Wah... not that many lah... for my 2ft, i sent in 50 malayan shrimps, 2 yamato (do not want them to dig up/pull out plants), 2 ottos, and 3 nerite snails. Yes, to tackle different algae, everyone does its bit. Am sure the hair algae battle was mostly done by the malayans and yamatos.
Also, please do not forget.
That's the real question.
What causes new algae growth?
The adults that are already there will quickly die over time, with pruning etc and good conditions for the plants.
So the focus is on the new production of both plants and algae.
Regards,
Tom Barr
colin | The Wilderness and Forest | FTS
so what happens to the army of shrimps and otocinclus after the algae is gone? Not very cost effective and will not really solve the problem on the long run as you do not exactly know what is the root of the problem.
I think the harmony of Light/CO2/nutrients is the key to not only producing healthy and lush plants, but also eliminate algae.
I think most people overlooked the importance of the delicate balance between these 3 elements inside an enclosed ecosystem (your planted tank). Most only provides these elements in a fixed formulae taken from the internet, but never really understand the relationship between them. Your tank is alive with many many microscopic living things other than flora and fauna, and being alive also means when you try to tackle it with some fix equations, you might not be able to solve anything, and eventually you get more frustrated, which I can see why, after all you have done everything what you have read, but it does not solve anything.
A planted tank is not a simple thing, but a very very complex minature ecosytem that you are trying to mimic from the nature, but yet far from it. It is not as simple as dosing what the instructions stated, or providing the amount of light using the watt/gallon method. All these are merely a simple guide to start off with. Once you are into it, you should try to understand the kind of plants you have and their needs, and by some trial and error playing with the amount and duration of light and the amount of nutrients and CO2 needed, you might just be able to strike some balance in it and produce a healthy planted tank. I seriously doubt that there is a fixed equation of these 3 elements that could satisfiy any planted tank out there.
And once you get the plants growing healthily, you will need to spend even more time trimming them to keep them looking nice and neat or the way you wanted your scape to be, as once they grow readily, they will be like growing like weeds
I should be working not posting
Yes, if you WC like in nature's streams, you'd hardly get any algae.
You can if you dare to fail - Stan Chung
As for the thread starter, you basically have no plant mass at all to begin with. If your focus is high grade CRS shrimps, then I guess you should just turn your tank into a 100% moss tank with low tech setup.
A high demanding planted tank with high grade CRS shrimps is very difficult to accomplished, whcih requires some money and a lot of experience.
hahahha plus free dosage of CO2 and nutrients at the perfect amount!Originally Posted by StanChung
Yes, if you WC like in nature's streams, you'd hardly get any algae.
Hey you know that part of that stream in south amazon with this coordinates 37 23.516 - 122 02.625? My tank is there, with automated dosing and WC, even with automated plant pruning and fauna breeding rapidly!
yes, agree, need some trial and error to try and strike the right balance.
no worries, i still feed my shrimps and ottos - i will not let them starve. but funny thing is the malayans are not interested in the mosura shrimp food (which i feed other shrimps), haha, ottos are more keen. hope when the new tank settles, there won't be that much of an algae problem
Read an interesting thing last night. Hair algae can use bicarbonates as a CO2 source and are less effective at using CO2, so by dropping the pH one can empower the plants and disadvantage the algae... I will try this.
tt4n
But i thought when co2 disolves into the water it forms bicarbonates which the plants take up. Am i wrong by saying this? Is'nt bicarbonates just the result of injecting co2. For example excel is made up of bicarbonates which plants take up as a source of co2 shound'nt excel and co2 that is injected have something in common?
Also, drop the ph by increasing co2 right?
hope im not wrong
Cheers,
JJ
Hi Rayong,
Here's a link http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/ you might want to have a look to ID your algae type before deciding on treatment approach.
I gave up on fighting spirogyra though. Found an excuse to start another shrimp tank...
Hi bro thank you for your link .Hi Rayong,
Here's a link http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/ you might want to have a look to ID your algae type before deciding on treatment approach.
I gave up on fighting spirogyra though. Found an excuse to start another shrimp tank...
i was having algae issues especially hair algae a couple of weeks back.
my tank is a 2 feet planted with 24W light(mainly us fissiden).
even after attempts to black out for 3 days, it does not help. I took the extreme path later. increase dosage of CO2 to 2/sec, Excel (2 capfuls per day). took me a bout 2 weeks and almost half bottle of excel. finally triumph over the hair algae but not without loses. loss a lot of shrimps (cherry/sakura, malayan, snowball, tiger.....even netrite snails)
after a while i realised the outbreak was mainly cause by the "shift of sun". when is first setup the tank, the sun will not "hit my tank" but during this time of the year, it changes and my tank are exposed to the sun during the morning. Now i had to use a cloth to cover up the front side of my tank to prevent sunlight.
