Seems like a new issue every day

Jessicaftw

Jessicaftw

AC Members
Jun 13, 2010
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Oregon
Real Name
Jessica
:headshake2:
Well, as I posted in another thread, I had an outbreak of BGA in my 55G. Not even sure where it started from because my nitrates are always high, about 40 ppm usually. I ended up tearing most of the plants out because I couldn't keep it from smothering the foreground plants. I cleaned and separated all the plants out and cleaned the substrate as best I could, mixing it about and vacuuming it up. Still have about 40 ppm of the nitrates. I replanted, and blacked the tank out for three days. Now, the new and exciting issue, is that the lighting doesn't look right, My cardinals look yellower not the usual white they were. I just built my T5HO fixture a month or two ago.
Am I just being deceived? I figured the pale green tint on my plants was from shock from having to replant them, but the fish color just doesn't look the same blue tint (actinic?).

As for the BGA, I figured it had to be from stagnant water so I put in a bubbler in the back and moved a powerhead in to get some extra flow. Any suggestions would help on the lighting issue though. Haven't seen any slime come back yet.:eek3:
 
Seems so, they are bright blue. I just asked my husband since he got home a few moments ago and he gave me some advice to try.
 
To get the nitrates down, you will have to pretty much empty the tank of its water and refill about 4 times. It is a lot of work, but it is part of owning a fish tank. Best advice, just do a 75% water change 4 times within a few hours. Your nitrates should be almost gone.
 
Yeah I agree nitrates come from waste, but once the waste has broken down into nitrates it's in the water column. The only way to remove it is to remove the water. A gravel vac will help keep it down in the future but won't do anything for you right now. Keep doing water changes until it goes down. As for the algae water changes might help it too.

Another thing is are you using CO2, HO lighting usually cause lots of algae unless your pumping CO2 in.
 
Does your incoming water have nitrates?? With plants (depending on how many) your should have high nitrates.
 
tanker said:
Does your incoming water have nitrates?? With plants (depending on how many) your should have high nitrates.
Click to expand...

yeah my thoughts exactly. I'm confused why everyone is saying nitrates need to be removed from the water asap.

Plants use nitrates as food and having zero nitrates in a planted tank is bad. Some of us actually add nitrates to our tank. They are only bad when they are in the extremely high range
 
Sorry for the delay. To answer your questions, I didn't have to do a lot of w/c, just the weekly usual and my nitrAtes are back to about 40 ppm. I haven't seen any BGA, but now I seem to have brown fuzzy algae on the tips of leaves that is bubbling oxygen, obviously photosynthesizing the co2. I am using pressurized co2 and have 6700k t5HO for about 8 hours a day.

I was fertilizing more often, but now I just do it once a week and it seems to have been staying at a constant amount. Thanks for the help!
 
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