Tex Gal

Well it sounds like you have a handle on things now. What a huge job! Your tank has been beautiful. Thank goodness for Excell. While it's not the answer to the problem it can sure help clean up the mess!

BryceM

That's probably a bit of an exaggeration. The whole thing is still not at all visually pleasing. That's the thing with a 180g planted tank. When it looks nice, it's breathtaking. When it looks bad, it's like having a dead elephant in the living room.

I did a big cleanup trim yesterday. I uprooted a disintegrating Blyxa aubertii and noticed a rather sulphurous smell from the roots. I assume that's not good. There is lots of healthy new growth in places but many of the stemmies look like they went through a real bad spell. The lowest portions are ok, middle portions of the plants have a dead meristem, and the upper regions show healthy growth again. Does that sound like a nitrogen shortage to anyone else?

The more I think about it, the more it seems like I found the lower limit of macro dosing and stepped a bit too far over the edge. I don't know what to make of the sulphur smell. Clearly there are some anaerobic regions. That particular area is one that I deeply vacuumed within the last few weeks though. Strange.

I've been adding some Flourish Excel, but so far it doesn't look like it's affected the BBA much. The amanos, loaches, and P. t. 'Moliwe' fry look perfectly fine. I've added:

1/08/09: 70ml
1/10/09: 90ml
1/12/09: 90ml

Maybe I should just be patient, but I was hoping to see pink BBA.

I've got to take the bull by the horns and take apart the closed loop. I'm guessing my flow through there is much lower than it once was, which would also make CO2 distribution spotty.

Bert H

The sulfur smell is definitely not good, but I'm not sure how much of a factor it actually is. The only time I had that in a tank was a 10 gallon which did not have a particularly deep substrate. There was a huge mass of C. wendtii in it, covered about half the tank, and when I pulled it out, the smell hit me. I did a major water change, and luckily didn't lose any livestock in the deal.

LOL, I can imagine.

houseofcards

If you think about it. Over time every variable in a tank could be maintained or should we say 'reset' over time. The water can be changed, the filter cleaned, ferts dosed and co2 levels kept in their proper range. There is only one varible that really can't be 'reset' like this - the substrate. It builds and builds and builds. Even if you gravel wash some of it, you still have much more organic decay than you had in the first year or so. This reaches a point were the organic load can't be handled by the plants and/or biofilter. To add to this most of us will miss more water changes when the tank ages as well as leaving dirty pipes to further spew organics around our high-light tanks. A perfect place for algae to spread. I really wouldn't look to the dosing. I personally believe plants will do fine with quite a large range of dosing assuming the light and co2 is there. Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

Minsc

If you can try to inject the Excel directly onto areas of heavy BBA growth while dosing, it will be much more effective IME. Dosing the water column with the same ratio you are using did nothing to negatively affect the algae in my tank.

BryceM

Well, thanks for the comments. I'm quite determined to keep this tank going over the long haul. That was a goal from the beginning. Maybe it's possible and maybe it isn't. We'll find out.

I really don't think this substrate issue should be insurmountable though. A good deep vac should be as effective as a complete tear-down.

Let's see how it plays out.

My plan at present is to continue with what should be a solid fert plan, manual removal as possible, and Excel dosing to hopefully get me over the hump.

The vast majority of BBA has been manually removed. What remains will require loads of time to eradicate if the Excel doesn't work.

Sunstar

this thread is useful I have been considering a slow substrate change/mix in my tank uproot and replant some plants going section by section. My instinct says it is needed.

JERP

I remembered the last thing I was going to mention.

Substrates can and will get compacted over time. Some people use burrowing Malaysian Trumpet snails (MTS) to alleviate this, or some other kind of digging fish to loosen up the substrate. Compaction leads to all kinds of problems, and ends with root death. A light gravel vac can help with this, but you'll need to be careful about kicking nasties into the water column.

BryceM

Yeah, I've never had MTS's as far as I know. Since getting my sidthimunki loaches only the larger snails have survived. I suppose I could get some to keep things stirred up a bit.

jaidexl

I feel your pain and wish I could help. I'm also dealing with a 2+ yr old tank that decided to grow multiple types of algae out of no where. GDA, Small BBA tufts which are steadily accumulating especially on some freshly added manzanita, and thread algae (two types at separate times, both of which I believed to be spiro, one tougher and easy to remove, now slimy and fragile to the touch, both look and grow the same). I've been blasting CO2 into the tank to the point of a few close calls with fish, and I'll admit I've probably been fiddling with it more than I should, trying to find the happy medium (which is a real pain with the Fabco NV, IME). I tried to maintain full dosing for awhile but it only got worse, uptake slowed and ferts built up. It's been a long fight so far, I've decided on many culprits and made so many changes over time that I can't say it isn't my own fault at this point. I'm sure I have a longer list than you of possible causes due to issues that arose from malfunctions and my own impatience/ inconstancy. All I can say is best of luck and hope it's all under control before you lose patience and start over.

Oh, I have a bucket of extra MTS someone sent me, let me know if you want some. they're large and have very tough shells, some are old guys and are even missing parts of the shell but still trucking. I found some living in a val root base that was as deep as 5 or 6" into the sub.