# Using PPS-Pro and algae keeps growing



## JenJen19720 (Mar 31, 2011)

Hi all,

I started using the PPS Pro system of fertilization a little over a month ago and my plants are indeed growing very nicely. 

However, I've had a problem of green film algae that won't go away. It looks like green dust on my aquarium glass. 

I also noticed that there is a bushy brown, and in some places white, algae growing on my driftwood. 

Lastly, I've noticed thread algae attached to my plants. 

I'm also running pressurized CO2 and I have a feeling I might be going overboard with the CO2. I got a new diffuser and it doesn't have a bubble counter, so I'm just going by the color in the drop checker. Today I checked my CO2 levels and I was really startled because before when I was using a bubble counter, I was doing 2 bps and I couldn't get more than like 12 ppm of CO2 and now... Well it's about 57 ppm. 

I'll give you my parameters and all the detail I can think of that you might want:

Tank: 58 gallon
KH: 53.7 ppm
GH: 0
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0
Ph: 6.2
CO2: 56.78 ppm

Lights - 4 25-watt T8 bulbs hung 8-inches above aquarium as follows:
Coral Sun Actinic 420
Ocean Sun 10,000K
Ultra Sun Super Daylight
Flora Sun Max Plant Growth

Feesh:
6 black neon tetras
14 harlequin rasboras (babies)
2 pygmy corys
4 otocinclus
2 nerrite snails
lots of pond snails or Malaysian trumpet snails

Fertilizers - 5 ml daily of this mix (mixed in a one-gallon container):
K2SO4: 222 g
KNO3: 247 g
KH2PO4: 22 g
MgSO4: 154

And 5 ml daily of trace elements of 303 g mixed in a one-gallon container.

So I guess I have a lot of questions... 

How do I get rid of the algae?
How much CO2 do I need taking into consideration how much I'm fertilizing?
How do I get some GH into my water?

Fish are all doing fine... 

Thanks for any guidance you can give me!


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## JenJen19720 (Mar 31, 2011)

Okay I feel really dumb... No responses. Is there a way I can delete this post? Sorry about it.


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## darkoon (Jun 7, 2010)

GH of 0 is definitely an issue, unless you're using RO water, you GH should never be 0, there should always be some Ca and Mg in you tap water. again, if you're dosing MgSO4, you GH should not be 0. and how did you measure your co2? i have never seen anyone be able to accurately measure co2 down to 2 decimal places.


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## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

JenJen19720 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I started using the PPS Pro system of fertilization a little over a month ago and my plants are indeed growing very nicely.
> 
> ...


First of all, don't feel embarrassed about your post; We love posts!

Second of all, I would suggest you read about the Method of Controlled Inbalances; That post will tell you a lot about your algae issues and how they relate to fertilizing. Even though you are following a fertilizing method, in this case PPS-Pro, you still have to look at your tank and how it is growing (and what it's growing) and adjust your fertilizing accordingly.

For the green dust algae, you need to determine if it's green spot or green dust algae. If it's difficult to remove from the glass (credit cards are excellent at removing stuff from the glass, btw), then it's green spot algae and that means you need to add more P. If it's easy to remove from the glass, then it's green dust algae and that means you have too much P. My guess is that it's the former since I've read that many people ultimately have to increase the amount of P in their tanks.

From reading the Method of Controlled Inbalances, Christian Rubilar states that string algae is caused by ammonia. From personal experience, I have found that I can get string algae from using bad chemicals. I, as well as other people, have found that low quality KNO3 can be contaminated w/ ammonia/ammonium. I purchase my KNO3 from aquariumfertilizer.com. I would test your KNO3 source for ammonia/ammonium to see if that is the cause of your problems.

As for CO2, I don't think it can be that high. If it was really that high, you would have gassed all of your fish. CO2 can be very tricky since it's effected by a whole lot of things like flow, diffusion methods, water turbulance, leaks, etc.

Good luck and let us know what you find.


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## JenJen19720 (Mar 31, 2011)

darkoon said:


> GH of 0 is definitely an issue, unless you're using RO water, you GH should never be 0, there should always be some Ca and Mg in you tap water. again, if you're dosing MgSO4, you GH should not be 0. and how did you measure your co2? i have never seen anyone be able to accurately measure co2 down to 2 decimal places.


Hi Darkoon, I use this CO2 calculator: http://fishfriend.com/aquarium_co2_calculator.html

I know, it bothers me that I have GH 0. How would I increase it, and what should it be at, ideally? I am having to use RO water because my tap water has very high levels of ammonia in it due to the severe drought we're in.


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## JenJen19720 (Mar 31, 2011)

JeffyFunk said:


> First of all, don't feel embarrassed about your post; We love posts!
> 
> Second of all, I would suggest you read about the Method of Controlled Inbalances; That post will tell you a lot about your algae issues and how they relate to fertilizing. Even though you are following a fertilizing method, in this case PPS-Pro, you still have to look at your tank and how it is growing (and what it's growing) and adjust your fertilizing accordingly.


Oh boy, I thought PPS-Pro was magic. Everything I read about it sounded like if you start using it, it eliminates your algae problems.



JeffyFunk said:


> For the green dust algae, you need to determine if it's green spot or green dust algae. If it's difficult to remove from the glass (credit cards are excellent at removing stuff from the glass, btw), then it's green spot algae and that means you need to add more P. If it's easy to remove from the glass, then it's green dust algae and that means you have too much P. My guess is that it's the former since I've read that many people ultimately have to increase the amount of P in their tanks.


