HELP!! Algae!!

**qngwn** · 17th Feb 2009, 00:16

below is the pic of my tank..

and below are the algae inside my tank..

please do help me identify and advise me the ways to remove it?

not really sure if it's stag horn or BBA..
have a feeling it's BBA..

it's a 2 feet tank
ADA Amazonia II soil
around 8 hours of light a day

CO2 bubble rate 1bps

could it be the reason that i havent changed water since day one when i added in the soil?

**sandeepraghuvanshi** · 17th Feb 2009, 12:58

When a new tank is set up, it leaches nutrients in water till it settles down, this is more prominent with nutrietn rich soils like ADA.
Start with water changes, increase your co2 rate, it should go away

**Shadow** · 17th Feb 2009, 16:25

look like BBA and your windelov does not look healthy. did you buried the rhizome?

Need to trim the infected leaves, increase your CO2 and water change. Excell dossing will also help. What is your algae eating crew?

**blue33** · 17th Feb 2009, 16:40

Get some floating plant, it help in new setup tank combating algae at early stage. Especially you have rich soil with less plant.

**Shadow** · 17th Feb 2009, 16:45

forgot to asked what is your light wattage and fertilizer dosing?

**torque6** · 17th Feb 2009, 21:47

Shadow,

believe this is his old thread.

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52302

his parameters should be :-

quote "
my tank is 2ft with 55w 2ft PL light
ADA Amazonia II with internal filter.
CO2 supply currently using tablets.
light supply is 4 hours, twice a day.
temperature at around 28C
have 4 OTOs and 4 yamatos helping with the algae prob"

Qng,
Tanks with this kind of setup are usually more prone to algae. I did mentioned to be careful on spending $$. Seems like the plants and its density of growth probably wouldnt require co2, I dont see the usual high requirement plants like glosso/hc/hm/tonica/rotala red or similar, putting in the co2 probably would have made things worst resulting in BBA. My friend has a similar tank setup and BBA has been with him for close to 3-4 years now.

The initial startup cost of planting densely for 2FT tanks are usually higher. For my 1FT, i did aim for 90% plant density and spent around $57 on plants alone. Gathered about 15 pots of rotalas/ green and sp. 9 pots of HC from both polyart and y618.

Of course i did have excess and gave away some pots to bros here after completing my scape. But like i said, more is better than less and my 1ft hc tank has been a good example so far.

However, since I've not done up a 2FT, best to follow in line similar to that of blue33. His 2x 2FT has been impressive, and i don't believe he started planting minimumlistically.

**newtank** · 18th Feb 2009, 11:03

I agree with Torque 6, planting densely is probably the best anti-algae regime. It will give you a bit more margin of error. Once you rtank stabilised, you can replace some of the plants with slow growing ones. For a start , try to stay away from slow growers like ferns and moss, put them in only when your tank is stabilised.

**barmby** · 18th Feb 2009, 15:27

Hi qngwn,

CO2 is short-
What is your CO2 level in terms of PPM during lumination period?

Light is too little and too long
Wattage is so-so, and lighting period is too long for a new tank like this

Plant mass is too little
Algae will thrive, certain.

There are quite alot of issues in the setup and supply that was overlooked.

ADA Amazonia II itself is very fertile, and not changing water does not help. Futhermore, no plants, excess lighting period, & lack of CO2 - these factors promote algae growth.

**torque6** · 18th Feb 2009, 21:01

Same advise as i gave jade for his tank. Try to plant as densely as possible. Once you start right, you wouldn't have too much issue. The best thing you would want when trying out a new hobby is enjoying it, instead of the relentless worrying on how to manage your algae problems within the first 2 weeks of flooding the tanks.

**qngwn** · 19th Feb 2009, 01:26

would i be advisable to use flourish excel to temp get rid of the algae while i increase the density of the plants?

**barmby** · 19th Feb 2009, 10:30

No, increase plant mass while you use seachem excel to slightly help grow the plants. more than 80% of plant is carbon

**qngwn** · 20th Feb 2009, 00:24

i see some of my yamato's feeding on them i think. shld i dump more of the yamatos inside?

**Shadow** · 20th Feb 2009, 01:08

excell would help because excell main ingradient is "polycycloglutaracetal". It is chemical derrived from gluteraldehyde which is normally used for desinfectan in hospital. That is why it will kill algae as well as some sensitive plants.

**qngwn** · 20th Feb 2009, 19:01

excel will also kill my yamatos right?

**Shadow** · 20th Feb 2009, 21:00

nope unless you overdose it too much. I think it should be ok as long as less than 2 times the recomended dossage

**qngwn** · 20th Feb 2009, 21:24

less than 2 times the recommended dosage? the Y618 unclesaid that if add excel even the neon tetras might die too.

confused!

**Shadow** · 20th Feb 2009, 21:48

follow the dossage and you should be ok. You can do spot treadment using syringe.

**blue33** · 20th Feb 2009, 22:48

Originally Posted by qngwn

less than 2 times the recommended dosage? the Y618 unclesaid that if add excel even the neon tetras might die too.

confused!

I dont know done how many times already, never see my cardinal tetra die leh...

**qngwn** · 21st Feb 2009, 00:02

spot treatment? using syringe? please do explain to me as i've never heard of this term before..

but shrimps are sensitive.. so if cardinals do not die, doesnt mean that shrimps will not die too. correct me if i'm wrong..

**Shadow** · 21st Feb 2009, 01:23

Simple, use syringe to inject excel close proximity to the BBA. It may need to repeat couple of time (2 or 3 time) but 1 time a day and turn off the filter when you do the spot treatment. The idea is to remove the flow so that excel can stay longer in theproximity of BBA.