My planted tank looks like crap

[Dearra]

Hi everyone,

My planted tank looks like crap. I really need some advice on what is going on. I am no expert on this, so I will try and explain the best I can.

I have got Seachem Flourite on the bottom of the tank.

I use Flourish Excel and Flourish Iron.

I have brown algae all over my plants and gravel.

Everyday I do an iron test, and always have a zero reading.I was putting in 2 mls a week for 3 weeks and this week I have been putting 5 mls of iron in daily to see if that helps, and it just doesn't stay there.

I was putting 5 mls Flourish Excel in 3 times a week, but I think I might change that to every day for a while.

Also, I am pretty sure I do not have enough lighting. I only have 70 watts. A 4ft tube and a 3 ft tube. I have got some doubles on order. I have the lights on for 12 hours a day.

My plants are growing tall and spindly.

I do a 25% w/c one week, and 50% the next week. (Do I still only put in 5 mls of flourish excel after a w/c.) Maybe, I am not putting enough in. (I don't want to kill my Discus to get the plants to look nice.)

Could somebody please help me. I am so dissappointed. I hope I have not confused everybody.

Thanks
Dearra

[Ben]

Dearra what you need to do for us is to post a photo!

then we can all help you a little better.

Ben

[anti-generic]

Seachem flourite provides alot of iron for plant roots already. You dont need to over dose Seachem iron aswell. Also dosing Seachem excel is only adding CO2.

You need Macro nutrients!!!
theres no main food for your plants. You need nitrates, potassium and a little phosphates.

And I need to know how big your tanks is to find out if you have enough lighting

As for a planted discus tank theres nothing wrong with your water changing routine.

Cheers,
Eric

[Dearra]

Forgot to add my tank size.

It is Lenght 4 foot
Width 14 inches
Height 18 inches

[pbates]

I have the same sized tank. You will want at least 2 x 4 foot tubes, more if you want to inject CO2 or use a lot of Flourish Excel.

Flourish, Flourish Excel and Flourish Iron do completely different things.
You should probably slow down on the Iron and start using plain Flourish.

As anti-generic said, you also need to make sure you have enough macro nutrients, so it might be worth while getting some Nitrate and Phosphate test kits to check whats going on there.

I'm sure we can find a good link that explains all of this stuff.

[Noddy65]

Depending on the types of plants, 70 watts just isn't enough.
You can fertilise perfectly but if the light isn't enough the plants just aren't going to grow.
For high light plants you should be looking at around 2 wpg (or even better 2.5 ish). Currently you have 1.75.
If I read your post right you have a 4 foot tube and a 3 foot tube, this means that about 25% of the tank is covered by a single 40 watt tube.

Id add some more light and then see how you go..

Mike

[Dearra]

Now I am really confused. What are Macro nutrients and what is potassium and phosphates.

I only learnt a couple of months ago about Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrates. I thought all you had to do was a ph test. There is just so much more I do not understand.

My nitrate is between 0-5 if that is any help. I was told the nitrate had to be 0. That is what I have been aiming for.

Do you think though, that if I add more light will the algae go away. I just want my plants to look green like they did when I bought them.

Dearra

[Noddy65]

From a panted tank perspective you want your nitrates to be around 20 ppm but this may cause some issues with discus..
If you up the lights I think you will see an improvement.

Mike

[Nathan]

if your plants start growing properly then they will use up nutrients in the water which your algea is growing off.

in other words your plants will eat the food that your algea is eating an your algea will starve an be reduced.

make sense?

[nicholas76]

From a panted tank perspective you want your nitrates to be around 20 ppm but this may cause some issues with discus..
If you up the lights I think you will see an improvement.

Mike

Interesting - 20 ppm ?? guys is this true?

ive done everything humingly possible to dropp mine to 5.0 ppm and this involves doing 3 x 50 % every week from my 4 x 2 x 2.

Its cured my alage issue by about 90 % but im worried if i didnt maintain the schedule the algae will bloom again.

[Phlipper]

Way too complicated to be successful in my opinion ???

What is your water like, hard or soft, tap water or rainwater ?
What plants are you trying to grow ?
What are you using for a substrate ?
What is your water flow like, airation ?

1...phyically clean off as much algae as you can first, anything heavily coated you're better off discarding now.

2...plants lots of plants, prefertably fast growning easy ones to begin with like Vallis, Ambulia, Wisteria and Common Swords.

3...Increase your lighting if you can with 3 X 4 foot fluros

4...Stop putting in so much fertiliser and reduce your light on time to 10 hours, you're just feeding the algae. I just use plain fertiliser, Wardleys brand and dose just with each water change, twice weekly.

5...Dont confuse yourself with costly test kits for this and that, keep up your water changes and you dont need anything else

In essence.............KEEP IT SIMPLE, this works the best and is a lot less trouble.

