Hair algae (I need help!)

UPDATE! Algae appears to be on the retreat! Hair algae is slowly vanishing from the tank. I removed as much as I could physically and it appears the algae eaters are finally doing their job as the algae masses aroung the java ferns which were the the worst in the tank are vanishing. Po4 has been dropping slowly and as of today was down to 1.0ppm I will remove some of the phos ban to try to stabilize the Po4 level ( at least maintain the 1ppm) Plants began pearling again after the PO4 levels dropped from 5ppm to 2.5ppm? I noticed today that the the Bacopa Monnieri are getting a few holes in the leaves preceeded by some yellowing, Is this a sign of K defficiency? Is there any way to measure the K levels? Plant growth has been incredible! The Brazillian Pennywart has reached the top of the tank in less than a week!
I have not usd the DI yet as I wanted to give the nutrients a chance. Do you think the nutrient dosing looks o.k. (first post) the brand is Kent Botanical let me know what you think, Again thanks for all the help!
 
Awesome, good to hear. The pearling shouldn't be related to the drop in PO4 except that pearling is indicative of lots of photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, so more like the pearling is a sign that PO4 should be dropping, not the other way around.

Check out the nutrient deficiency chart at:
www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

It's not 100% (as he sais, there's a lot of subjectivity), but it's a good place to start diagnosing.
 
Well things have begun to take a turn for the worse, I am starting to seen green spot algae around the tank, Co2 holding at 25 ppm, Po4 is 0.5 ppm, No3 is still 40 ppm, any ideas? One thing different is that the temp of the tank has been about 82 deg F, (from normal 78) I set the thermostat in the room higher and inadvertantly changed the temp in the tank. Could this have any effect? The Hair Algae is almost completely gone. Other than temp change everything else is still the same. I have not noticed much pearling in the last 2 days (almost the same time I noticed the algae forming) also I noticed the micro sword starting to turn brown? any ideas.
 
I am going to add some sodium biphosphate today, I just wanted to make sure that was the appropriate action, let me know if you have any other ideas.
 
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Andrew - your PO4 content is too low in relationship to your N. You need to bring it up to a minimum of 1.0(1.5 would be better) and you should see good results.
Then test it at least every other day for P content. When you see it start to drop, bring it back up again.
Phosphates are not causing the problem......limiting them is!

Len
 
happychem said:
Dose K and traces to prevent deficiencies, keep feedings very, very light, even skip every other day of provide a day of fasting now and then, I usually have at least one fast per week.
Click to expand...

Happy.....so do you dose K normally on a daily basis? I have been doing it like twice a week with Flourish Potassiam....should I be upping that. What else do you give on a daily basis?
 
Yeh, I am dosing K (1.5 ml) daily (kent botanical brand)-- the micro sword appears to have brown algae forming on it. I believe my Co2 was too high also because twice in the last 2 days I found the fish gasping at the surface. I ran an air pump and seem to have gotten them happy. I dosed 1/4 teaspoon of sodium biphosphate today and the plants started pearling again. It is going to be a real juggling act trying to keep the Po4 up but not letting it get out of control (remember the plantabs! If I remove the phosban then the Po4 shoots up to 5 ppm overnight. I guess I am going to have to get used to daily Po4 testing) I believe my Co2 reached about 32 ppm hence the gasping fish. I do not test Kh daily but based on the Ph Kh scale for Co2 it was around 32, is this also detrimental to the plants?
 
Knash, I do not dose K on a regular basis, I don't need to. I have a lightly stocked tank and dose KNO3 regularly, that supplies as much K as is required. Soon I'll be dosing KH2PO4 as well, so a little more K, right now I'm using Life brand enema as my PO4 source which is NaH2SO4 and Na2HPO4. I do have some KCl handy just in case I start to see deficiencies or want to experiment with boosting the amount of K in the tank, but as a habit, no, I do not target dose K.

Andrew, I think that the cause of algae from the plant tabs was that plant tabs usually contain ammonia or urea, which converts to ammonia easily enough, as a N source. Sorry if this is repitition from an earlier post, partied last night so I'm not recalling the whole thread right now. ;)

If you're up for an experiment, let's try removing the phosban for a week or two while keeping up with regular water changes, 50% weekly to twice weekly to try to get as much of the tabs as possible, after a few weeks to a month they shouldn't have much left to release. If you don't want to try this (understandably after the last algae issue) then you're left with daily testing and dosing. Although it does seem counterproductive to me to have phosban to remove PO4 being leached into your water and be dosing extra PO4 as well.

A CO2 level of 32 is just about perfect, IMO. If you can hold that value while getting the other nutrients in line you should have no problems. The plants should be providing tons of O2, hence pearling, if they're growing well. You should also be nigh algae free if all is growing well.
 
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