Hello all, I am a newbie in desperate need of some help. I am a little nervous about posting on a board that has so many plant experts on it but here it goes.... sorry it's so long but I wanted to give as much pertinent info as I could.
I have a 55 gallon heavily planted tank that has been up since December 2002. Currently I am fighting a losing battle with almost every kind of algae and don't know what to do at this point. Like I said I am ready to rip all the plants out...
Here's the stats:
55 g with 110 watts of compact fluorescent lighting (GE® 9325° Kelvin 55 watts x2), and 30 watts (Hagen Life-glo 6700K 15 watts x2). Gives me 2.6 watts/gallon. Substrate is three inches of 3 to 4mm gravel over a thin layer of laterite. Water out of the tap is: pH 8.0 to 8.2, kH 10, gH 140ppm. I have three Hagen CO2 kits running...more on this later... Currently, my pH is 7.6, kH 90, gH 140.
Plants:
Elodea, hydrocotyle leucocephala, sunset hygro, java fern, two kinds of valls, dwarf sags, rotalas indica and wallichi, ludwigia arcuata, alternanthera reineckii ''roseafolia'', bacopa, anubias, one echinodorus uruguayensis and one madagascar lace plant. I had to remove water wisteria that started out beautiful... first plant put in... because it was dying and the hydrocotyle leucocephala as well. The elodea will be next.
Fish: 6 Neon rainbows, 8 Silvertip tetras, 1 bristlenose, 3 otos, 6 cories, 3 small angels and 3 SAE's.
Originally, I had just the 30 watts of Life-Glo... plants really did not do well and brown algae became a problem. Then I added the cf's and at first things were good, brown algae disappeared, plants were pearling for the first time, growth was pretty good. Then the algae started up again, this time green hair or green beard, not really sure.... at this point I wasn't dosing anything... I'd been told not to mess around with ferts by an 'expert' and being a complete newbie I was scared to try them. Then I was advised to start dosing KNO3 2-3 x a week because my plants were losing leaves, had limited growth, transparent leaves, browning leaves, etc... this did not help the situation at all. Around this time I discovered this forum and started reading... tons of good info here!!
After I did lots of research on my own I decided that my plants were probably deficient in everything (amm 0, nitrites 0 nitrates 0, iron 0,
phosphates 0... had been since week two of tank) so I purchased pretty much the whole Flourish line, excluding Flourish Nitrogen and Excel. I started dosing every second or third day, 10mL of Flourish Trace, 2mL of Flourish, 5.5mL Flourish Potassium and 25mL of KNO3 solution (1 teaspoon to 300mL distilled water). I did this for about a month, things were good at first, lots of pearling, new growth etc. Then I noticed that plants were starting to go downhill again and green hair/beard algae was really starting to overrun tank. I started dosing every day 10mL of Flourish Trace, 2mL of Flourish, 5.5mL of FlourishPotassium, 3mL of Flourish Phosphorus, 5.5mL Fluorish Iron and 25mL of KNO3 solution.
Since then, plant growth has not really improved but algae growth has exploded. Especially bad is Black String and a bit of BBA and Green Hair. I even have a little bit of Cyano. Last week after I did a 35% water change
( I do about 35% a week) I noticed that plants were pearling afterwords -which hadn't happened in a while. So I didn't dose anything at all, and haven't since then. I removed a lot of black string algae affected plant parts. This seemed to slow down the black stuff a bit but the green started growing with a vengeance again...
Now I'm not sure what to do. My tank is growing algae faster than I can remove affected plant parts. Even the recent addition of the SAE's hasn't made a dent in it... If I keep this up, I won't have any plants left. The cyano is very minor thank God!!
Now back to the CO2 problem. I cannot keep it stabilized... I think this is where most of my problems come from. The 3 CO2 units should be enough but are not functioning well enough to do the job. The plants are not using the nutrients efficiently because CO2 levels are too low and unstable... I think. I am going to be getting a pressurized unit in a month or so but until then... well I just don't know what I can do to prevent the algae from overrunning my tank. The CO2 levels are roughly less than 10ppm according to many kH/pH charts I have seen. My pH fluctuates between 7.2-7.6, kH between 80-95. I have a Hagen master test kit and test regularly for PO4, NO3, pH, kH and iron, tests for PO4, NO3, and iron always show zero no matter how much or how little I've dosed, which is particularly frustrating!
Please give me some advice!! I am totally at my wits end, feel like a failure and I really hate seeing my tank like this.
Sprout... a grateful newbie
Threaded Mode