The reactions are as follows CO2 + H2O <=> H2CO3 <=> H^+ + HCO3^- <=> 2H^+ + CO3^2-
The pKa of bicarbonate is 8.5, this means that at a pH of 8.5 half of the CO2 will be in the form of HCO3^- and CO3^2-. The pKa of carbonic acid (H2CO3) is 6.10, so at pH 6.10 half will be in the form of H2CO3 and half in the form of HCO3^-. At a pH of 6, only 44% is in the form of HCO3^-. At pH 5, this drops to 7% meaning 93% is in the form of H2CO3 which plants can easily extract the CO2 from. I don't intend to drop my pH to 5... But by keeping it at about 6 I can already favour the plants at the expense of the algae.
What I have also done, taking the advice on algae control from Walstad's book, is switch to cool white to reduce the amount of blue light which will cause iron to go from Fe3+ to Fe2+ (which is soluble) so the iron will remain in the sediment where the plant roots can extract it while the algae can't. I have also begun carbon filtering to remove all organics which can chelate the iron and provide it to the algae. I will let you know how this goes.
I'm also going to supplement with N, K, Ca and Mg to keep my plants happy and so they can use iron and phosphate in the water. I'm hoping that this will cause the hair algae to grow slower and then I remove it manually. I will be feeding my fish less so they should tuck into the algae.
This is not about algae outcompeting plants for Carbon(CO2 or HCO3).
Algae are never limited by carbon in the aquarium.
Plants? Typically they are. That is why plants grow much better if you add CO2 gas.
Algae are "limited" by light more than anything else in aquariums.
Plants are limited mostly by CO2.
Some can use HCO3, but they are still going to grow much slower on HCO3 if they can use it.
Poor plant growth leads to algae, this is not about competing, or limiting algae, it's about growing plants.
Regards,
Tom Barr
I should be working not posting
I don't know anybody planted shrimp tank [CRS] that's not been attacked by hair algae and it's not about the CO2 too.
That's such a poor one size fits all comment that's led to hobbyists blindly/negligently killing their pets to solve their algae problem.
It's fine for somebody who knows what they're doing but most guys only think they know what they're doing.
You can if you dare to fail - Stan Chung
I have to agree.
Poor CO2 use will get any and everyone.
Fish, shrimp come first.
Then plants/algae issues.
I think there are good ways to reduce the risk with CO2, but many seem to wing it. Then learn the hard way either dealing with lots of algae issues, or dead fish, shrimp etc.
I watch the tank closely and very slow and progressively adjust the CO2, I make sure I have good current and some water surface movement, not enough to break the surface, but close.
That keeps the O2 up, and then CO2 loss I can simply add a bit more with a turn of the valve. A good CO2 dual stage regulator, damn good needle valve, good solenoid, check valve, diffuser method and (also diffusers need kept clean)..........every step in the delivery system is carefully considered.'
I also use a circular ruler dial on the valve itself using the swagelok vernier caliper handles. Makes adjustment and then the observation there after... very simple and easy.
I think careful slow observation and adjustments are the trick for most folks. They often just do not do it. Impatient I suppose.
Still, you can also use less light and reduce intensity and get a similar effect without changing much else since less light = less CO2 demand by plants.
Doing that + tweaking the CO2 is the better long term resolution.
CO2 is central to the green algae issues.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Regards,
Tom Barr
I can't understand why algae are more limited by light than plants? Algae are far more efficient photosynthesizers than plants, being able to use lower levels or light while plants can't but that is mainly due to CO2 limitation. Various algae have been grown under conditions which have allowed up to 5% Photosynthetic efficiency (plants average about 2%) and some biofuel companies boast up to 11% and that at low light levels---as little as 8.8 to 25 umol photons m-2s-1 or about 5 W/m2 (calculated assuming 100% yellow light) in the case of the marine algae Ulva lactuca while a sunny summer day will give you about 1-2000 umol photons m-2s-1 or about 407 W/m2 assuming 100% yellow light (Plant Light Measurement & Calculations by David R. Hershey The American Biology Teacher 1991 53:351-353). Do not underestimate the capacity of algae to use light. Where plants won't grow, algae will (which is perhaps why aquariums with happy growing plants are algae free). My current hair algae infestation survived many weeks in a dark bucket wherein the green plants melted and only the Java moss, fern and Anubias made it out alive. Unless the tank is kept in complete darkness the algae will continue to grow regardless of its colour.
