Black Algae Problem

[tredd]

I've got a 90G aquarium that I'm having a terrible time with black and green algae. The black algae is growing on all the plants, and rocks. It's been setup 3 months, and has probably about 40 tropical fish in it. The fish are doing great with no casualities. It has a gravel substrate, aquaclear 300, and fluval 4 filters, 300 watt heater. For lighting I have 2-F32WT8-AR-FS and 2-F40SP65. It is on 10 hours a day, with no natural sunlight.
I have recently added 2 - 12 inch airstones thinking that algae doesn't like moving water, but it keeps growing. I have 1 amazon sword plant, 10 Dwarf Hygrophila , and 10 Anacharis. Should I be using air stones? Will adding CO2 help anything? My levels are fine PH 8, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, GH 140, KH 90. The plants seem to be growing fine, but get covered with algae within a week of growing a new leaf. Do I have too much water movement in the tank? I have also tried removing the carbon from the aquaclear filter thinking it was removing something that the plants needed but no luck. Anyone have any pointers?

Thanks
Tim

http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/1.JPG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/2.JPG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/3.JPG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/4.JPG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/5.JPG

[Starry]

wow, that looks really sad :(

You're on the right track removing the carbon. You don't need the airstones.

Have you even measured your carbonate hardness (KH)? Your pH is really high for a planted tank, meaning you don't have nearly enough CO2. It would do wonders if you added CO2. Since you don't have nitrates, I'm guessing you don't have much other nutrients either. If you do get CO2, fertilizing with potassium, traces and little phosphate and nitrate will be the next step.

People usually recommend bleaching rocks and plants (very mild for plants) for this type of algae, but I've never done that, so I can;t comment. In any case, it will just return unless you take care of the underlying problems.

[marsupialvomit]

CO2 is extremely easy to put in.

[tredd]

My KH is 90. I just measured the iron and it is 0. From my reading it seems I need to add iron. Is this correct? What type of CO2 should I be looking at? Any brands or products you can recommend? When you say the underlying problem, what exactly are you referring to? Is that the specs of the water? What should idea specs be for a planted tank? Should I be fertilizing with any particular type of fertilizer? My LFS told me yesterday, that I should be using some type of phosphate remover to get of the nutrients that the algae use, is that correct? I'm kinda new to all this and any tips would be helpful!!

Thanks
Tim

[marsupialvomit]

no it's very good that you ask these things. I would put plants in my tank but cichlids would tear them apart. So my knowledge on plants is at a minimal. Sorry

[Skippy]

There's an Article on the Krib that involves this. It's actually a derivate of a red algae if i'm looking at those pics right. Check this out...

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/red-algae.html

[DIYMatt]

Do not use the phosphate remover! Use your plants as a phosphate remover. Your plants need some phosphate to grow anyways:)

I think Skippy is right about the type of algae, but I am no algae expert. But, I have had many battles with it, and have been winning for a couple years now. It could just be a partial symptom of new tank syndrome, your tank is really pretty new. With that particular algae, the only time I saw it was when I got lazy on the water changes. How often/how much do you do water changes?

Other than that, the best way to combat algae is to create an environment where the plants can outcompete the algae. Its all about balancing everything out. I will go over the overview of what I have found in my experience. The four keys to that are:
1. Lighting
2. Nutreints
3. Water cleanliness(not the most accurate term,but..)
4. Planting density

1. Lighting, Intensity and spectrum are key here.
- Intensity, most people shoot for about 2 wpg as a target, more with CO2, less without CO2. You are about 1.6 of normal output flourescent light, which is on the low side, especially with a deep tank like a 90. But many people successfully grow some plants at that light level. You are limited to lower light plants. More light would help, IMO.
- Spectrum, the light must be in a spectrum that the plants can use. I don't know what your bulbs are but if the plants had been actually growing for three months I don't think you have the wrong spectrum. I don't know what that code means, can you list the brand and name of the bulb? Also, age is big factor in flourescent lighting, how are old are the bulbs?

