Newly planted tanks and algae

[johnstires]

Do newly planted tanks always have a slight algae outbreak? I just set up a 10G planted and a week into it, I am getting algae all over my plants and rocks. I was just wondering if this is normal fro a tanks that has just been set up and planted. Will the algae die down after the plants take root and start to compete for nutrients? In your experience, how long does it take for this to happen? Right now I have 36W with a hagen CO2 that is pumping out one bubble every 7-8 sec. yesterday I emptied the CO2 canister and added the contents minus the baking soda to hopefully get more bubbles per sec. Someone please assure me that this is natural and that eventually the algae will die down.

[rdmpe]

Once the plants are established things will probably clear up. However, I would definitely recommend an oto cat or two (1" to 1.5") and a batch of Malaysian Trumpet Snails. If you get a bunch of hair algae, you may have a tough time getting rid of that unless you get a Siamese Algae Eater which can be tough to find. See my other post in the other algae thread...

[johnstires]

I already have 2 ottos in there and plan on adding a third on tuesday. How long does it usually take to clear up?

[rdmpe]

Well, I think the biggest factor in clearing my tanks was the trumpet snails. It will take some patience. I would say that after 4 weeks or so with snails you might start seeing your rocks again. Not sure how it will turn out with just the oto's. Maybe double or more? Either way it depends on a lot of other things too with nutrient balance and such.

[Starry]

Yes, this is totally normal. Make sure you have a lot of fast-growing plants, anything cheap will be good. Have you been calculating your CO2 levels? Measure KH and pH, and read off the CO2 concentration from a chart. Here's a good one:
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/kh-ph-co2-chart.html
You want it between 20-30 ppm. Feel free to add more yeast to your mix. The reactor that comes with the hagen system is pretty good, I've been using it with my DIY set-up.
Also, are you fertilizing? Adding potassium (~20ppm), phosphate (~1ppm) and traces will do wonders. It won't bring more algae. I only got rid of my algae after I started dosing this way. I have the same set-up as you btw, 10 gal w/ 36w.
Good luck :)

[superjohnny]

With that much light I'd pretty much expect algae. 3.6wpg is a lot. Got pics?

[JLudwig]

Originally posted by johnstires
Right now I have 36W with a hagen CO2 that is pumping out one bubble every 7-8 sec. yesterday I emptied the CO2 canister and added the contents minus the baking soda to hopefully get more bubbles per sec.

I am going to tell you something you probably don't want to hear... you are going to have a very difficult time keeping up with 36W of lighting on a 10 gallon using DIY CO2. Algae eaters are good at keeping things in check, not cleaning up after outbrakes. So what can you do now? Roughly (And I mean very roughly) you'll need over 1 bubble per second out of your CO2, probably something near 2-3, but be sure to test as mentioned above. This is your most critical issue right now: 20-30ppm of CO2. I would be doing 50% water changes every 3 days or so if the algae gets bad until your plants start growing a bit. Use really fast growers, H. polysperma, and plants like that. For an algae crew, 1-2 ottos, 15-20 Amano shrimp, your tank is way too small for SAEs.

You are going to need at the least a good trace fert, and a source of potassium, eventually NO3 and PO4 if you get the CO2 moving. Do you have these chemicals around? If so keep change water at 10ppm NO3, 1.0ppm PO4, 20ppm K+... I see the suggestion of 3 wpg lighting, I dont think this is good for those just starting, it can be really rough... your other option is to use two 10W (I think they are 10) strip lights they sell for 10 gallon aquariums, regular T8 bulbs... I've grow E. tennellus var micro and Riccia fluitans under this stuff, plenty of light, maybe cost 10-15 dollars or so per light...

This is how I got into high-tech tanks, by overdoing my lighting in my first setup, not really what I wanted... I struggled for a year or so with all sorts of algae until I bought a pressurized system...

[johnstires]

Thanks for all the tips. I think right now I'm gonna try and have a little faith that things will balance out once the plants take hold, the tank still is pretty young. I'm going to start my water changes at 30-40% per week. I'll also try to trim or remove any plants that get too cover with algae. I don't have any pics right now. I will keep you al posted aseverything develops.

