Omg I decided to skip dosing for 2 days because I think there could be too much nutrients...... And now the hair algae exploded all over the tank........ What is going on!?!?!
Looks like the hair algae was still able to use up the remaining excess nutrients to grow... i guess at this point you'll just have to manually remove as much of the algae as you can and activate algae fighting procedures (ie. add more shrimps, add more fast growing plants, moderate light and nutrients, dose anti-algae treatment etc).
Now my lights are 2hrs in the afternoon and 4hrs at night, co2 bps probably like 4bps or 5 cannot count already but the drop checker is lime green and sometimes green.Originally Posted by Urban Aquaria
I'm dosing:
Seachem potassium 3ml/daily
Aquaticlawn Phosphorous 0.4ml/daily (1.2ml gives 2ppm for about 50l of water)
Tropica Premium fertiliser 3ml/daily
Seachem iron 1ml/daily (only when lights are on)
For some reason the hair algae hasn't stopped growing.... This is really frustrating because I've been researching and different sources has been telling me different reasons for hair algae.
Some say it's due to lack of phosphorous, some say it's due to too much phosphorous and some say it's simply a insufficient co2 issue... So I have absolutely no idea what to do now
Hi bro,
Is this your new tank? Any fauna in yet? I am not following EI dosing and only follow manufacturer recommendation. I feel your dosing is a bit too much. May be just follow the instruction accordingly. I only dose 2.4ml Seachem Potassium every 2 days and Iron every other day.
I read some where, to remove hair algae, try to manually remove first, reduce the lighting and increase CO2. For Phosphate, I am not sure. I never dose P in my tank yet.
Hope the sifus here can guide you to overcome this situation. Jia you!
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Nope it's my old tank! Been fighting hair algae for a few weeks already... The old one I haven't done anything and for some reason it's really clean LOL I hope it stays that way...Hi bro,
Is this your new tank? Any fauna in yet? I am not following EI dosing and only follow manufacturer recommendation. I feel your dosing is a bit too much. May be just follow the instruction accordingly. I only dose 2.4ml Seachem Potassium every 2 days and Iron every other day.
I read some where, to remove hair algae, try to manually remove first, reduce the lighting and increase CO2. For Phosphate, I am not sure. I never dose P in my tank yet.
Hope the sifus here can guide you to overcome this situation. Jia you!
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Hmm maybe I should consider reducing my dosages.. But the last time I skipped dosing, the hair algae exploded everywhere. I read from many places that said over dosing potassium doesn't cause algae growth that's why I'm dosing so much potassium. (Partly to prevent leaves with holes)
Hi guys!
I have officially lost count of what week this is for both my tanks already.... But the past week has been a really amazing period and here I am giving you guys an update of how my tanks are now.
For the tank on the right, it has been amazing me for the entire week now.
When I was doing my maintenance last Saturday, while disturbing my Ludwigia super red to remove the trapped leaves, I noticed many small shrimps started jumping out of there and mannnnnnn was I happy!!
My shrimps gave birth and a lot of them survived and are now juvenile size already! They can be spotted swimming around the tank and along the MC carpet grazing away. I'm not sure how many are there but I don't think there's more than 10. Those little shrimps don't really have very solid red colours like the fire reds that I have, but I don't even mind!
The next thing you might have noticed is that there is absolutely no Hair Algae on my MC carpet unlike just a few weeks ago! All I did was add 5 Red Nose Shrimp yesterday evening and by today evening, every single strand of hair algae was gone!!! Also, there's 2 Horned Nerite cleaning the glass from GSA and now my tank is really clean of algae!
My current bps for the tank is a little extreme... I'm not sure if anyone's tank is pumping as much CO2 as I am plus I'm using a CO2 reactor so I'm just wondering if there's anything wrong with my set up. My CO2 checker will change colour from time to time so it's definitely not the issue. My CO2 pumped into the tank is approximately 10bps and my checker still shows green when the lights are on and slightly darker green when the lights are off. Anyone else ever pumped THAT much CO2?
I've also transferred all my Galaxy Rasbora into my sandy tank and added 12 Pygmy Cories! The fauna are hiding among the plants most of the time, so I've placed a feeding tube in the tank for me to put all the Hikari Sinking Micro pellets into the tube for it to sink to the front of the sandy area without being blown away. The fishes comes out more often when there's food there. I have also added 2 horned Nerite but they don't seem to be doing its job. But I just added them yesterday and they haven't been exploring the tank unlike the other 2 in the previous tank. Not sure what's wrong.
For this tank, I'm probably going to add 2/3 Otos in it to help clean the tank glass but other than that, I would not be adding any other fauna (other than strengthening the Galaxy Rasbora or Pygmy Cory in numbers and maybe Red Nose Shrimps if I ever have hair algae problems). I would definitely not add any top swimming fishes as I want this tank to give a really spacious feel, like you'll only see the fishes hiding in the bushes and maybe at the sandy area once in awhile.
I also recently bought a Nitrate test kit and notice that for both tanks, my nitrates are less than 10ppm.. Not sure if that's a good thing in a planted tank. I have ordered for Nitrate Fertiliser from Aquatic Lawn on carousell, where I bought my Phosphorous Fertiliser too.
Is that 10 bps Co2 injection rate for both tanks using splitter? Or each tank is getting 10 bps?
Either way its unusually high for 2ft tanks, especially for reactor systems... for my 2ft tanks using reactors, i only need to inject 1 bps to maintain a lime green color in the drop checkers.
