What did I do wrong?

[phanmc]

Co2 injection isn't the cause of the problem, the increased lighting is. It's excelerating the growth rate of everything that uses photosynthesis and if there isn't enough healthy plants to outcompete the algae for available nutrients, algae will flourish. If you are lightly stocked in plants, get more fast growing plants. If you have alot of plants but they are not looking healthy, look into additional fertilizing depending on the symptoms shown on the leaves.

Do not stop using CO2, the plants need more CO2 than algae in order to sustain growth and that's what you want. You cut off Co2 and the plants will suffer but the algae won't, the little amounts of CO2 released by fishes and absorbed from the air will keep algae growing very well.

 

[reiverix]

But CO2 does not cause algae (especially green water) and surely there's no way algae will ever outcompete plants for carbon. I can't think of anything negative about adding CO2 unless it's some silly level toxic to fish.

I'd be more interested in seeing NO3, PO4, pH and KH readings along with the fert dosing regimen. It seems to me to be an imbalance of some nutrient.

Nitrates were usually around 20 with weekly water changes. Since I added the plants, nitrates have dropped to around 5.

Here's the first clue. Nitrates are dropping so it only makes sense to replace them. What about PO4? How much phosphate is being used?

 

[bzehr]

I don't really know if I have fast growing plants or not. I don't really know for sure exactly what plants I have. I just went to the store and picked out plants I thought would look nice. The ones I know the names of are:
5 anarchis
3 amazon swords
1 brazillian sword
2 water sprites

After doing some searching on the net, I think the others are:
2 corkscrew vallisnerias
3 chelensis
2 narrow leaf temples (not sure on this one)
2 red plants that I can't find a picture of anywhere

If I get ahold of a digital camera, I'll take a picture but the water is so cloudy I don't know if it will do any good.

None of the plants really grew much except for the anarchis. They grew about 6 inches in two weeks and reached the surface. All the plants look very healthy though. I started the blackout today and will keep it covered for the next 3 days. I really want to make sure it doesn't come back though.

So would adding more fast-growing plants help? If so, what do you reccomend I get? I have a little room to add a couple of plants, but I have a big piece of driftwood that is taking up quite a bit of space. I could pull out a couple of the slower growing ones and replace them with faster growing ones. If I did that, which ones should I pull and what should I add?

Thanks to everyone for all the responses.

 

[phanmc]

Your tank's on the light side in terms of plantmass. I'd definately get more fast growers even if you aren't planning to keep them, I'd recommend more anacharis, water sprite, hornwort, water wisteria, or ludwigia repens (possibly one of your red plants?). The anacharis and hornwort are nice because you can leave them floating if you aren't planning to keep them long term. When I start a planted tank, I usually have more plants than I want to prevent algae, then remove some when the plants I want to keep grows well.

2 weeks isn't alot of time so you may not notice much growth in most of your plants yet, but the water sprite should definately be growing by now. Read up on the sticky about fertilizing, you may need to with a little over 2wpg.

 

[bzehr]

I'd be more interested in seeing NO3, PO4, pH and KH readings along with the fert dosing regimen. It seems to me to be an imbalance of some nutrient.

NO3 - around 5 ppm
PO4 - I have no idea. I don't have a test for this.
pH - about 7.6
KH - about 10-12 (its really hard to tell with my test kit)

I have not used any fertilizers. I considered buying flourish, or something along those lines, but thought I would see how that plants would do without it. From the research I did, I didn't think my lighting was high enough to require fertilizers. Should I start dosing something? If so what? Should I get a phosphate test kit?

Thanks again.

 

[djlen]

First I want to apologize to bzehr for going off on a tangent with the other guy over the CO2 thing. It was just too annoying and incorrect to let it go. I'm sorry.