[Starry]

Originally posted by johnstires
Thanks for all the tips. I think right now I'm gonna try and have a little faith that things will balance out once the plants take hold, the tank still is pretty young. I'm going to start my water changes at 30-40% per week. I'll also try to trim or remove any plants that get too cover with algae. I don't have any pics right now. I will keep you al posted aseverything develops.

You didn't mention fertilization again. You definitely need traces, K and P. Pick up Seachem products if you don't want to do any research. The potassium will run out quickly - you'll need about 20 mL per week on a 10 gal (of Seachem's potassium). The Phosporus is concentrated enough to last you a long time. Also pick up Seachem Flourish or Tropica Master Grow. It may seem a little counterintuitive to add so many fertilizers when you already have algae, but your plants will never grow well without. Good luck

[Godslayer]

These guys are right, you have to keep your CO2 up and stable if you want to avoid algae with that much light. I am running 4.1 WPG CF over a 10G and have hardly any algae as long as the CO2 is kept up. I am running a compressed setup so it's pretty self maintained. I have experienced severe algae problems when CO2 fluctuated and/or dropped. Ottos are a must. My tank is stocked with 1 Florida Flag Fish, 1 SAE, 4 Ottos and various snails. I also fertilize heavily.

BTW: IME it usually takes about 6-8 weeks for algae to start clearing out.

[johnstires]

So I trimmed alot of the plants that had algae. There seems to be pretty good growth, I'm spotting alot of new growth among the glosso and dwarf hair grass. I also did a 40% water change. My PH is really high, 7.8. I can't seem to get the hagen system to pump out more CO2. I did a search on here and people have posted some DIY recipes for hagens, but none of them seem to give more than a bubble per 8 sec. Does anyone have any DIY recipes specifically for the hagen canister set up? Will too much yeast cause problems? I was thinking of doubling the yeast (1/4 tsp) in the canister without adding baking soda. 1 cup of sugar and 3 cups of water. Currently I have one of the packets of yeast (i think about 1/8 tsp.) 1 cup of sugar and 3 cups of water. Any thoughts?

[Sumpin'fishy]

I use two of these systems linked into a single power reactor on my 20 gal tank! I fill the containers with sugar to the "first line", then add 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tsp of yiest. I hear that the baking soda also adds some CO2 (that's what a few sites say!)

Each container lasts for 2 weeks easily, and I simply alternate refilling one each week. I have a normal (aged) pH of 7.8 just like you, with a 5.4 KH, and mine has dropped to 6.7 a few times, but regularly hovers around 6.9 to 7.0 pH.

[johnstires]

Hey Sumpin'fishy how many bubble per sec do you get? Also what does "normal (aged) pH of 7.8" mean? Is 7.8 normal?

[Starry]

Originally posted by johnstires
Will too much yeast cause problems? I was thinking of doubling the yeast (1/4 tsp) in the canister without adding baking soda. 1 cup of sugar and 3 cups of water. Currently I have one of the packets of yeast (i think about 1/8 tsp.) 1 cup of sugar and 3 cups of water. Any thoughts?

Feel free to add yeast. I have an airstone at the end of my airline, so the bubbles going onto the ramp are smaller than usual. This is trickier cause it can clog, but if you just have the end of the airline free, you won't have any problems adding more yeast. I use 1/4 tsp with the Jell-O recipe, airstone and hagen diffuser. Without the diffuser, I used to put in 3/4 tsp yeast. My Jell-O has liquified though, so I might have to put more yeast in anyway. You should look into the Jell-O method. Much more steady and last for months. One bubble every few second is way too low. Good luck

[johnstires]

Starry, thanks for the recipe. The jello recipe is intriguing at a glance, I'll have to look more closely into it. I can't tell if you use the canister from the hagen CO2 or if you use your own 2 liter bottle. What do you put everything in?