Is it possible to have both? I definitely have green dust algae, and I get big concentrated spots of algae too. Those aren't really hard to remove though.

Also, what is P?



JeffyFunk said:


> From reading the Method of Controlled Inbalances, Christian Rubilar states that string algae is caused by ammonia. From personal experience, I have found that I can get string algae from using bad chemicals. I, as well as other people, have found that low quality KNO3 can be contaminated w/ ammonia/ammonium. I purchase my KNO3 from aquariumfertilizer.com. I would test your KNO3 source for ammonia/ammonium to see if that is the cause of your problems.


I don't have ammonia now, but several weeks ago our water supply started getting really high levels of ammonia, which I discovered only after most of my fish died over the course of a week. I had done a pretty big water change using treated tap water. When I learned the tap water might have high levels of ammonia in it, I tested the treated tap water I had been using and discovered that it still had lots of ammonia. So I am now using RO water from my local fish store.

I purchased my KNO3 from greenleafaquarims.com. How would I test it for ammonia? Mix a little in some aquarium water?

You know what, I mixed all my fertilizers in treated tap water before I realized the tap water had so much ammonia in it. Would that have messed everything up? Surely the ammonia would have dissipated by now?

My plants are growing like crazy, but the algae is too.



JeffyFunk said:


> As for CO2, I don't think it can be that high. If it was really that high, you would have gassed all of your fish. CO2 can be very tricky since it's effected by a whole lot of things like flow, diffusion methods, water turbulance, leaks, etc.


Okay, maybe I'll take some water to my LFS for testing. My chemicals might be bad.



JeffyFunk said:


> Good luck and let us know what you find.


You're awesome, thanks so much for your thoughtful reply and your suggestions. I so appreciate it.


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## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

It's really good that you checked your water source for ammonia; that may be the issue. That said, I got my batch of bad KNO3 from Greenleafaquarium. I would try the source I mentioned above, aquariumfertilizer.com. KNO3 isn't that expensive and shipping costs aren't as high as Greenleaf's. To test your KNO3 for ammonia/ammonium, add a little to some RO water, mix it up and then use a Ammonia/Ammonium test kit or strip on that water. 

P = Phoshorus. This is added to the aquarium in the form of KH2PO4 or Monopotassium phosphate. Of all the chemicals in the PPS-Pro mix, this is the lowest concentration of the Macroelements and many people find that they need to add more to their aquariums. In the stock solution, it is calculated that you add only 0.1 mg/L of Phosphate/Day.


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## darkoon (Jun 7, 2010)

JenJen19720 said:


> I know, it bothers me that I have GH 0. How would I increase it, and what should it be at, ideally? I am having to use RO water because my tap water has very high levels of ammonia in it due to the severe drought we're in.


use GH booster.


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## barclaya (Apr 14, 2011)

JeffyFunk said:


> It's really good that you checked your water source for ammonia; that may be the issue. That said, I got my batch of bad KNO3 from Greenleafaquarium. I would try the source I mentioned above, aquariumfertilizer.com. KNO3 isn't that expensive and shipping costs aren't as high as Greenleaf's. To test your KNO3 for ammonia/ammonium, add a little to some RO water, mix it up and then use a Ammonia/Ammonium test kit or strip on that water.
> 
> P = Phoshorus. This is added to the aquarium in the form of KH2PO4 or Monopotassium phosphate. Of all the chemicals in the PPS-Pro mix, this is the lowest concentration of the Macroelements and many people find that they need to add more to their aquariums. In the stock solution, it is calculated that you add only 0.1 mg/L of Phosphate/Day.


Hi there,
is it ok if I use seachem potassium and seachem phosphorus. Thanks,


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## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

barclaya said:


> Hi there,
> is it ok if I use seachem potassium and seachem phosphorus. Thanks,


Personally, I've never used them. That said, our local fish store, Oddball Aquatics, which is also the main sponsor of the Pittsburgh Area Planted Aquarium Society, does use it in their display tanks with good results. Seachem K is made from K2SO4 and Seachem P is made from KH2PO4. My only beef is that the Seachem P solution is very weak. I think i calculated it to be 4500 ppm P, which when added to your tank in the recommended amount is only 0.1 ppm P / day. In comparison, Seachem K is a 50,000 ppm solution, which when added to your tank in the recommended amount is 2 ppm K / day.

In fact, the display tank at Oddball Aquatics is fertilized entirely w/ Seachem Products and produces some wonderful looking plants for them to sell.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

To me your tank is too new to really worry about it. Yes there will be issues if it was not setup right. But remember that a tank is not developed at all until about 4-6 months after setup. In that period anything can go south.

By "setup right" I mean have a good size filter, good flow, and good flow pattern that matches the density of the planting.

My take on the PPS approach is based on my disdain for running a planted tank through chemicals + numbers. In the US that is the dominant style - be it PPS or EI. The tanks are run based on fertilizing, the issues stem from chemical imballances, and are fixed with chemicals too. Wow. 

This is the Algae sub-forum and most of what you will see is discussions about chemical deficiencies/overloads. But could you tell me what filter are you using?

--Nikolay


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## JenJen19720 (Mar 31, 2011)

Hi Niko, Thanks for replying to my question. 

I'm using an Eheim 2215 canister filter.

I just started adding minerals to my water and hopefully that will increase the GH. I don't know if that will help the algae but maybe it will.


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