Algae filled tank, need suggestions

[depthC]

I have a 45 gallon tall planted tank. Recently Ive been having some serious algae problems in which im not sure what i should do to balance things out and get the plants to grow. I want this setup to be fairly low tech, but i guess i wouldnt mind if it the plants actually grew. Here is the setup :

45G Tall | Dimensions : 36"l, 12"w, 24"h
1 x 96 watt Bright kit from AH Supply (6700K bulb)
1 Whisper 2 power filter | One Penguin Mini (put there to keep the bacteria alive since i hadnt a tank to put it on. I should just shut this one down huh?)
Substrate is Shultz APS bottom layer about 2", natural gravel top layer 1 - 1.5"
C02 - im not running any right now, but if needed i can plug up two 2L bottles connected to a hagen bubble ladder.
Ferts - none being dosed

Fish :
5 corys
5 Lemon Tetras
5 White Clouds Mountain Minnows
3 Sawbwa resplendens
1 Kribensis
1 Black Phantom tetras
1 SAE

Plants :
Amazon Sword (Echinodorus bleheri) - this plant is doing very poorly, the leaves are slightly yellowed with brown spots here and there.
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'red'' - hanging in but does have some green algae on the leaves
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'bronze'' - big plant i just received, planted yesterday
Jungle Val (Vallisneria americana) - been in for a while but hasnt grown many new leaves. The leaves are transparent brownish.
Hygro - one bunch was put in a few weeks ago and hasnt done anything but develop a very minut amount of algea on the top leaves.
Java Moss - just put in yesterday, very brown.
Java Fern - recently put in
Anubias barteria - one or two new leaves, this is the only plant that has shown some growth.
apon. bulb - has been in there for a week or two and it grew well at first but now it has stopped growing
mini watter lettuce - growing well

There are various other plants that i just received yesterday, looks like some rotala, some tropica hygro (never heard of it and it doesnt look the same as my hygro), and some other plant that i havent looked into ID'ing.

Water Parameters :
pH - 7.6
gh - 2
kh - 4
N03 - 0 -5 ppm range, this stays fairly low as i do a waterchange once a week

And here is a picture of the horrible looking tank :



As you can see there is quiet a bit of green and brown algae thriving on the back tank wall as well as the gravel. The one SAE i have is eating it but not nearly as fast as it grows. I wondering if i should get myself a pleco to help clean up ..

Here are two pics of the plants :
http://www.apistoexp.com/layout/pers/sickplants.jpg - you can see the unhealthy vals as well as a great deal of algae on the tank walls and gravel ..
http://www.apistoexp.com/layout/pers/sickplants2.jpg - you can see the unhealthy amazon sword ..

So i beleive that covers everything. The piece of driftwood in there takes up way to much floor space so soon i will replace it with another piece once i find a good one.

My main priority with this tank is to get the plants growing before i aquascape or anything. Im a far ways away from that right now but as i said the aquascape isnt a priority now.

Im asking if someone can please give me a few pointers and suggestions as to how i should go about balancing this tank out a bit to get my plants to grow and flourish. There is a decent amount of lighting on the tank but im unsure how i should go about this now. The plants arnt healthy and dont seem to be growing so i dont know how i should best go about trying to get the plants to grow. So anybody please, i need to do something with this tank.

Andrew

[ThomE]

Andrew,

CO2 is always a good thing to add.

What's your phosphate levels? Also how long do you keep your lights on? How much do you feed your fish ?

Also 'Shultz APS' has a tendicy to bounce your paramrters around, so I heard.

For you amazon sword, you might want to add a fert tab w/iron. They chew that stuff up.

Not to be a pain, but you might need to add a couple of faster growing plants to take away all the food the algae is getting.

I had pretty good luck with my NO3 in the 10 range.

Sorry if I'm all over on this, I've been awake since 5:30 this morning and my brain stopped but didn't tell my body.

Good Luck

[all4funwfish]

well, that response preety much covers it. I did notice however that you have no algae controlling fish...okay so you have 1....in a 45 gallon tank....
the problem with SAEs is they dont clean glass very well. I suggest you get a few algae eaters that can clean glass well...IE suckerfish. Being that most people dont like chinese algae eaters (although mine does a great job) and a pleco could potentially cause problems, i would say get a bulldog pleco (aka rubberlipped pleco) which stay small, and get some ottos. ottyos do an awesome job of glass cleaning...also do you have any shrimp? AMano shrimp, and tiger shrimp, and i think cherry shrimp do an excellent job of keeping algae off of plants.....more shrimp=less algae....ghost shrimp are great scavengers but dont eat any algae really, and you have corys, so i would stick to amano's.

[depthC]

I moved things around a bit and took out that huge piece of wood. Hooked up C02 today and will be doing a big w/c and start dosing N03. Hopefully things rebound a bit. Thanks for the suggestions.

Andrew

[xt87]

Good Luck. I have a similar prob. too. Please update us on your results.