regular bases it gets overrun by algae very quickly. Also, for most people, even with regular maintenance the tank will deteriorate. There are no clear answers how to fix the problem because the idea of having fertilizers floating in the water is wrong to start with.

You can fix that tank with 10-20% water changes every other day, strong light for a few hours in the middle of the day + low light the rest of the time, making sure your filter works properly and you have enough flow that has a good pattern.

Usually the effort to fix the problems is through fertilizers all over again. Adding or depriving. Noone can say that they know exactly how to do that. And even when it works you are in the same boat - having a nice, clean and healthy tank which will deteriorate at some point again.

If you still want to have a planted tank you need to start seeing and treating it as a system - light, filter, nutrients, substrate, water changes - they are all parts of that system and work together.

--Nikolay


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## dstrong (Feb 13, 2011)

Very nicely put Niko. I especially agree with the filteration. Water flow should be circuitus(word?) and laminar with no dead spots. After switching to a low maintanence(sp?) straight bio filter, Rena XP3 with only lava rock on a 10g, I have never had an algae problem on that tank. The biggest problem I've had is some minute bba and gha after neglecting my tank for over a month but it cleared itself up after some mild trimming and a water change. Also a beefy cleanup crew will do wonders. They're not gona do anything if you have obserd amounts of chemicals in your water column but they can really make the difference in stopping what would have been a tank busting outbreak and making it a minor inconveinience(sp?) not to mention demolishing the remains of a mild outbreak. I know I'm gona get the MTS police called but I think Malaysian Trumpet Snails and Red Cherry Shrimp are the 2 must haves. They both readily breed so you will always have plenty of critters that you'll never have to buy again. Also throw in some Nerites and Otos to deversify the algae taste of your crew and theres not much your tank can't handle unless you have one part of the system waayyyyy out of wack, but then you probably have bigger problems than an algae outbreak. Just my 2 cents


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Excess nutrients have been proven over and over again to have no affect on causing algae in our tanks. Actually it is the exact opposite. When a certain nutrientis not available I'm the tank this causes the plants to grow poorly and thus allowing algae to gain a foothold. The main nutrient that is normally lacking us co2. Drop checkers are a good reference but are still a very poor indicator of real time levels. Especially when you consider they only measure the co2 concentration in one part of the tank and that depending on flow path of co2 enriched water, levels can vary quite a bit from one corner of the tank to another. The best and only way I determine what to set my bubble count to is to gradually and very slowly increase bubble count in very small inrements till I see stress in fauna in the tank. Then back it down a notch. You can never have too much co2 in the water as far as the flora are concerned, only the fauna. 

Light is the single largest contributing factor in plant/algae growth. And the single largest contributing factor in allowing the light to not cross the line into the zone where it starts to cause massive algae growth is co2 levels. Again because if the plants can uptake enough co2 then they can use the light to grow and not allow algae to harness it's power.


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