[Sumpin'fishy]

JohnStires:
I believe I get about 1 bubble per second, although I don't actually have it set up to count the bubbles. When I say "normal (aged) pH of 7.8", I simply mean that the pH in all my other tanks, as well as tap water that has sat in a shallow container for 24 hours has a pH of 7.8 (although mine happens to be very close to this directly from the tap, also!)

[Starry]

Originally posted by johnstires
Starry, thanks for the recipe. The jello recipe is intriguing at a glance, I'll have to look more closely into it. I can't tell if you use the canister from the hagen CO2 or if you use your own 2 liter bottle. What do you put everything in?

I never bought the full Hagen kit. I use a 2-liter pop bottle. My dad drilled a hole into the cap and stuck the air line through it, then sealed it with the caulking you use in bathtubs and stuff. It's held for about a year now, and I use the same cap even though I change bottles. No leakage problems at all.

One place where I do have problems, is with the Jell-O. Sometimes it works like a charm. One of my batches a few months ago lasted for 3 months. But sometimes the Jell-O liquifies, and it's quite useless, acts just like water. The one I have now is all liquid. I haven't figured out why this happens. BTW, the Jell-O recipe has been around for a few years and a lot of people use it. It's not like you'd be going into unknown territory.

With the Hagen diffuser, I use about 2 cups of sugar (I think) and 1/4 tsp yeast. I also just switched to an AC Mini filter, and I think that causes quite a bit of gas-off as well. Before the diffuser, I used to put in up to 3/4 tsp to get a decent amount of CO2 to stay dissolved.

Good luck. You should definitely use the Jell-O recipe. In case you didn't see it, my recipe is at http://aquaplants.web1000.com/art1.html Let me know if you have any questions.

[johnstires]

So just thought I'd update everyone on the status of my tank. It's been 2 weeks now since I first planted the tank. The algae is slowing dying down as the new plants take root. I started out with four plants, glosso, dwarf hair grass, Myriophyllum propinum, and rotala indica. If I had to do it again I would not plant the hair grass and the myriophyllum in a new tank. They create too much surface area for algae to grow. Plus they are both a pain to trim algae off of. In the future with a new tank I'd do the following when planting a 10G with 3.6wpg and a hagen CO2 system. Just plant glosso without any rocks. I figure this will minimize the algae infestation. Once the glosso covers the entire tank, then I'd cut out peices of the glosso for my rocks and other plants. I might also plant the rotala because that seems to have done fine during the algae outbreak.

Also I switched to Sumpin's recipe for the hagen system. I also used plumbers tape to seal my canister and this has helped too I think. I'm highlighting the plumbers tape in another thread, because I've never come across it anywhere. This is much better CO2 output about 1 bubble every 1-2 sec. My pH has dropped drastically to 7.2-7.4, and that's just in 4 days.

I have also done 2 40% water changes in the last week and plan to do this the next two weeks. Anyways, i'll keep you all posted on my progess and once it is photographable, i'll post a couple pics.

[johnstires]

Thought another update might be good. I figure it would be good to record my progress. It's been another 2 weeks since my last post and I still am battling the algae. Things do seem to be improving. For one, the plants are all growing nicely. I started out with a few types of algae, and all of them seem to be under control except for some really long green hair or thread algae. This stuff grows like crazy. Anyone have experience ridding thier tank of this? I added some red cherry shrimp and amano shrimp, but I doubt that will help out. My CO2 is still around 1 bubble per 1-2 seconds. My PH is 7.0. I was also considering adding Flourish Excel to the tank. Would that help or hinder algae growth?

[125gJoe]

I'm not sure if it's too late, or if I missed someone suggesting this to you, but you are supposed to start with a very heavily planted tank at set-up.

It worked for me and others on this website....

Later you can thin some plants out..

[johnstires]

Joe,

I did start out with a pretty heavily planted tank of glosso, dwarf hairgrass, rotala indicia, and microphylium. Every square inch of the tank have something planted in it. I did have the lights on for 6 hours a day for 5 days when I had just my ottos in the tank with no plants. Never saw any algae within those first five days, but maybe that was where I went wrong. I guess I should have never started my lights without any plants in the tank even if only for 6 hours.

