Very frustrated with my progress, need some expert advice!

[DBridges]

I think flow and lighting are the keys here. On 65, I have my filter plus 2 powerheads to keep up a good circulation. This ensures that nutrients/CO2 get everywhere they need to be. If all of your plants, across the entire aquarium, are gently swaying, you're circulation is probably fine.

I'd say your lighting is pretty high for a 55. I'm using 78W T5HO that sits a good 8" above the water surface on a 24" high tank, and everything grows great. IMHO, you can do a lot more with less light than you can with less ferts & CO2.

My $0.02, play with the circulation in your tank and cut back a bit on the light. Maybe throw some floating plants in and see if they help balance some things out a bit.

David

[genEus]

Originally Posted by DBridges

I think flow and lighting are the keys here. On 65, I have my filter plus 2 powerheads to keep up a good circulation. This ensures that nutrients/CO2 get everywhere they need to be. If all of your plants, across the entire aquarium, are gently swaying, you're circulation is probably fine.

I'd say your lighting is pretty high for a 55. I'm using 78W T5HO that sits a good 8" above the water surface on a 24" high tank, and everything grows great. IMHO, you can do a lot more with less light than you can with less ferts & CO2.

My $0.02, play with the circulation in your tank and cut back a bit on the light. Maybe throw some floating plants in and see if they help balance some things out a bit.

David

I installed the Koralia 425 yesterday and like you said, see a slight movement in most of the long stems now. I positioned it on the left side of the tank in front of the spray bar blowing toward the front glass and to the right side of the tank where my filter intake is located. I thought it would actually be a more powerful current than it is, so I'm glad I didn't get the 240.

I also cut the light down to 5 hours. Is that better/different than having a longer cycle with less light? Should I try to reduce the light intensity instead, and keep it on for 8 hours?

[Hardstuff]

Koralia 425? Is that a powerhead? That is good, but I would go with a larger more powerful canister than the 1 you are using. I had similar problems & everybody on this thread is correct about flow, but I would run a large fluval with the addition of your small canister. That filter is way underpowered! 2 filters are better than 1 on bigger tanks. I have experienced issues with algae & poor growth & bigger filters helped fix that. I used to think less is best with plants, than I discovered more is better. If the water becomes cloudy or diatoms build up I run carbon for a while & the tank becomes crystal clear & the plants do not mind. When the tank re balances I take the carbon out.
As far as air stones at night I feel that is unnecessary. It just out gases all CO2 residual that your system spent on it the day before helping to keep the ph down. General surface agitation will do the same thing with slower out gassing. Plus it is more natural & you will have less junk hooked up to your system. A bigger bio system by having multi filters will help circulate & balance your system, & most importantly keep bad algae from overrunning your system. My 2 cents.

[Aquatic Delight]

Originally Posted by genEus

I installed the Koralia 425 yesterday and like you said, see a slight movement in most of the long stems now. I positioned it on the left side of the tank in front of the spray bar blowing toward the front glass and to the right side of the tank where my filter intake is located. I thought it would actually be a more powerful current than it is, so I'm glad I didn't get the 240.

I also cut the light down to 5 hours. Is that better/different than having a longer cycle with less light? Should I try to reduce the light intensity instead, and keep it on for 8 hours?

at this point i would say that you have good flow. and i would not mess with it for a week or so and see if you have any improvement.

personally i have tanks because i enjoy looking at them. so i would much rather have my lights on at lower intensity for more hours than, a high intensity for short time.

also you will want the lighting on long enough to allow you plants to use the nutrients and have proper CO2 oxygen exchange.

[genEus]

So, I dropped the light cycle to 4 hours a day for a few days and started seeing drastic algae die off - the algae on the back glass started dying off in circles (kinda cool!). Then I raised the light from being on its legs on top of the tank, 2" from the water surface, to being 6" above, and upped the photo period to 8 hours.

The tank seems to have slowly started to recover over a couple days, but still, any new growth on rotala sp. green and some other fine leaved plans gets covered in algae. The plants grow fast, but so does the algae on their leaves. So yesterday I reduced the photo period to 6 hours.

Then, my struggling hygro leaves get eaten by the juvenile Angels (I figured it out as I carefully watched them picking at it and other plants, argh!).

So, needless to say, I'm not a very happy camper right now. I'm considering raising the light another inch or so, but I'll stay patient and stop changing things for a little while to get to some kind of a steady state.

