skiwez

Hi all,

Been lurking for a while trying to learn as much as possible before I took the plunge. Well I thoght I had this all planned out, but I guess I was wrong. I seem to be great at growing both plants and algae. But I'd like to loose the algea. Below are the stats to my set-up I thought you folks might be able to tell me whats going wrong

Tank size standard 55 gallon with 3-5 inches of eco-complete substrate. Ehiem pro II filter and Ehiem 2217. On the outlet of the 2217 i have a CO2 reactor. 2.5 lb Co2 tank connected to a ph controller set at 7.2. 4 55 watt compact flourescent lights.

Water Param: Phosphates 1, GH 143, KH 161, Nitrates 0

Tank inhabitants 5 otos, 4 corys and 1 small angel about quarter sized

Not exactly sure of all the plants that I have. Bought a package from aquariumplants.com



Well anyway i seem to have every type of algae decsribed on this site in tank. The plants that aren't overrun are growing well.

The one big thing I haven't done yet is dose macros. They should be coming in next week. Not really worried about aquascaping at this point. just want healthy algea free plants then will work on the scaping

Thanks in advance for any help

Homer_Simpson

There are others that are probably more duly qualified and experienced than I am, but here is what I would do.

You mentioned that you have 4x55watt flourescent tubes, which puts you at 200 watts. The rule of thumb for your tank would be 3 Wattsx55 gallons = 165 Watts. So, your lighting intensity and depending on how long you have your lights on and the types of tubes that you are using could be contributing to your algae problems. I would look at reducing lighting intensity close to 165 Watts and leaving the light on for no more than 10 hours a day.

Another thing with algae, although I am still experimenting with this idea, put forth by others is that if you give plants everything with re: to nutrients, they will fluorish and you will likely have no algae problems what so ever.

In addition to reducing lighting intensity and duration, I would start dosing ferts and would highly recommend that you consider PPS-Pro. It is cheap, proven, requires no testing, and does not require water changes, although I would still do water changes. Check it out.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...n-systems.html

To deal with the problem you have now, I would manually remove as much of the algae as possible, get yourself a algae cleaning crew of Florida Flag Fish, Black Molly, ottos, amano shrimp, cherry shrimp, and maybe a Siamese algae eater. Don't feed them until your tank is totally algae free. Dosing with fluorish excel may also help. This should help free most of your plants from the algae and once you get your lighting under control and start dosing with PPS-Pro system, you should be on your way to a permanent algae free tank and your plants will thank you for feeding them right.

skiwez

Thanks for the help

Guess I forgot to mention the lights were initially all on for 11 hrs a day. I have in the past week reduced to 8 hours of 110 watts and 4 hours of 220. I also just started overdosing Excel as instructed throughout this site.

In general those with PH controllers do you use it to drive your CO2 or jsut monitor and have a set bps while the lights are on??

Bert H

You need to fertilize properly. You're providing a lot of light energy, but no other nutrients for your plants - that's an algae farm waiting to happen. NO3 at zero, and PO4 at 1 (this is hard to believe unless it's in your tap). Plants need food to grow, you're not providing that. Check out the PPS-Pro link Homer provided, and also check out EI as another way to fertilize, decide which way to go.

Until your ferts start, turn down your lighting to about 1wpg. Manually remove as much algae as possible. Once ferts arrive, do a major water change (50-60%), and start dosing ferts according to whichever type way you decide to go, and crank up your lights to what you currently have now for the 8hours. HTH.

skiwez

Thanks for the help, yeh thats what coming outta my tap. will try the PPS pro

hoppycalif

Don't rely on the pH controller to set the amount of CO2 you have. Instead, get a cheap little drop checker, and use it per the thread here in the DIY stickies. Once you start fertilizing as Bert said, and get the CO2 level up to around 30 ppm, then you can increase the lighting intensity. Personally I wouldn't go beyond 110 watts for quite a while, until you can avoid algae problem. Also, you do need to have a heavily planted tank, with over half of the substrate covered with growing plants if you use even the 110 watts.