Fine brown powdering - substrate/food problem?

[TimboS]

Hi All,

I have noticed bit of a fine brown powdering over most of my plants, mainly higher up in the tank, and was wondering if anybody might have some ideas as to the cause considering:

*I use river sand as the substrate (very thoroughly washed before use)
*I feed frozen food and the discus do what, well, discus do and that's take a bite, spit some out, take a bite, spit some out, etc
*I use Flourish and Flourish Excel (and it seems to have become a little worse with use of these)
*I use UV
*I do NOT use anything finer that filter wool in my cannister filter.

So, when the discus get fed, there's all sorts of (fine) stuff moving around in the water from small particles of food to stirred up substrate and I guess it is this that settles on the plants (and thus resulting in the top levels of plants being the most heavily laden).

Is there something I can do to avoid this brown powdering? In some places closer to the filter spray bar (fully immersed in the water), the brown powdering actually gives way to a fine brown filament covering (and this makes sense that if anything bigger than powder comes out of the spray bar, it will be caught on plants closer to the spray bar). I just agitate things a bit and it comes off really easily, but just resettles on some other plants.

I am presuming that I will be told it's all normal and part of a planted tank, but still, maybe not ?!

I'll grab some photos and post them in the next day or so.

Timbo

[ILLUSN]

sounds like diatoms to me, small brown algae, looks like a superfine dust when wiped with a sponge.

bristlenoses will eat it and love it, upping your light and reducing your NO3 will also heelp (if you have low light and high NO3 that is)

any chance of a pic?

it could just be build up of mulm, have you been over feeding?

[TimboS]

Yes, indeed, superfine dust on as sponge sounds about right.

I have four bristlenose but they rarely venture off the driftwood !

I have purchased new lights, however I can only get dual 18W for my AquaOne PR-series reflector housing (for a 124L tank), so that's what I did.

My nitrate is generally < 15ppm and I do water changes every 3 days then 4 days repeatably, so I would imagine the NO3 issue is under control.

What exactly is mulm?

(I think with my new addition to the tank I may have been overfeeding and have cut down in the last few days).

(Pic coming tomorrow)

[ILLUSN]

mulm is a build up of detritis, algae, decomposing matter, that builds up in a tank, in some plain gravel planted tanks its the main source of nourishment for the plants.

[TimboS]

But to avoid it = not overfeeding ?

Is it as simple as that?

[ILLUSN]

usually, some will build up over time, good maintance, removing uneaten food and waste daily, not over feeding too often, good gravel vacs every water change, removing dead and dying leaves, not over stocking, will keep it down.

Its a normal part of any tank. still a phot would be better so we can see what you mean.

[TimboS]

Righto, attached should be some photos.

I left my USB stick at work and so had to crop the photos quite strongly to fit onto a floppy disk. In other words, there's not much to see but I think you will get the point.

(The discus photo is also not that good since my digital camera is playing up).

[TimboS]

Second try... (photos were previosuly a tad too big)

[ILLUSN]

you've deffinitely got a nutrient problem, thats detritis settling on algae, the algae use it as food, is proably a mixture of algae and bacteria.

its normal and once it worked its way into the substrate you'd call it mulm.

try adding somemore fast growing plants, during a water change, try and stir it up so it settles on the substrate for removal instead of on the plants.

[happygirl65]

You could also add more flow via a powerhead to help keep things stirred up to give it a chance to get into the filter.

I definitely agree with adding more nutrient sucking plants like hygro and wisteria. :)

[TimboS]

Sorry but just a bit confused here.

Nutrient problem as in too much or too little?

I have my submersed spray bar turned pretty much against the glass so the water is as calm as possible for the discus but maybe I'll change that now.

In the recent past I also used an Eheim pick-up filter to try and keep the water clearer and indeed I do not seem to recall as much of this when that was the case. (I removed it when I added Betta's to give a still water region for them to breath).

When I do a water change, I do stir this stuff up, but it settles on the plants more than anywhere else, and hence the photos.

I have some hygro and wisteria in the tank and I must admit they are not growing like weeds, but my lights are also a bit weak for the job making about 1.2 wpg.

Thinking about it - this is more of a problem now that I have started adding Flourish and Flourish Excel. So, my bet is now leaning toward too much nutrient.

???

[ILLUSN]

Its more of too much then too little, you'll just have to keep at it, adding more light will get your fast growers growing.

dont add any fertilizers just florish excell for carbon.

[TimboS]

Ok.

How about a greater duration of light?

I currently have my lights going for 4 hours of a night - 5 till 9pm.

The rest of the day the tank is not very well lit, but from what I read discus like it that way.

Perhaps 4 hours in the morning and 4 at night? Or, just more a night?

More light = more growth, so perhaps a good part of the equation to address.

[happygirl65]

The plants might be needing more light than that. In a low tech tank you should not need to add ferts, but you might get those lights on for at least 6 hrs a day on a timer if you need to (makes it easier IME) say 7-8 hrs.

[ILLUSN]

Your lights are a bit weak, 2wpg would be better, just run your light for 1 block of time 12 hrs continous, adding florish would just make things worse for you, try adding just florish excell on its own.

move your spary bar to give more current and hopefully push some if that mess to the filter intake where the white filter wool will trap it.

Bettas and discus will do fine with a little extra flow.

[TimboS]

Since the 21st the lights have been on for 10 hours a day and I have quit using Flourish (but still using Excel) and things are certainly clearing up.

Thanks for all the help !

[ILLUSN]

Good to hear things are getting better.

a couple of very deep gravel vacs will also help you out with keeping all that crud at bay