Maybe try to gradually reduce the bps injection rate in stages and see if it can still maintain optimal Co2 levels. Also check if there are any leaks along the connections and tubing. That will help save alot of Co2 in the process.
Wow, both tanks looks great. Congrats on you MC carpet
The sandy tank is around 4/5bps while the other is around 8bps had to count using the iPhone slow-mo video HAHA.
My lights are only turned on for 6hrs a day, 2 in the afternoon and 4 at night, with the co2 on and off one hour earlier.
Hmmm... usually when i crank up Co2 injection rate above >3bps, the gas starts to accumulate inside the reactor chamber faster than it can be dissolved, so the gas pocket gradually increases until it fills up most of the chamber. When that happens, it become noisy and the diffusion efficiency is greatly reduced, and alot of undissolved Co2 bubbles start to spit out of the outflow pipe.
If your reactors are still okay running with 4-5 bps or 8 bps (ie. the gas pocket is only a minimal amount at the top of the chamber where the spinning impellers are), then there could be a possibility that there are leaks in the connections or tubing which are letting most of the gas escape out. Which might explain why you had to inject much more Co2 to compensate. Have to check and see.
My observation matches with UA's comment. I am using the Max Mix reactor for my 3ft tank. If >3bps, it will start forming the gas pocket. Sometimes it needs 2 to 3 hr to clear that pocket after the CO2 supply off. So I also want to suggest you to check on the leak.
There isn't actually an air column in the reactor but I can see the bubbles entering the reactor from the CO2 tube. Hmmm I've checked all the tubes and connection and I can't tell if there's a leakage since everything seems to be connected well... Should I lower the bps..?
Hi guys, would the type of bubble counter affect the amount of bubbles showing? Cuz I'm using ANS glass bubble counter where the outlet for the CO2 seems to be narrower than the normal brass bubble counter.
Also, my co2 tubing is actually very long because I was too lazy to cut it after i plugged it in nicely, so there's an extra loop in between the bubble counter and the reactor. Could it be because of the excessively long tube which is why my bubble counts are so high?
There is a small air pocket in my reactor normally when my co2 is on but it's not big enough to make any significant noise from it.
Try to do the soapy water test to check for possible leaks... apply the soapy water to all the joints and connections, see if any bubble pop out when the Co2 system is in operation.
If everything seems okay, then you can try to gradually lower the bps in stages and see if it can still maintain optimal Co2 levels in the tank. Reduce excess Co2 injected and have extend the refill lifespan of the Co2 tank.
Different types of bubble counters might produce different sized bubbles, hence there could be some slight differences in bps between counters, but its usually not significantly different, at most just a small variation.
Longer Co2 tubing just takes abit more time for the injected gas to start entering the reactor chamber, but overall amount of Co2 being injected shouldn't be affected that much. Shortening the Co2 tubing would still be better though, so that the gas can start entering the reactor sooner.
Hey guys, any suggestion for a cheap and good mini surface skimmer?
Also, just wondering why I'm having troubles acclimating Nerite snails... I've had 4 Nerite snails die just the moment I add them in. They don't seem to move at all after I place them in the tank.
You can use the outflow lily pipe to make some water agitation by putting it higher level with 1/3 of the pipe above the water surface, that will help to clear all the oily surface water.
For nerite snails, you can try to place them near the glass with their mouth closer to the glass wall, if they are alive, they will wake up and climb on glass wall to eat. I noticed my nerite snails was kind of "shy" when first place in the tank. But they become more active if we place near the glass at first. Once they get use to the tank, they will actively grazing around.
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The lily pipe thing doesn't really work for me because I'm using quite a strong cooling fan and my water level drops quite a bit throughout the day so the water will go below the level that would create a nice agitation.You can use the outflow lily pipe to make some water agitation by putting it higher level with 1/3 of the pipe above the water surface, that will help to clear all the oily surface water.
For nerite snails, you can try to place them near the glass with their mouth closer to the glass wall, if they are alive, they will wake up and climb on glass wall to eat. I noticed my nerite snails was kind of "shy" when first place in the tank. But they become more active if we place near the glass at first. Once they get use to the tank, they will actively grazing around.
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Also, I've placed the snails near the wall but they haven't moved for 2 days already... Sighhhhhh such pretty Tri-Coloured Horned Nerites
I only put the agitation from outflow lily pipe during the night, when CO2 injection is off. The next day morning all oily film is gone.
If your snails have not moved for 2 days, high chance that they are the goners. My Amano Shrimps always come to the dead snails to poke and check on them. If they are really dead, he will try to pull the body out to eat. It sounds very scary hor. But Amano does the good job as a scavenger.
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Yeah I figured they should probably be dead... Just wondering why they die so easily... It's so hard to add Nerite snails into a tank without them dying within the first day. I thought snails were supposed to hardy pesticides hahaI only put the agitation from outflow lily pipe during the night, when CO2 injection is off. The next day morning all oily film is gone.
If your snails have not moved for 2 days, high chance that they are the goners. My Amano Shrimps always come to the dead snails to poke and check on them. If they are really dead, he will try to pull the body out to eat. It sounds very scary hor. But Amano does the good job as a scavenger.
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My previous batch of horned nerite snails 4 out of 5 died within a week. This current batch I have 10 of them and they are still doing very well. All glass is crystal clear after one night! I chose the one that very active at LFS that moving and grazing around. Also I have followed UA advice by handling the snails gently by sliding them slowly from the glass wall, they will slowly release the wall then we can take it. Pulling them from the wall by force will make them hurt and shock, I guess. Then they might die faster when getting home.
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