[HD Blazingwolf]

take ur time, any change u make takes abou two weeks before there is a difference in plant growth.

pull any fresh algae u see and let the plants grow

[@marko@]

so youve determined the problem. too much light.
now you are just tweaking it to get it to the optimal level. thats easy. not fast, but easy. and once you get it, you are good.
and if you lose the hygro in the process, oh well. you can get more; though if your fish insist on eating it, there isnt much you can do. i had a SAE who loved rotalas. couldnt keep any in the same tank as him.

[genEus]

Originally Posted by @marko@

so youve determined the problem. too much light.
now you are just tweaking it to get it to the optimal level. thats easy. not fast, but easy. and once you get it, you are good.
and if you lose the hygro in the process, oh well. you can get more; though if your fish insist on eating it, there isnt much you can do. i had a SAE who loved rotalas. couldnt keep any in the same tank as him.

I'm transplanting the juvie angels to the other 55 gal at my parents' house this weekend. There are a lot more plants there for them to munch on, much to my chagrin. That tank was supposed to be the 'worse' one of the two, and how ironic that it's growing beautifully with minimal algae problems, light set right atop the tank, while mine is in algae hell.

[pweifan]

Tank stability also promotes healthy growth. I'm guessing your other tank is more mature and therefore is having fewer problems. It sounds like you're on the right track. Hang in there.

[genEus]

I don't know what it is. This tank is frustrating beyond belief. Plants are all growing great, but everything looks brown from the algae on the leaves.

My thought a couple weeks ago was to elongate the light cycle to 7 hours, up from 6, to achieve faster plant growth, which will then suck out the excess nutrients and remove the algae. But alas, the algae just grew better and stronger. There's not much of it on the glass at all, but all the plants look brown except for the tops of the new growth. I'm reducing the light back down to 6 hours again. This is a curse.

[micheljq]

Originally Posted by genEus

- EI dosing 3 times a week of 1/2tsp KNO3, 1/8tsp KH2PO4, 1/8tsp K2SO4, 1/8tsp CSM+B

You do not dose calcium nor magnesium and those are macros needed by the plants too. Either check the GH of your water, if it is more than GH=5, i suppose there are enough Ca and Mg in the water. If not begin dosing them too. I would verify that with the suggestions already posted.

Michel.

[HD Blazingwolf]

plants do not outcompete algae for nutrients
if that was the case my tank would be covered in it. many of us here follow
EI/ estimative index dosing which gives the plants more nutrients than they need
algae being a simple organism can survive off of tiny, untraceable amounts of nutrients. your fighting a losing battle trying to fight algae

instead FOCUS on growing healthy plants, provide them with the nutrients they need at a decent light level to start and go frm there

start by wiping many of the leaves down and performing a big water change to suck up the diatoms,
diatoms seem to do best with ammonia and silicates present in water,, so a strng bio fitler will help prevent the diatoms it seems your having

also instead of reducing photoperiod, reduce the intensity of the light and increase the photoperiod. plants will try to grow for about 10 hours in most tanks at a minimum, so give them the time they need, but at a reduced intensit for a few weeks and let things stablize. then increase intensity and see if things stay clear.

[Aquatic Delight]

Originally Posted by HD Blazingwolf

start by wiping many of the leaves down and performing a big water change to suck up the diatoms,
diatoms seem to do best with ammonia and silicates present in water,, so a strng bio fitler will help prevent the diatoms it seems your having

also instead of reducing photoperiod, reduce the intensity of the light and increase the photoperiod. plants will try to grow for about 10 hours in most tanks at a minimum, so give them the time they need, but at a reduced intensit for a few weeks and let things stablize. then increase intensity and see if things stay clear.

+1 to everything you said , specifically this stuff.

post us a photo lets see how things are looking.

[MarkM]

My tank is similar though I have elected to change to a low tech approach. Of note, I have a similar two bulb T5HO fixture with two 6700K bulbs. I originally thought that this would provide low medium light. The par charts floating around indicated that I had too much light. I tested the par and in fact I do have too much light. One bulb gives me high medium par readings.

[happi]

by looking at your plants i can tell you something about them, i think you have too much NO3 and less K+ in the water, you might also have no Mg in your water. i would test for these to make sure you have enough Ca and Mg. when there is too much NO3 in water plant will grow very fast and leaves grow far away from nodes, in other word you have long branch with less leaves on them.

i would keep the lights on for 8 hours and keep the flow high, dose extra K2so4 4+ppm(12ppm total) 3x week along with your regular dosing.