Supposed Algae Bloom

djfsolo

djfsolo

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Nov 2, 2009
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Well my water suddenly became kinda cloudy, more cloudy than it's ever been actually, only 2 days after a water change. I guess I'm getting an algae bloom? It's kind of a greenish/yellowish haze if I had to attach a color to it.

I have just recently tried getting into live plants. My lighting consists of 124 watts of 6500K lighting over my 55g tank. Lights are on for about 13 hours a day.

I have noticed much more algae growing on the glass and whatnot. I was wondering since I have a common pleco in there (no worries it is growing here and then moving to my 150g) if it would start eating everything and I can halt the algae wafers and veggies?

Thanks!
 
are you dosing nutrients for your plants? co2? if so how?
with that much light i'd assume even slow growers would need to be dosed.
parameters? gh, kh, etc.?
without everything plants need in their "diet" algae can take over. it does much better with a less "balanced diet" than plants do.
is the tank packed with plants or sparsely planted? any floaters?
some things might need shade or faster growers to compete for light and/or nutrients.
is the tank itself new?
shouldn't cause green water or gda but anomalies do happen in newer tanks.
is this the only tank with these issues?
changes in source water do happen and can cause sudden changes in your tank chemistry. i'd assume it's a little late in the season for that in most cases though.

as for the pleco... i'm sure you'll still have to supplement his diet. whether or not he decides to clean up the glass will be up to him really. some will some won't from what i've seen.
 
No dosing of nutrients. no Co2
I only have testing capabilities for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH. I don't know the gH or kH.
Tank is sparsely planted.. only one anubias. I haven't done this before and wanted to start. I wanted to slowly add plants and take out the fake ones in there. I am adding plants mainly for added filtration of nitrates, not so much for looks- although I do care what my tank looks like ;) Water quality is the priority however. The anubias looks like it's growing healthily, lots of new whitish roots growing out? I am a newb but that seemed like a healthy sign to me.

The tank has been established for about six months now. This is the only tank with these issues, but also the only tank that is planted and with that much light. The other tank has about 1W per gallon with no real plants.

The pleco occasionally eats it, we'll see what happens.
 
i suggest a faster grower like a sword plant or floater to make shade for your anubias at the very least.

also you should at least consider dosing. the cheapest, most effective way is dry... www.aquariumfertilizer.com. one package should last you quite a bit with no co2. knowing your gh could prove to be very helpful. if you know it and it's low, gh booster is a nice product to have. if it's high out of the tap gh booster would pretty much be useless.

kh2po4, and plantex would be absolute minimums imo. kno3 is great to have even if your nitrates are usually over 10. if you need to do large w/c's and your tap tests 0 in ammo and trates you can supplement with that too... it happens. k2so4 is basically just used to supplement potassium. should not be necessary if you're dosing kno3 and kh2po4 but is often suggested.

if you decide to add rooted plants root tabs would help also. there's a recipe in the sticky in the planted section that works well. it's cheap if you already have the dry ferts.

anyway... for algae i.d. and removal... www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm
 
oops... forgot that part... good pickup steve.
 
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