Help need advice! New tank with eco Complete - Dallas Ft Worth Aquatic Plant Club

wwh2694 · 06-13-2011, 06:48 PM

Im having alot of diatoms gsa/gda algae growing fast on my tank now. I been doing 75% water change every other day and seems like the algae is winning. My plants looking terible now and dying. Im dosing PPS pro and co2 is already on 3bps. I will probably turn off the auto dosing till this algae is solved. Im going to dose 3x of excel to help with the algae. I have not seen this algae grow fast with this substrate. Any of u have experince with eco complete like this i need advice. Thanks

Tex Gal · 06-13-2011, 06:50 PM

Eco can raise the ph. Could your water be too hard for your plants to grow? Also 3 bps isn't tons. What size is your tank?

wwh2694 · 06-13-2011, 08:11 PM

My tap gh 7, kh 6, nitrate 0, PO4 .25.
For how long does eco will increase my Gh? Oh this is my 90gallon tank.

Tex Gal · 06-13-2011, 08:19 PM

I have about a 95g tank and I have so many bubbles that I almost have a solid stream of CO2. I have T5HO lights How can you have zero nitrates? It's the number 1 nutrient plants need. Sounds like you are starving your plants.

I'm not sure how long it will raise pH.

NeonFlux · 06-13-2011, 08:22 PM

Looks like you need to start dosing a bit more Nitrogen.

wwh2694 · 06-13-2011, 09:04 PM

Sory that nitrate was my tap water not tank water. I did start dosing pps pro and all the algae start growing fast except my plants. Does eco have alot of silicates? I guess i will up my co2 to counter the increase of ph.

fishyjoe24 · 06-14-2011, 10:00 AM

what is the nitrates reading in your tank?

wwh2694 · 06-14-2011, 12:12 PM

My tank parameters: kh 6, gh 10, PO4 0.5, NO3 5.

Tex Gal · 06-14-2011, 01:46 PM

You can expect diatoms with a new tank. It doesn't always happen, but it happens enough. I recently set up 3 tanks. None experienced diatoms. My husband rescaped his tank in a big way and had crypt melt and diatoms. Your diatoms will go away. If I were you I would cut my photo period if you have it more than 6 or 7 hours and dose more ferts. If you are doing big water changes you are probably taking all the nitrates out of your water and your plants are starving. I'm not sure why the big water changes anyway. If it's to get rid of the diatoms, can you just stir up the water and have it filtered out? Do you have any ottos in the tank. They will eat it if you do.

wwh2694 · 06-14-2011, 04:41 PM

Thanks. I will set my pps pro dosing more than i had it set. I will be leaving my co2 24/7. Im guessing my ph is more than 8 (im out of ph test) that my co2 is low and the eco is buffering up my ph. Im putting 3x dose excell right now to see if that helps on some diff algae thats growing right now. The culpit off all this is low co2 from the eco buffering my ph up. I set my co2 10bps or more this morning and my drop checker didnt change till this afternoon to yellow. Thanks alot for ur help.