[Jamie]

Hi John,

Algae....our dreaded enemy. I have been battling it for about a month and a half now. Just when I thought I was winning, BAM! it snuck up on me and hit me full force. one of the main forms that I have been dealing with is this long thread algae. I have a 150 and this stuff can just about grow the entire length of my tank. The strands can be enormous. It was recommended to me to remove it with a toothbrush. Just swirl it like spaghetti. I did that a few days in a row but it became pointless. As quickly as I could remove it , it would grow back. My plants finally took off and started growing well, but that didn't stop the algae. I guess this kind of algae is caused by high levels of iron. I tested my water for it but didn't getting any noticable results, though the test kit seems kind of hokey. Realizing that algae is caused by improper water chemistry, I closely monitored my water for a few weeks. I made sure, to the best of my ability, that my water parameters were as prescribed at chuck's planted aquarium and by the folks here. Unfortunately, that wasn't working. I went to the LFS and bought some American Flag Fish (otherwise known as the Florida Flag Fish)and some rasmhorn snails. The fish immediately started eating the algae as if it were candy. The snails also went to town. But they weren't the answer to my problem. They couldn't possibly beat the algae back to my likings. I finally went drastic this weekend. I spent 11 hours strait tearing my tank apart. As suggested by Len, I think that a root tab or two were disturbed in the gravel and was causing the algae to go out of control. I decided to do a deep gravel vac. After my first attempt at aquascaping, I wanted to make a few re-arrangements anyway. I removed all of my plants and decorations. I was amazed to see how developed the root systems were. I sort of felt guilty uprooting them, but this was for their benefit. I figured that since they were out I'd try the bleaching treatment that everyone talks about. I didn't go haywire, I just pretty much cleaned the algae off of them in a 19/1 water/bleach solutions and then dipped them in a declorinator solution. I have lots and lots of plants, so this took a while. I even dipped my rocks and driftwood. Once that was done, I throughly cleaned my gravel...it was nasty. I have 100% Flourite as my substrate and it produces enough muck....but this was pretty dirty. I re-aquascaped and am very happy with the results. All of my plants are completely algae free and they look great. A day has passed and the only algae that I can see in the tank is some on the glass that I missed during the clean up. Now that it is completely gone, I think I'll have the upper hand as far as keeping it at bay. I pulled my tank apart about two weeks ago to do a pretty good cleaning after a bunch of algae had died but not nearly as extensive as this one. Though the tank was pretty clean, there was still quite a bit of algae still in it. I was going to stop the ferts at that point and cut out the CO2, but I didn't. Instead I added ferts again and kept the CO2 going full blast. Sure enough, the algae came back full force. The CO2 injection and ferts create a delicate, yet fast paced senario. Yes, if you can keep up with it, your plants can grow like weeds. Otherwise, if something gets out of control, your progress spins off into an oblivion, like me. I'm really "taking a step back" (an earlier post of mine) this time. I cut off my CO2 cylinder and don't plan on fertilizing for a while. I also cut back the duration that my lights are on. They were reduced from 13 hours a day to 10 or 11. I plan on taking it slow. If the plants are growing slowly, then hopefully the algae will grow slowly. And I have a hungry army waiting for it. I'll let you know how everything turns out.

[johnstires]

Jaime,

It sounds like your has been set up for a much longer time than mine. Mine is going on it's 5th week. The hair algae or thread algae is the only thing that is out of control in the tank and as long as I clean it every 3-4 days, it doesn't become too much of a problem. I haven't tested my water for iron, but I would think it's fine, everyone else I know in NYC says NYC water is ideal for plant growth. Sorry to hear you're having such a hard time with the algae. Mine is a bit unsightly, but everyone else who sees it think it's a gorgeous setup. I'd suggest cutting your photo period back to 10 hours. 13 is too long I think. I've even been considering cutting mine back from 10. i will keep on it though... onward!