"NO3 - around 5 ppm
PO4 - I have no idea. I don't have a test for this.
pH - about 7.6
KH - about 10-12 (its really hard to tell with my test kit"

You really should have a PO4 test kit to watch the consumption of that nutrient as well as the N over time. You want to keep your elements at certain levels and the only way to determine what's being used is to test for them.
Fleet Enema at your local pharmacy for PO4 (cost= a couple of bucks for a bottle or two of the stuff will last a long time). Flourish is excellent for your trace elements(micros) and should be started soon after blackout.
Here is a site for a good selection of nutrients at a really decent price:
www.gregwatson.com/
You want to order KNO3 for your N=nitrates and also for your K=potassium. The Fleets will supply the P and those three are your macros.
Greg also has a nice trace mix if you want to one stop shop for everything. Plantex CSM+B is a good trace mix to replace the Flourish mentioned earlier.
I would also get as many of the plants mentioned in phanmc's post as you can and you don't even have to plant them for them to be effective. In fact they will cast shade if you float some of them. I especially like water sprite for it's ability to use available elements and shade at the same time. It is a natural floater.
If you progress through this process, you will see a noticeable difference in your tank in a short period of time.
Do your 3 day black out. Hopefully you are familiar with the way to do this. It will not hurt the plants. Do not feed fish during the blackout and if you are unfamiliar with the process ask and someone will assist you.
After the 3rd day, take the covers off and throw in your nutrient hogs.
Soon thereafter you should be getting your nutrients from Greg or you should have them ready to start dosing. N,P,K and traces.
Get the CO2 up and running again(it should not run during the blackout).
The way to clear water is getting the plants growing. Learn to do that and you will eventually have a tank that will almost take care of itself. This is not a difficult process with your lighting.

Len

 

[bzehr]

Do your 3 day black out. Hopefully you are familiar with the way to do this. It will not hurt the plants. Do not feed fish during the blackout and if you are unfamiliar with the process ask and someone will assist you.

I have never done a blackout, so I guess I am not really familiar with how to do it. I just shut out the lights and put a blanket over the tank. I still fed the fish, but I won't feed them for the rest of the blackout. I shut down the CO2 injection. Is there anything else I should do?

 

[reiverix]

Just make sure that no light at all gets in and you're good to go.

Are you injecting CO2 with DIY or compressed? Just that with your pH and KH levels means that you only have ~8ppm CO2. It would be nice to crank it up a bit. Is your KH test kit a liquid or strip test? Oh and I'm assuming you mean your KH is 10-12dH, and not 10-12ppm.

 

[bzehr]

Just make sure that no light at all gets in and you're good to go.

Are you injecting CO2 with DIY or compressed? Just that with your pH and KH levels means that you only have ~8ppm CO2. It would be nice to crank it up a bit. Is your KH test kit a liquid or strip test? Oh and I'm assuming you mean your KH is 10-12dH, and not 10-12ppm.

I have both a 5-in-1 test strip and liquid test kit. Liquid tests it at about 10-12dh and the strip tests it at about 180 ppm. I have know idea why one tests ppm and one test dh, nor do I have any idea what the correlation is between ppm and dh. In fact, I don't even really know what the heck KH is except that it helps keep pH from fluctuating, but that is for another day.

I am using the DIY method that I have read about. I am mixing 1 tsp. of yeast, 1 tsp. of baking soda, and 3 cups of sugar in warm water. It seems to create quite a lot of gas because there are constantly lots of bubbles coming off of the airstone. I have had some concerns about the placement of the airstone. I put it near the filter because I thought the CO2 would circulate better. Now I wonder if maybe a lot of the CO2 was lost because of the surface agitation in that area. I have a Penguin 350 and it creates a lot of surface agitation. I keep the water level as high as possible to reduce it, but there is still quite a bit.

Should I move my airstone? Maybe to a corner farthest from the filter? Should I split the line and add another 2-Liter, or up my ingredients?

Thanks for all the help and sorry for all the questions. This is quickly becoming much more complicated than I anticipated.

 

[reiverix]

An airstone isn't really the best way to distribute CO2. The bubbles are too large and end up just shooting to the surface. What you can do is feed the CO2 line directly into your filter intake. I've got a few Penguin filters but don't inject CO2 into any of the tanks I use them on, but I recall reading that some people use a sponge cut into shape and fitted onto the lip where the return water flows.

KH is the carbonate hardness of the water. It's a measurement of the carbonate and bicarbonate ions and you are correct in saying that it keeps pH from fluctuating. Your water is buffered really good.

dH is German degrees of hardness. One dH = 17.8ppm.

Thanks for all the help and sorry for all the questions. This is quickly becoming much more complicated than I anticipated.

Better to ask questions than to make random assumptions. I know it all seems complicated at first but it really doesn't take long before all the pieces fit together.