The article "How Do Algae Concentrate CO2 to Increase the Efficiency of Photosynthetic Carbon Fixation?" by J. V. Moroney and A. Somanchi (Plant Physiol 1999, 119: 9–16) may explain why algae are so damn efficient. They only review the research performed on single cell algae and Cyanobacteria but the bottom line is: algae are photosynthetically more efficient than plants because they can stock-pile HCO3- in their tissues which plants can't do (unless the plant uses CAM or C4 photosynthetic pathways). As such, they escape the CO2 limitation that plants experience and even though plants may have more efficient light harvesting equipment the algae can better use what little light is there. The algae stock-pile the HCO3- using a sodium synport system.
Sadly, and quite unexpectedly, since I have dropped my pH (and thus the HCO3- level) my Cabomba (which supposed likes soft acidic water) hasn't been growing as fast as before. I can't say I have observed any change in the growth rate of my hair algae to dropping the pH but by adding N,K,Ca,Mg and S to the tank the plants have been happier which I hope will make the algae unhappy. The cursed stuff certainly didn't undergo a burst of growth when I added micronutrients 2 days ago as I had observed previously.
Anyone tried dosing the tank with H2O2? I have a protocol: 2 mL 3% (10 volume) H2O2/4 L with the dose repeated the next day. Apparently the shrimp and fish survived fine. There is no way I will be able to remove every scrap of the cursed stuff and it will be a while before the plants are perfectly happy so I need a way to kill it or at least hurt it very bad.
Last edited by TyroneGenade; 17th Dec 2009 at 21:53. Reason: calculation error
I should be working not posting
Does your hair algae look like this?
Is it nearly as bad?
It was at a LFS that shall be unnamed- to be continued. need to shoot the AFTER pics this weekend.
You can if you dare to fail - Stan Chung
Stan, I've fixed a dozen or more tanks like that is as many years.
It was CO2, CO2 and CO2.
I did lower the light intensity, however this directly reduces CO2 demand by plants.
This occurred in the 1600 Gallon tank, a 60 Cube and going back 14 years ago with a 55 gallon tank with too much light, not enough CO2.
I was able to control it with a rotating 3 day blackout, 2-3 days of normal lighting without harm to plants, while I adjusted just the CO2 and waited.
I was also able to control it with nothing more than reduced light intensity goign from 75 micromols down to 45micromols.
Nutrients where non limiting in all cases in both sediments and water column, but 2 aquariums just had the water column dosing alone.
Same plant also.
Inducement was done a few times back and forth for most tanks for confirmation.
Still, why not BBA? Or another species of algae?
Why green algae?
I suppose/speculate that the degree of CO2/light mix may have some role.
More intensity of CO2 limitation=> different ecological roles, species compositions. Plants go from defining the system to simply being something to grow on for algae when limited by carbon or large limiting factors.
It's not an on/off type of thing, rather, a continuous gradation over a range that leads to various differences in algae blooms (and perhaps "fixes").
It's much harder to deal with and solve an algae issue at 450 micromols of light than say 50 micromols of light. Easier to destabilize the higher light planted aquariums, and harder to manage the nutrients/CO2.
Some might fix an algae issue with mild changes, whereas another aquarist will require a lot more effort to get things back to normal growth and little algae presence.
While I may induce algae repeatedly, it does not imply cause, it might be somethign else, or a combination of the light, nutrients and the CO2.
Good critical measurement of CO2 is hard as it moves around a lot minute to minute, location to location, hour to hour in aquariums. I can measure light easy enough and adjust it however I wish and nutrients can be ruled out easily or added to the test model.
Compared to natural systems, we have a very very very low diversity of algae species, even with the varied environments as aquarist we provide.
This seems to point to a much simpler model and cause(and management control) for algae in planted systems.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Here, this is where we likely need to be much more specific, which algae are we speaking of? Periphyton generally. Green water with only one species.
The rest are all periphyton species.
We simply look at growth rates and critical concentrations etc.
A decent paper of light, periphyton and growth rates:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2836844
200-300 is a typical range for maximal growth rates for many species of algae. But plants do very well with 50 microles and the growth rates of periphyton decline a great deal going from 200 down to 50 however.
The plant is also much better at allocating enough CO2 to grow at lower light than it is at higher light.