2. Nutrients - Micros, Macros and Carbon. with more light you need more nutreints
** Micros = trace elements. Your plants need a vareity of trace elements including iron. Some people use a plant substrate to help the plants out and they work well. The other is liquid ferts, there are many prepared trace element fertilizers to use. The popular ones seem to be Seachem, Tropica Mastergrow and Kent. I use Seachem Flourish and I would suggest it to you. I would buy a bottle and start by dosing per the bottle directions twice a week. It is a little light on Iron, but with your ligthing I would suggest getting a Iron rich fertilizer tab and put it under the sword in the gravel. I use Seachem Flourish tabs. Swords are heavy root feeders and your gravel is giving them nothing.
** Macros = N,P,K
-N = nitrate, your plants need relatively small amounts of this to survive. In your setup I would think what you get from feeding your fish would be enough, but you say it tests out at zero. Are you sure about this. If it regularly does you will have to add some, but get the micros going first before you decide you need to add extra Nitrate, it can boost algae growth if the plants aren't growing fast enough to use it.
-P = Phosphate, once agian your plants need a small amount to survive, but much less than they do nitrate. Once again you shouldn't need to supplement this at first, nor is it necessarily the cause of your algae.
- K = Potassium - this is something your plants need and in a pretty decent amount. You can use Flourish Potassium, but it is expensive long term. You can buy Nu-salt(salt substitute) at the grocery store and doses 1/4-1/2tsp twice a week. I think this would help your plants a lot.
** Carbon = usually CO2. Plants are made mostly of carbon, so it makes sense to add a source of carbon to the tank. But, this only necessary if you have the light and other nutreints to use it. But, it will always help and won't hurt anything unless you put in too much and it harms the fish. You can use Pressurized CO2, DIY yeast/sugar CO2, or Seachem Excel. This is another post entirely if you want more info here, but it does not have to be difficult.

3. Water cleanliness= water changes. This is a key. I am now doing 50% a week on my tanks. But in your setup 25% should be fine. It seems like a pain at first, but, you will develop a system. A lot of people buy the python water change units to simplify it. Currently, I would do several 25-50% water changes a couple days a part to see if that helps clear the algae you currently have.

4. Plant density- the more the better. I would at least double the current stock of plants you have. Especially fast growing nutreint hungry plants like Anacharis,. With most stem plants you can prune off the top of the plant and replant the top leaving the base. New shoots should sprout on the base you left. That would be a way to double your stem plant density.

These are good places to start if you really want to grow your plants. I hope this helps.

[29gallonsteve]

First, make sure you have the proper test kits.

Test you pH from the tap, then test the tank water. If you are using airstones (which you need to get rid of right now), then the tank should have a higher pH than your tap.

Do not buy fertilizer yet. Until you know where the Black algae or Red Algae (yes, it looks black) comes from you will not know how to treat it.

Algae is always from an imbalance of this or that...light, CO2, Nitrates, Fertilizers, Phosphates...

Get Seachem's Phosphate (PO4) test kit. Find out what you PO4 is.

Confirm that your test kit is accurate by having no Nitrates (if it is absolutely zero, I would be surprised, unless the tank is 2-5 weeks old). Take a sample of your tank water to the Local Fish Store and ask them to test for Nitrates. A reading of zero NO3 seems "fishy" (pardon the play) considering your fish load of 40 fish in a 90 gallon.

Siamese Algae Eaters (SAE's) and Malaysian Trumpet Snails (MTS's) are both great eaters of BBA (Black Beard/Brush Algae)...

I have also successfully used no more than 1ml/gallon of tank water of H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) directly applied to rocks and substrate with a syringe or eye dropper (yes...under the water) prior to a water change.

It will kill the algae slowly and is not toxic to fish in the proper quantity.


I would recommend looking into compressed CO2...but only AFTER you do a lot of reading on this board and two others:
www.plantedtank.net/forum/
http://aquabotanicwetthumb.infopop.cc

Thanks,
Steve

[tredd]

Thanks for everyones replies! I've retested my water tonight and the specs are as follows

GH 200
NO3 3-4
NO2 0
Ammonia 0
PH 8
KH 80mg/L

I usually change 20-25% every 1.5 weeks. The lights are in the pink and blue spectrum and can be found on this site here. I had the wrong type of bulb previously, but got these about a month ago. I'm not sure if would have caused the problem or not, but I was just running regular shop lights for a month or so.
Lighting (http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/2637/spectra.html)

I also measured my tap water and it is 8, the same as the tank. I have removed all the airstones from the tank.