[djlen]

I think the photo period is too long Jamie. I would cut it back to 10 hours. Cutting the ferts won't hurt the plants as they have the ability to store nutrients, which algae doesn't. Then when you start to dose again, start slow and get a feel for what works.

Fe test kits are notoriously difficult and mostly inconsistent. I've never used one for that reason.

Keep the CO2 up and when you start to dose again only dose the N and P when the test kit tells you it needs to be dosed. Once the tank matures a bit all this will pass. Most people go through the same stuff to one degree or another with new tanks.

Len

[johnstires]

Okay it has been three days since I last cleaned the tank and the thread algae is still growing like mad. When cleaning the tank today i realized something when I was stirring up a bunch of algae in the tank. In a few hours the algae will have just stirred back down into the gravel and plants only to grow again. A couple weeks ago i took off the filter attachment from my powerhead and just let it run. It is kinda unsightly. Right now the tank has no filtration just water circulation. I have a 3 inch sand bed and quite a bit of surface area from the plants. Would it be better to put it back on? I figure with the water changes I'm doing every 3-4 days I don't need filtration, but maybe the filter will pick p some of the algae when it gets stirred up. Any thoughts?

[JLudwig]

I figure with the water changes I'm doing every 3-4 days I don't need filtration, but maybe the filter will pick p some of the algae when it gets stirred up. Any thoughts? [/B]

Water changes can reset the tank nutrient wise, but I want re-iterate my original comments: CO2 is most important, then worry about macros and such. Did you fix your CO2 issue: 20-30ppm?? Are you still getting 1 bubble every sec or two? This is rough, but you need 2-3 bubbles/sec for a small tank IME (these have a lot of surface area:volume)

If you are dead set on DIY CO2 go out and buy two standard strip lights and forget the PCF. Also put on a glass cover, reduce photo peroid to 9 hrs, then keep doing water changes... but unless you step down on lighting nothing will really help unless you fix your CO2.

[johnstires]

JLudwig

Yes I have knocked my photoperiod down to 9 hours. I am getting a bubble per 2 sec. I also started adding Flourish Excel to hopefully get back on track. Haven't added the top, maybe i'll consider that. I will get this under control and in the process I will have learned a ton about this planted tank stuff. :-) I've been testing my PH and it is at 7 still. I just received master test kit in the mail and it was incomplete so I can't test for KH. Good part about it is they are sending me another whole kit.

[johnstires]

Well <Knock on Wood> I think the algae has been beat. The last three days everything has been good and the algae has died back. I think things are finally finding thier balance. The glosso is forming a nice carpet. My rotala indicia is doing well, and even the dwarf hairgrass is beginning to spread nicely. I think the flourish helped out alot. I think it gave that last bit of CO2 that I needed to match my lights. I added fish and some more shrimp this weekend and everyone is happy. Hopefully it will be good times in the 10G. Once I get my hands on a camera, I'll pot some pics. Thanks all for your help.

[johnstires]

Well the Algae seems back. I had a bit of a CO2 mishap where the CO2 wasn't running up the Hagen ladder. It just bubbled up and out of the tank. This happened for about a week. Anyways I took a pic of my glosso up close. Can anyone ID the types of algae?

[plantbrain]

I'd recommend really keeping up on the CO2 brew mix.
Also, if you can sit the bottle on the ballast for the lights or on top of the lights, this will increase CO2 production by warming the brew only when the lights are on.
Less CO2 will be produced at night etc.

I'd spend my $ on a CO2 system before buying more lighting.
You'll have more success going that route almost no matter what.

One thing about algae, keep after it, harass it. You need to keep on top of it for the first 1-3 months and then things settle down and the tank matures. You can decrease this cycling time by using some seed gravel from an established tank, or use the Mulm method(The dirt collected in the bottom of a bucket when doing water changes vaccuming the gravel bed). A little ground peat also helps start a tank up better.

If thuings start getting bad with algae, do a water change, re set the tank and pick all the algae out you can/prune etc. You might need to do this 2x a week for a a couple of weeks, but it will go away if you keep after it.

Regards,
Tom Barr