FishyGirl20

I am new to this forum. I came here to find out about the algae outbreak in my 55g tank.

Info:
55g tank, set up for about 6 months
130w Coralife Compact Fluorescent fixture for 2.4wpg

Plants include:
crypt wendtiis red
wisteria
rotala indica
bacopa caroliniana
dwarf sag
echinodorous tennellus
anubias nana
java fern

Fish:
8 head and tailight tetras
4 rummynose tetras
5 flame tetras
8 corydoras sodalis
6 corydoras panda
3 yoyo loaches
1 BN
3 ottos
2 angels
1 German Ram

I leave the lights on for about 12-14 hours a day. I haven't been able to find a good timer yet.
I have natural small gravel substrate about 2.5 inches high.

The algae is bushy/fuzzy type and light brown. It is not black brush algae. It is a very light brown color and more bushy than fuzzy. It is all over my plants and on my gravel.
There is also some very short green hairlike things on my gravel and crypt leaves. They are like 3mm long and pretty tiny.

The brown bushy like algae is the problem. It is nasty looking and I have tried to get rid of it. If I try to vacuum it up I can get big clumps, but some of it breaks up into the water.

Last weekend I took out all the plants and dipped them in bleach.
I was told that this would get rid of the algae. It did but it came back about 3days later. This stuff has killed most of my echinodorous tennellus. My bacopa is dying and I don't know what to do. I am totally frustrated with this tank.
I was also told to increase Excel and I did and nothing happened.
The ferts I use are the SeaChem products (Excel, Flourish, Trace, Iron, Nitrogen, Potassium).

Water Parameters are:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrates: ~20ppm
pH: 7.2

Water is hard, but I don't know the GH right now.

Pictures:




Help!

Laith

Hi and welcome to APC!

Looks like an imbalance in your tank. Don't despair, it can be fixed!

Aquatic plants require nutrients and require them in a certain order. From left to right in order of "need":

Light > Carbon (eg CO2) > Macros (NO3, PO4, K etc.) > Micros (Fe and trace elements)

You need to work on this list moving from left to right. For example, it serves little purpose to have lots of micros added to the tank if there is very little light; you will just have an imbalance. Or, if you have lots of light and no carbon source, the plants will love the light and start trying to grow like crazy. But in order to grow they need carbon and lots of it. If they don't get the carbon, they stop growing, no matter how much macros and micros there are in the tank. When the plants top growing, algae takes over.

Your lighting is fine (don't let people tell you that 2.4wpg is "low light"; it is not). I'd get a timer and bring the light period down to 10 or 11 hours. 14 hours is a bit much.

You don't mention CO2 so I assume you're using Excel to provide the carbon. Excel is ok as a substitute for CO2 but cannot replace it, especially in tanks with good lighting (above 2wpg). With your lighting, Excel will not keep up with the plant needs. I recommend you get a CO2 setup, preferably a pressurized one but at least a DIY.

Once you've got your CO2 sorted out, then the current ferts you're using are fine, except for the lack of PO4, which you don't mention. Plants need phosphate.

So clean out all of the algae you can manually and then work on the above.

All of the this will not help very much if you are sparsely planted. Get as many plants in there as you can, especially fast growers. Once the tank stabilizes, you can then start changing them around to what you want.

Simpte 27

Lookst like thread or staghorn algae with a lot of debris attached to it.

FishyGirl20

Thanks for your replies.

I don't have CO2...only Excel. I will look into DIY because I don't have the money for a pressurized system.

I am pretty sparsely planted right now. I just ordered more plants and they should be here either tomorrow or Friday. I was thinking maybe if I added more plants the algae wouldn't be as bad because it wouldn't have as much nutrients to feed off of.

Is thread algae caused by an imbalance...if that is what kind it is? If not then what do you do to get rid of it. It may be a little while before I can get CO2 running so if there is another way to try to get rid of this stuff I will definitely try it.

zig

Before i got a pressurised system i ran a 40 gallon tank with DIY CO2 and supplemented it with Excel, i had very good results with this setup, algae was minimal but i dosed the tank correctly via EI, if you search the forum here you will find lots of info on EI (Tom Barrs Estimate Index) and different dosing routines, i would say lack of co2 is definatly an issue with your setup but you dont give your dosing routine so its hard to give further advice based on that, the biggest problem i had before i invested in a pressurised system was maintaining proper CO2 levels.

trenac

All algae is caused by one inbalance or another. More plants will help with the algae but you will also need to fix the inbalance to get rid of it. I would get DIY C02 setup sooner than later, you need it with 2.4wpg. I would also reduce the daily lighting to 10 hours and put them on a timer. Try getting your nitrates down to 10ppm and 1ppm for phosphates. Make sure to do weekly water changes and remove as much by hand as possible during these water changes.