Tim

[750t]

Check your tap water for phosphates.This was one of the causes for my algea problem. Too much phosphate is a bad thing. By the way Im 98% algea free. Ye ha Tim

[tredd]

I'll buy a test kit tonight. How does one remove phosphates from the water?

Thanks
Tim

[29gallonsteve]

In a planted tank with CO2, Phosphates are a good thing (in moderation). If you have over 1.0 ppm of phosphates, that could be contributing to your problem.

If you chose to add CO2 to your tank, you will need to add PO4 (I add about 15 drops of fleet enema across a week's time).

There are products like Phos-sorb out there, but the best way to get rid of PO4 (from my perspective) is to give the plants the right balance of conditions to take it up as they will.

The food you are giving them could be high in phosphates...

Thanks,
Steve

[plantbrain]

Okay who says PO4 causes algae in planted tanks?
I can show you my tanks and they are loaded with PO4, we have gone up to 2.0ppm of PO4, not a lick of algae.

So if PO4 causes algae, where the heck is mine? I've been doing the PO4 additions for 15 years. I knew about it about 10 years ago(came in my tap).

Tredd, do the reading suggested here already. It'll help you a great deal.

Look into CO2.
Also look into getting some flourite gravel instead of the blue stuff(acwk!).

If you get decent gravel, CO2, you are most of the way home.
Lighting is okay.

From there it's just water changes, pruning and dosing of 4 cheap things.

Readup on CO2. It's plum easy once set up.
What you will wnat to do, is add enough CO2 gas(and only CO2 gas!!) to get a pH of 6.6 to 6.7 and keep it there while the lights are on.

That's all you have to do for CO2.

Weekly water changes helps, 50% takes about the same time as 25% and makes for easier dosing later on.

After you address CO2, gravel then you'll move on to nutrients.

The absolute last thing you will want to do is add more light.
Wait till have a good handle on the rest before considering more light. The amount of light you have is fine for most plants.

So do the homework and then see what you'd like.
CO2 gas system will run about 125$ or so.


Regards,
Tom Barr

[tredd]

When you change 50% of your water, is this hard on the fish or don't they mind?

[djlen]

The fish will love the water changes.....so will the plants.
Just pick up a good 'water conditioner' and follow the directions on the bottle as you add back the fresh water. I use Aquarium Pharmaceutical's "Super Strength Tap Water Conditioner" and add a drop of it for every gallon of new water to the tank. It will immediately disperse chlorine and break the chloramine bond if it is present in your water.
Keep the new water within a few degrees of the tank water.
If you don't already have one, you might consider the purchase of a "Python" siphon system. It hooks up directly to your sink's tap and makes water changes a snap.
I change about 90 gallons of water in 4 different tanks in less than 1/2 hr. with a python. If you are going to be serious about a planted tank, IMO water changes are essential.

Len

[plantbrain]

Who's the person that started the idea fish do not like large frequent water changes?

This is very easy to see if it's true or not.

Do the large frequent water changes(weekly 50%) and see if you have any sick fish ever.

Your mortality/disease rate will go to zero pretty much.
You can tell in the behavior as well.

Clean pure water is best for all the fish I know. A few might like some peat like Killifish etc, but they still like clean water.

This also goes back to keeping up with basic maintenance.
I told folks this almost 30 years ago working in a LFS.
It still applies today.

You may be able to skimp and not a water change for 2-4 weeks, you may be able to do alright with 25% weekly.

But the problem is when someone has not done a water change for say 4 weeks, then does a large change all of a sudden, this can stress the fish in SOME cases.

But fish live in a variable environment. Think about it, big huge rains, wet/dry seasons and large water change levels, chemistry, temp variations etc.

The other thing is plants love it/algae generally hate it.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Timmain42]

Originally posted by tredd
The lights are in the pink and blue spectrum and can be found on this site here. I had the wrong type of bulb previously, but got these about a month ago.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me you aren't using an actinic bulb.

