Hair algae (I need help!)

First question I guess is how do you determine when to add K? Secondly, I have a small amount of green algae showing up on the upper leaves near the surface on some of the older plant leaves, and i am seeing brown algae forming on the micro sword, (micro sword doesn't look happy, very poor growth-almost none and it has been slowly dying since I planted it). I will do as you recommend I will remove the phosban and do (2) 50% water changes and we will see what happens. I agree dosing Po4 while there is such an abundance already there seems stupid. I just could not figure out another way. Why is the green and brown algae forming?

I took your advice and set up an account with photobucket, now I can post better pics. Thanks for all your advice!

red ludwigia with green algae (big file!)
 
Last edited:
Whether or not one needs to dose K is basically an issue of how much KNO3 you dose. Check out the sticky in this forum by Tom Barr (Plantbrain) about dosing K, it's very informative. At a guess I'd say that since you're not dosing KNO3, you'll need to supplement 100% of your tank's K requirements.

Brown algae is usually associated with the following: low light, new tanks, and some suggest that high SiO4, silicate, content of the water may be a factor. I'm not sold on this last since in principle the amount necessary to support the diatoms would be minute, but more importantly, there's really nothing practical that you can do to solve the problem.

My best guess at the cause of the multiple algae issues you are experiencing at the moment is due to this imbalance in your tank that you're currently working very hard at correcting. Lately we've gone through low CO2 for the first half of the day, then there's the issue of low PO4, high NO3 (basically a gap in the NO3:PO4 ratio), a likely K deficiency. At the moment the first priority is to get these worked out, balanced and stable. Once this is all in line for a few weeks and you've pulled out the existing algae I'd wager that you will no longer have a problem.

Realize, of course, that there is a difference between a presence of algae and an algae problem. ;)

Nice pic, by the way.
 
I have Kno3, Do you think I should use that instead of the K (Kent Botanic) and if so how much, how often? One thing to note I had not mentioned earlier is that my girlfriend added about 8"or 9" of fish to the tank last week. I had heard that the tank will go through a mini nitrogen cycle when new fish are introduced to an established tank. Do you think there is any validity to that idea?
Something else that has been happening is that the KH has been steadily rising over the last three weeks, the KH has gone frome 90 ppm to 180 ppm although the levels are ideal I am wondering if the small amount of crushed coral os responsible for this, or is something else happening that would cause this?
 
Last edited:
andrew h said:
I have Kno3, Do you think I should use that instead of the K (Kent Botanic) and if so how much, how often? One thing to note I had not mentioned earlier is that my girlfriend added about 8"or 9" of fish to the tank last week. I had heard that the tank will go through a mini nitrogen cycle when new fish are introduced to an established tank. Do you think there is any validity to that idea?
Something else that has been happening is that the KH has been steadily rising over the last three weeks, the KH has gone frome 90 ppm to 180 ppm although the levels are ideal I am wondering if the small amount of crushed coral os responsible for this, or is something else happening that would cause this?
Click to expand...
You already get more than enough NO3 from your tap, as I recall it's somewhere around 40ppm, so no, don't use KNO3, keep using KCl or whatever the K source in Kent botanic happens to be. If you wanted to save some money, you can switch to KCl by picking up some NoSalt/NuSalt at the grocery store, just be sure that it's not the 50/50 stuff. There's nothing harmful about it, just that you'd need to use twice as much.

Yes, there is the possibility that your tank will undergo a mini cycle or that, since you're heavily planted, you'll get a little algae bloom from adding that many fish at once. But it's a pretty big tank, so I wouldn't think that you should experience much adverse. Keep an eye on your N-species but don't be surprised if you don't see anything. Your plants should suck up any ammonia available pretty quickly, just be sure that the other nutrients are in line and you shouldn't experience a problem.

Yes, the increase in KH is from the crushed coral. Increased CO2 speeds dissolution of CaCO3 by reacting with free CO3-- and water to produce bicarbonate.
 
