Algae On Java Moss

Goatman said:
Additional waterflow and at least 25ppm of CO2 should help clear things up. Also, are you dosing fertilizers? If not, the algae is taking advantage of an imbalance in the tank.
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How can I determine C02 ppm? Iam using Red Sea Bio System which comes a reactor on it.

Thanks!
 
hmm ... i think you should be alright. Personally i have my outtake for the filter pointing straight across and a hagen 70 pointing to the center of my tank from the corner with the intake in the middle of both but only because my rainbows like to swim in the current but also swim out of it, too.. so theres one good spot but they can get out of the current by going to the other side of the tank.

Doesn't sound like you have issues with the water flow but i must warn you that improper feeding results in some strange algae if you use ferts. I find the common mistake is only to dose traces which is bad because there isnt enough NPK for the plants but there is enough for the algae! ... Get some macro nutrients and start figuring out the dose that works best for you. the best place is www.gregwatson.com he is a great guy and is very clever.

i have to add a pinch of nitrate everyday or my tanks N drops down to 0 and my plants starve. I also pinch in some P. My K comes from PMDD that I dose after every waterchange (50% once a week) but that PMDD stuff is prboably the best after large waterchanges to restore a balance in the water. I need to start adding drops of K daily to get some things moving unfortunately. I also started dosing a couple drops of Flourish daily. Fustrating but ive got some fast growers.

I don't really have any algae except for in my 200 litre and thats just diatoms from a newly cycled tank but that has started to quickly die off once my red lotus took off. I'm constantly trimming that thing as it sends runners to the top. The base is filling out but its been a fustrating process.
 
You can determine your co2 levels by calculating your pH drop. Depending on your buffer you will want to see your pH drop only so much.

There is a chart you can find in the co2 thread i'm sure.

Adding co2 to a tank changes everything when it comes to ferts. Plants grow much faster and because of that will demand more nutrients.
 
Go here and download Chuck's Calculator. It's really indispensible when first getting the feel of what you are doing once you venture into the technical realm of planted aquaria.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/

It will tell you how to dose, how much CO2 you have based on pH and kH, and how much CO2 you want in your tank along with a target pH to attain given your kH.
 
Goatman said:
Go here and download Chuck's Calculator. It's really indispensible when first getting the feel of what you are doing once you venture into the technical realm of planted aquaria.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/

It will tell you how to dose, how much CO2 you have based on pH and kH, and how much CO2 you want in your tank along with a target pH to attain given your kH.
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I went to see this web site and WOW! Theres so much to learn from there.
Thank you for all the replies. It really helps me a lot learning the small science of my planted aquaria.
 
Ms.Bubbles said:
I'm not a big fan of adding chemicals to the tank. If it were me I might try reducing the lighting. For example, if lights are on 10-12 hours a day, I might reduce it to 8 hours.

If it's light-related algae, it could also be due to excess wattage. Some people supplement their high-light tanks with C02, which apparantly helps reduce the algae situation.
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This is the current situation of my Java Moss attacked by algae. (I think its a hair algae).
 
it looks like staghorn algae. I think it (and other hair type algae) is really reduced by adding CO2 through injection from pressurized canisters or DIY fermentation. For a 20 gal, you might want to try Flourish Excel but I don't think it has as good an effect on getting rid of hair alga. Excel when overdosed (3-5x recommended dose) it also has an algecidal effect. I've used it to kill black beard algae by spot treating with a syringe, but I only had a few tiny tufts on old Anubias leaves. For something this bad, you might just want to do a lot of Excel straight to the water. Excel is also a source of carbon usable by your plants, but is not as effective as CO2.

Those are my two solutions: CO2 or Excel. Let's see if anyone else prefers one over the other.

If it's not CO2, then it's another nutrient that's usually lacking. Nitrogen is a big one. I'm not well versed in which algae is the result of which deficiencies, so let's hope someone else can help.

But there's not much in the way of animals (snails or otherwise) that will eat hard hair-type algae like that. Especially when it's gotten so bad.

good luck!
 
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plah831 said:
it looks like staghorn algae. I think it (and other hair type algae) is really reduced by adding CO2 through injection from pressurized canisters or DIY fermentation. For a 20 gal, you might want to try Flourish Excel but I don't think it has as good an effect on getting rid of hair alga. Excel when overdosed (3-5x recommended dose) it also has an algecidal effect. I've used it to kill black beard algae by spot treating with a syringe, but I only had a few tiny tufts on old Anubias leaves. For something this bad, you might just want to do a lot of Excel straight to the water. Excel is also a source of carbon usable by your plants, but is not as effective as CO2.

Those are my two solutions: CO2 or Excel. Let's see if anyone else prefers one over the other.

If it's not CO2, then it's another nutrient that's usually lacking. Nitrogen is a big one. I'm not well versed in which algae is the result of which deficiencies, so let's hope someone else can help.

But there's not much in the way of animals (snails or otherwise) that will eat hard hair-type algae like that. Especially when it's gotten so bad.

good luck!
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Thanks for the reply.
Ive been using Red Sea C02 but not excel. I will try doing blackout and see if it works.
 
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