If you look at light irradiance levels relative to growth rate or photosynthesis or O2 evolution, then you can see over what ranges the rates of growth are for periphyton in freshwater systems.
http://www.k-state.edu/doddslab/jour...col%201999.pdf
another good paper:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l17p168327588071/
See here for some really low compensation points for CO2 and algae:Algae are far more efficient photosynthesizers than plants, being able to use lower levels or light while plants can't but that is mainly due to CO2 limitation.
http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/reprint/64/5/892.pdf
And when the plants run out of CO2 at higher KH's, then the algae are even less limited. Algae are virtually never limited by CO2 in any aquarium. Nor nutrients.
Well nice to say that, but has little meaning since it's not specific and algae are a pretty diverse group would be an understatement.Do not underestimate the capacity of algae to use light.
Better to look at a specific system and a specific algae, if you we cannot get the same species, we can find many that give us the same genus and similar lotic type systems over the light intensities we find in our aquariums.
Aquatic Plants are pretty good at using light also.
12 micromols etc........and they can allocate resources longer distances from areas where there is higher light, to much less than 12 micromols(Gloss, Crypts most certainly etc often invade sediments where light is really low).
Algae really cannot do this over distances, some macro algae like Cladophora over a cm or so I suppose, but few freshwater species can do this.
I was able to kill off Spirogyra easily with a few repeated blackouts, BGA(Oscillitora) is also easily killed off using blackouts, however, it will return if the root issue is not resolved. Also, simply reducing light address the issue is many cases.Where plants won't grow, algae will (which is perhaps why aquariums with happy growing plants are algae free). My current hair algae infestation survived many weeks in a dark bucket wherein the green plants melted and only the Java moss, fern and Anubias made it out alive. Unless the tank is kept in complete darkness the algae will continue to grow regardless of its colour.
Adding more CO2 also resolved the issue. the results of algae blooms seems to be an indirect effect of poor plant growth/health, CO2. Light does drive that and in a big way.
But in high light we can "fix" the algae issue for our tank with adding more CO2, which is not always easy and time is required for plant recovery.
Many aquatic plants can and do use KH/Bicarb, Hydrilla is a classic example, Egeria densa, all pondweeds, many many other aquatic weeds do this.The article "How Do Algae Concentrate CO2 to Increase the Efficiency of Photosynthetic Carbon Fixation?" by J. V. Moroney and A. Somanchi (Plant Physiol 1999, 119: 9–16) may explain why algae are so damn efficient. They only review the research performed on single cell algae and Cyanobacteria but the bottom line is: algae are photosynthetically more efficient than plants because they can stock-pile HCO3- in their tissues which plants can't do (unless the plant uses CAM or C4 photosynthetic pathways).
See the above reference for a list for CO2 compensation points for a much better reference for this.
Well, there's much less biomass of algae to start with than aquatic plants(several orders of magnitude) in our aquariums. Much much less. So the demand for CO2, nutrients is also extremely small.As such, they escape the CO2 limitation that plants experience and even though plants may have more efficient light harvesting equipment the algae can better use what little light is there. The algae stock-pile the HCO3- using a sodium synport system.
CCM(Carbon concentrating mechanisms) in algae are common, plants have a much greater need for CO2 however.
I'm sure if you search around, you will find a lot of references to this effect.
If you removed the KH but did not add CO2, then the total amount of carbon is less. Cabomba is a poor bicarb user, it will do a little, see Van, Bowes, Haller, 1975 for light/CO2/HCO3 usage in Cabomba.Sadly, and quite unexpectedly, since I have dropped my pH (and thus the HCO3- level) my Cabomba (which supposed likes soft acidic water) hasn't been growing as fast as before. I can't say I have observed any change in the growth rate of my hair algae to dropping the pH but by adding N,K,Ca,Mg and S to the tank the plants have been happier which I hope will make the algae unhappy. The cursed stuff certainly didn't undergo a burst of growth when I added micronutrients 2 days ago as I had observed previously.
Also, see allocation and CO2 in aquatic plants from Tropica, by Ole, Claus and Troels on Tropica's web site, it's a very good article for hobbyists about growth in light/CO2 for aquatic plants.
Reduce light, increase CO2.Anyone tried dosing the tank with H2O2? I have a protocol: 2 mL 3% (10 volume) H2O2/4 L with the dose repeated the next day. Apparently the shrimp and fish survived fine. There is no way I will be able to remove every scrap of the cursed stuff and it will be a while before the plants are perfectly happy so I need a way to kill it or at least hurt it very bad.
Do this slowly and carefully and watch the fish and plant's growth. Be patience, it does go away if you have managed the CO2/light balance correctly.
Regards,
Tom Barr
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