Well it looks like things are getting back to normal, the green and brown algae are still present, but seems like they are not advancing. One thing I overlooked during all this was that while the KH was increasing, so was the Co2 levels (un-noticed by me :sad ) they hit about 70 ppm (hence the gasping fish for about four days in row) I had my PH controller shuting off at 6.6 - 6.8 which with a KH of 180 ppm equals around 70 ppm of CO2 based on the KH PH table for Co2 levels. I bumped it up to 7.0 which should leave Co2 at around 30 ppm. My poor fish! Also worth noting is that I think all the plantabs have finally dissolved as the Po4 levels have dropped and stayed at around 1 ppm for around three days now (with no phosban) Is sodium biphosphate good for raising Po4 levels, as I should be raising it now to get it up to 2.0 - 2.5 ppm correct?
 
here's one for you, Why would the PH levels drop at night? one would think the Ph level would increase as the Co2 that was introduced during daytime dissapates. Well for the past couple of days I have been noticing that they were dropping but unsure of what I was seeing I wrote the Ph level down (7.2) last night and sure enough this morning it had fallen to (6.6)and again gasping fish! What is causing this? The Co2 only runs during the 10.5 hrs that the metal halides are on. I checked the bubble counter to see if there was any gas escaping at night and I did not see anything incriminating.


EDIT: I thought about this for a little while and here is what I came up with: could it be that the fish are using up the O2 at night, thereby causing the Ph swing. Might It be that the addition of the new fish broke the threshold of enough O2 at night and not enough, This PH swing I believe has been happening since we added the new fish. As the fish have been gasping almost daily since the new fish were added.

If this hypothesis is correct what should be the course to correct this without O2 saturation. Or is there a water chemistry issue that I am missing.
Thanks Again (in advance)
 
Last edited:
The fish gasping is surprising, your plants should be producing plenty of O2, although if your CO2 levels are still high this could cause the problem. I don't know about fish, but our brains don't actually detect blood O2, they detect blood CO2 and we feel short of breath when blood CO2 levels rise, regardless of O2 levels. If fish are the same then even with ample O2 in the water, CO2 levels much higher than 30ppm may be causing them to gasp, that said, since I'm on DIY, I've had short periods when CO2 reached the low 50's and observed no problems, but I think that I was just lucky and since it wasn't prolonged, no problems.

Now, to your question:
CO2 isn't dissipating at any higher rate at night than in the day. Presumably you have the same amount of surface agitation around the clock. Plus, at night there's no heat on the surface water to help speed dissipation, but I don't know how significant that it. Okay, so part one is that the loss from the surface is the same at night as during the day.

Next, while you are no longer providing CO2 at night, the plants are no longer using it, so both source of CO2 to the water and loss to the plants kind of balance each other to some extent.

Finally, at night, plants respire, so at night your plants switch from consuming CO2 and producing O2 to consuming O2 and producing CO2. Your fish continue to respire as they did throughout the day. So at night you still have a net production of CO2, hence your decreasing pH.

Normally this wouldn't be significant, but I suspect that since your CO2 levels have been up around 70ppm that they're struggling to come back down. The easiest way to set it right is to do a water change to reset your CO2 levels and then set your setup so that you have about 30ppm of CO2 when the lights first come on, but allow your CO2 level to fall to about 25ppm when the lights switch off. I've never used a setup like the one you describe, but it should be fairly simple to initiate. I gotta run right now, I can elaborate in a pm a little later if you like.
 
I think I figured out a solution, right now the PH controller only stops the further introduction of Co2 when the PH drops below preset level (during the period of photosynthesis). But, what if the Ph controller could be made to turn on a an air pump (during period of non-photosynthesis) as response to a low PH level, then the Co2 could not increase because it would be continually counteracted and the Co2 levels would remain constant at night. I drew a couple of schematics and it appears this can be accomplished with a couple of cheap relays and timers.

Let me know what you think of my idea, Thanks
 
It worked, I bought the materials ($25) and it took about a half an hour to build. I hope this helps stabilize things. The plants have not been pearling but maybe one day in the last seven. they appear to be growing but I am seeing holes in the leaves any ideas? I read that it could be a nutrient defficiency but could not figure out what is low or lacking.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom