Frustrated with my planted

mes1234

mes1234

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Jan 25, 2010
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So I have had my planted tank for about 1.5 months. It is a 20 gallon high with organic soil, 50 watts of light, whisper20, and a hthor heater. This tank at first looked lovely for about a week. It now just looks like a algea mess, the plants look terrible and i just keep picking off dead leaves and Im just about ready to quit and go artificial. I add fertilizer once a week and I have a DIY co2 but I have that off for the moment trying to control algea. The light is on 10 hours a day, amm 0, nitrite 0, nitrate is almost 0, just a little nitrate. I can't keep cleaning this tank everyday to try to get rid of algea. I will just go crazy. Any suggestions?
 
i would start with cutting the light back to 8 hours a day. do you have the organic soil capped with anything? what plants do you have? can you post some pics of the tank?

my guess is there could be too much light not enough faster growing plants. though i could be wrong. i would also add more ferts if your nitrate is almost zero it could be you dont have enough ferts for the plants. this causes a imbalance and algae can pop up.
 
If you're using a soil substrate you don't need ferts or CO2. The ferts are only adding to your algae problems. Tanks with soil substrates usually start off kind of rough for the first few months but they eventually even out. Just keep cleaning up as much of the algae as you can and if possible I'd add some floating hornwort or frog-bit to help even out any water quality issues and starve off the algae.
 
Mgamer20o0 said:
i would also add more ferts if your nitrate is almost zero it could be you dont have enough ferts for the plants. this causes a imbalance and algae can pop up.
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This would be my first course of action. Ferts once a week with that lighting and showing ~ 0 nitrates won't do much for ya. Keep your CO2 going and make sure you are getting a good rate.
 
so one of you says no ferts because the soil is enough, and others are saying more ferts?
 
1) What kind of plants. Need to make sure they are even aquatic.
2) What is your phosphate level??
3) What is your light spectrum??
4) What is organic soil?? Garden soil?? Plain gravel??
5) Cut down light to about 8-9 hours. Try even to split it--4 on, one off, 4-5 on.
6) Try adding Excel.
7) What kind of algae?? Beard?? Blue green?? Hair??? Makes a difference.
 
If you are using garden soil, potting soil, topsoil or any other type of soil as a substrate, there should be no reason to use ferts. Its in the soil. If you have soil then like Dr Akward said, the addition of Ferts is adding to your algae problem. This is the concept of the Natural Aquarium style that is popular due to Diana Walstad's book. You need to let the soil mature and balance out. Once that happens you algae problem will go away. Also stop using CO2. As the soil matures and decomposes it will release CO2. For now I would get some nutrient hog plants like Hornwort, frog bit, water sprite etc.

You don't need nitrates at all. Plants prefer to get Nitrogen from Ammonium first then Nitrite, and finally Nitrates. Its just easier for plants to get N from Ammonium since its easier to break down and doesn't take as much effort to get it. The Ferts that Tom Barr talks about are just another way to get N and other nutrients to the plants. This is covered since soil has those nutrients.

I would recomend that you look up and either borrow/buy Diana Walstad's book : The Ecology of the Planted Aquarium and find more information about the Natural Aquarium method. This will help you out a lot.
 
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