My wonderful planted tank has algae! What to do? i have reduced the photoperiod to 10 hours and added some giant vallis, on top of the 80 or so plants in there ATM, and I have increased water changes to 30-40% weekly. there are 5 otos. Will this help? Tank is a Rekord 96, well stocked, 2x24W T5 bulbs.
mainly fuzz algae, with small amounts of brush algae and some cyanobacteria in the gravel (I'm guessing from gravel ferts tabs - I have not gravel vaced the last couple of weeks due to the gravel ferts and not to disturb roots)
My wonderful planted tank has algae! What to do? i have reduced the photoperiod to 10 hours and added some giant vallis, on top of the 80 or so plants in there ATM, and I have increased water changes to 30-40% weekly. there are 5 otos. Will this help? Tank is a Rekord 96, well stocked, 2x24W T5 bulbs.
The tank has a Hydor CO2 NRG fermenter, I replaced the ingredients at the weekend so there is a high bubble count. I am also adding liquid crabon (Flourish Excell) every other day. As well as the otos there may be an Amano shrimp somewhere, though I haven't seen it for a while.
Carbon is just one part of what you want here. The more you add the more problems you have and the more plants you can grow. There is a trade off there. You also need to keep the rest of the chemistry in equilibrium to keep the plants healthy.
You might want to do a black out here. Or you might want to do the excel treatment. Whichever one you choose read up on the ferts. Test the water. You need to keep the nitrates up especially with a low number of fish. You might want to keep track of the shrimp, dead things can cause problems.
I see this posted about all the time. The nitrogen gets low. The plants are the first thing to suffer, algae starts filling the space. Even with good levels of carbon it will become a problem.