[spudly]

Dearra,

Phlipper is dead right. For a low tech setup without CO2 injection these other products are only feeding the algae. Also consider floating plants ( riccia etc)as these take CO2 from the atmosphere and give the plants a competitive edge over algae, they also stop so much light reaching the algae. Remember the aquarium should be in balance so if you have too little light and CO2 and an excess of nutrients algae will thrive. You need to give plants the upper hand by increasing light and CO2 (remove airstones etc) available to them and removing excess nutrients(water changes). Of course you could go high tech with CO2 and strong lighting (which I'd recommend) and most of your algae woes will be gone. This can be expensive although there is a post on this forum about DIY yeast CO2 systems.

Good luck

Rob

[spudly]

Dearra,

Phlipper is dead right. For a low tech setup without CO2 injection these other products are only feeding the algae. Also consider floating plants ( riccia etc)as these take CO2 from the atmosphere and give the plants a competitive edge over algae, they also stop so much light reaching the algae. Remember the aquarium should be in balance so if you have too little light and CO2 and an excess of nutrients algae will thrive. You need to give plants the upper hand by increasing light and CO2 (remove airstones etc) available to them and removing excess nutrients(water changes). Of course you could go high tech with CO2 and strong lighting (which I'd recommend) and most of your algae woes will be gone. This can be expensive although there is a post on this forum about DIY yeast CO2 systems.

Good luck

Rob

[Dearra]

What a mess I am in now. When I just had the 70 watts, I was actually starting to get a handle on the aglae by rubbing it off and doing w/c's. It was starting to look pretty good, and everything was starting to grow properly. Last week my new lights arrived. I now have 2 x 4ft lights, plus a 3ft light, a total of 110 watts. Since then, the algae has gone rampant, it is worse than what it was before. I have cut the light back to 10 hours. The plants I have are ambulia, anubias and ludwigia. The tops of the ambulia look like they are burnt, and the anubias are black from the algae. Can someone please tell me what I can do now to fix this.

[Noddy65]

Cut back on the ferts...starve the algae.
You don't have enough stem plants to try and out compete the algae for nutrients..
The black edges sounds like you may be getting the beginnings of BBA. Its tough to get rid of but I found that if I turn off the filters and squirt some peroxide directly on it it can get under control..the other method is to up your CO2. Be warned though that the peroxide method can injure your plants as well.
Keep up the water changes etc...algae is a curse but if you stick at it it can be controlled...its more of a curse/problem in newly setup/altered tanks. Over time the algae sorts itself out as long as it doesnt get out of control..

Mike

[spudly]

Peroxide will probably work in the short term but it is only a band aid fix and the Algae will be back before you know it. As Mike said CO2 will work and this is the only way to achieve balance in a planted tank in the long term. You have plenty of light and nutrients but the plants can't use this without the carbon from CO2. As the plants are unable to use the light and nutrients the algae uses it instead. The more light you have the more CO2 you need for the plants to utilise the light. Also in a brightly lit tank you should choose fast growing light loving plants. The Ambulia and Ludwigia are a good choice but the Anubias is a shade loving plant that grows very slowly so it shoul be put in a shady spot in the aquarium.

If you choose not to use CO2 I suggest undemanding plants such as Amazon swords and definately Wisteria as it grows quickly, using a lot of nutrients, also as I said in my last post try floating plants as they can obtain CO2 from the air. I would reccomend Seachem Flourish Excel as it provides plants an alternate source of carbon to CO2 and it is known to inhibit algae also.

Cheers
Rob

[Dearra]

Thankyou for the replys. For 2 weeks prior to getting the new lights, I went to the Seachem site. I started using their Suggested Dosing for a Planted Aquarium. Things were going really well, the algae was disappearing.

What I was doing was this:-

Day 1 50% Water Change - nothing added,
except water conditioner. (rub off Algae)

Day 2 20 mls Flourish Excel, 4 mls Iron, 1 1/2mls
Flourish.

Day 3 4 mls Flourish Excel, 4 mls Iron

Day 4 " " " "

Day 5 " " " "

Day 6 " " " "

Day 7 " " " "

I am going to try that again and hopefully within a couple of weeks things might get back to normal again. Fingers crossed.

The other products for the suggested dosing are Phosphorus, Nitrogen, Trace, and Potassium. I don't know if I should use them as well.

[spudly]

Hi,

I would suggest keeping up the Excel but do not dose any other supplements until new buds are appearing on your plants. Once they appear only dose half the recommended amount. As growth improves gradually increase iron and trace elements (I'd probably just use Flourish and Flourish Iron). This is because the iron etc is only feeding the algae if the plants aren't using it. Don't use Phosphorous or nitrate as you probably already have an excess from your fish load (these products are for more advanced tanks with high light and CO2 etc). Keep up regular water changes.

All this info is from "The Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" by Diana Walsted who is considered an expert on low tech tanks without CO2. If you can get a look at it, it would be worth your while.

Cheers
Rob