Actinic Bulbs (http://www.hellolights.com/48urisupacr.html)

I have YET to see a FW tank that has an actinic bulb that doesn't have some sort of algae problem. For some reason, people want their FW tanks to be blue...:shake:

The ones on the page you listed were 6500k tho.:confused:

[tredd]

I don't think they are actinic bulbs. This is what I'm running. The one is in the blue spectrum, which is supposed to be good for plants. The one one is in the pink spectrum
GE Daylight Ultra F40SP65 6500K T12 3050L 75CRI
GE SPX50 F32T8/SPX50 5000K T8 2800L 2660DL 86CRI

What's the best substate to use for a planted tank?

[750t]

I have po4 in my tap water and I was dosing it also. But I was not aware of this untill I got the test kit. Thats why the algea out break. And thanks to pb I do 50 % water changes every 5 to 6 days and with those water changes comes massive prunning. Read every thing you can its a constant learning curve. Tim.

[750t]

As far as substrate try flourite or onyx. Both from seachams. Some use others, there are a whole bunch of threads on this subject.

[tredd]

Well, I finally broke down and reworked the whole tank on the weekend. I've got a flourite bottom with a layer of gravel on top. I've got probably 30 plants in it. Does this look like enough plants or should I have more? When should I start using fertilizer for the plants? I bought a bottle of Seachem Flourish. Is this all I need or are there other nutrients that I should be using as well?

Thanks
Timhttp://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/dcp_1679.jpg

[Starry]

You have a little problem. Some of those plants are not true aquatic plants, and they will never grow, just rot and ruin everything for you. Get rid of them. I'm talking about the longish-leaved plants, with the silver edges. Also the spiky silver plant in the back. I'm not sure what you have in the foreground on the left side of the picture. Hopefully it's a crypyt (Crytocoryne species), but you may want to make sure it's aquatic. A good place to start is www.tropica.com for plant ID. Other sites also useful, so a search on google or post close-ups and we'll ID them for you.

So, once you take those out, get more of the Hygrophila. It's the lacey-looking one, third one from the right in the pic. It'll grow really fast and help you out with algae. The other Hygros you had before were good too, minus the algae of course. Also get more of the fluffly-looking stem plants. The one in the back left looks like Cabomba. Needs a fair bit of light but grows fast. The other fluffy stem plants could be Limnophila or Myriophyllum, can't really tell.

Use Flourish ASAP. Hope you're adding CO2 as well. Sorry I didn't really go back in all your previous posts. Adding potassium will help a lot, it's usually lacking in tap water. It's easiest to get a bottle of Flurish Potassium for now, and dose about 10 times what the bottle says. You'll want around 20ppm. (A cheaper alternative is salt substitute, NoSalt or NuSalt, potassium chloride. I always forget what the other one is, K2SO4 I think, check in the sticky at the top of the forum).

Good luck! Get rid of the fake plants and get lots more real ones.

Edit. Oh, thank god you got rid of that blue gravel. Flourite will be good for you!

[plantbrain]

10X better.
Yes, get rid of that **** corn plant and the mondo grass.

You are on the road to growing plants.
Keep it up.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[tredd]

The silver plants you are talking about are the 3 in the front right? And the 2 long leafed ones are the silver ones in the back? Those are all real plants. Hopefully Super Pet didn't sell me plants that aren't aquatic. Here are some more closeup pics. Should I be overdosing the Seachem Flourish or just the potassium?

Thanks again,
Tim
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/dcp_1680.jpg
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/dcp_1682.jpg
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/dcp_1683.jpg
http://home.cogeco.ca/~tbankert/dcp_1684.jpg

[Starry]

They're not aquatic for sure. Sorry, I called them fake meaning they're not aquatic. I see them around here too, and it's really sad. Get rid of them (the silvery ones - both kinds). And if you're that kind of person, give the LFS people a piece of your mind.

Don't overdose the Flourish. You can overdose traces to a certain extent, but too much can be toxic (trace metals are called trace for a reason), and you don't need a lot anyway. Don't overdose at all for now.

As for the potassium, you need a lot. It will get expensive, so you'll have to look into another source. There's a thread going right now, it should be near the top. For now, if you have Flourish K, they give a little equation to calculate how much to dose to get a specific concentration. The concentration you want is 20ppm (=20 mg/L). Just plug in your tank size, and calculate.

[plantbrain]

Remove those plants, add about 5x as many plants as you have now.

Folks often make the mistake of not adding enough plants from the very start.

More plants=> less algae.

Regards,
Tom Barr