Help - Am I overgrown with algae or worse?

[Plague]

Water wisteria is a definite yes. They grow beautifully and look like miniature tress under right circumstances. All crypts are slow growers I believe... don't quote me on that =P

Mynophillum pinnatum is another fast grower. They grow thin leaves and look delicate and require medium light.

Use liveaquaria.com for some IDing so you know what else they have.

 

[jasonG75]

With the lighting you have, and size of the tank SINCE you're not going to a planted tank and you want to see your fish (an you are NOT installing Co2) I would suggest an Inline UV Sterilizer. I don't normally suggest them but You are using
*Fertile substate
*Dosing Fertz
but you have NO WHERE near enough plants to take up the nutrients therefore the algea EATS it up.

Your going to need to raise the light up some maybe, reduce the photo period inorder to keep the algae out.

 

[jasonG75]

Water wisteria is a definite yes. They grow beautifully and look like miniature tress under right circumstances.

I would recommend a Water-Sprite...Never had much sucess out of the wisteria.

 

[Southwestern]

I checked tonight and there is still quite a bit of green on the rocks. At best, there is a 50% reduction in green algae. This is after covering the tank now for 5 days. I admit, I let the fish see out at night when the room is dark. They just seem to want it.

UV Sterilizer.... I agree. Just not sure that's in my budget right now. That's like $300 for a good one, right?

Should I just clean the rocks, add the new plants, no fertilizer and hope a little. It will be 22 new plants.

 

[nonamesleft47]

You can get a small UV for less but if you aren't having green water problems I wouldn't bother. I have a small internal one that I use when a client has green water problems (usually from over feeding and sunlight). Once the plants have started well I take it out. 50% is pretty good, it's a start anyway. Can't go wrong with any crypts and they are good growers once established. They won't help your cyno problem as they take their nutrients from the roots (ie, use your tabs here once established).

I'm pretty useless with the bunch plants as many of them are high light plants and I don't use them. Try some different ones, if some die you know not to bother with them any more. If others thrive get more. In my tanks I normally fill the back corners with bunch plants, crypts in the foreground and wood/rocks in the middle with anubias and java fern/moss. Rotala is pretty much my go to bunch plant as I know it does well at 2 WPG and will soak up nutrients also I can get 20-30 bunches any time I want by pruning it from my other tanks... It is also a good indicator as I can count on steady growth until it starts to need ferts so when I see it lag I just ad some ferts.

 

[Southwestern]

--- UPDATE ---

I installed 20 new plants. I would say it is moderately planted now compared to what I've seen as "planted tanks."

As directed here, I had the tank covered for two weeks. Roughly 60% of the algae went away. Now I assume it's time to uncover.

I get diffused daylight in the room. You don't need to turn on any lights in the room during the day.

How many hours should I be running my lights with that in mind (and all these plants)? I don't want to bring back all that algae!

And... no fertilizer, right?

Thanks for your ongoing help!!

 

[Plague]

Well now that you have the tank back up and running you do want to add fertilizers. The amount of time you have lights on will depend on the tank too. For instance I fertilize Seachem Flourish and excel on monday, potassium and iron with excel on wednesday, and again on friday. Using this I have the lights on for 7-8 hours a day. I start growing brown algae but it is eaten. This is my perfect balance of nutrients and lights.

 

[Southwestern]

Oh wow. All I have is Excel and apparently that made the problem worse the first time but I think you mean that now that I have the plants, I should resume a fertilization schedule for the plant's sake.

Are you using that much light on top of the room light you might get?

 

[MoonstruckMuse]

Wow, sounds like quite the journey you've been through. I've dealt with cyano before, but never to this extent.

You're definitely on the right track now, and with the new plants, cyano won't really get the chance to get started. In my experience, cyanobacteria is one of those things that hits early on in the life of a tank, because it needs lots of nutrients and plants to NOT be ready to take it all up yet.

Personally, I've never dosed tanks, so maybe what I'm about to say is hokey... but when you're coming back from an outbreak like this, I would suggest dosing less ferts than you usually would for this many plants. Dosing some would allow the plants to get a good foothold, and the ferts will allow the plants to outcompete the cyano (which, incidentally, is not a true algae... or at least, not technically an algae by typical algae definitions). However, dosing heavily might provide too much nutrients initially, and then the cyano would be able to take advantage of that.

I'm not terribly familiar with how much lighting you should be using, unfortunately. You have some high and low light plants in your mix, haha.

Crypts (which it sounds like you got a fair number of) are all generally similar to care for, and are heavy root feeders, so they don't really need liquid ferts at all (just root tabs will do wonders). They also do well in low lighting, but can be grown in high.
Anything that is a stem plant (little roots on the bottom, mostly a long stem with leaves coming off) is going to feed from the water column, so they'll benefit from liquid ferts. (So basically, your first list is stem plants, your second is crypts).

 

[Vince G.]

I keep my tank in a room with filtered curtain light and I run my lights for about 7 1/2 hours, from about 4:30 P.M. to Midnight. Basically once it starts to get dark outside I have my lights triggered to come on. I run them a little less in the summer when the sunlight is stronger. I had an outbreak of BBA a few years ago, and this schedule, along with planting about 50% of the surface of the tank (and more frequent WC's) has helped to keep the algae in check. So far, my BN pleco takes care of whatever new algae pops up. I do use root tabs and a once a month liquid fertilzer, but I've never used Excel.
I also have the same type of mix of high and low light plants (from Java Ferns, Rotala, and Onions to Madasgar lace).