Where am I going wrong? Constant tank failure...

[Jaguar]

My water's about 6-7 dkh. So kinda hard. And it comes out of the tap at like 8.2ph (but drops as it sits out). I think the kh is pretty low cause even DIY CO2 dropped my ph quite nicely. Other than that I don't really know what's in it... it's lake water so I would assume it has some ... stuff in it. I would like to invest in a RO filter one day but I'm still trying to recover from buying a regulator and co2 cylinder that I can't use!



FTS as of tonight, fish seem happy and much less skittish than they were in the BB tank already. Clip on the front was to hold the tube for drip acclimation!

[Rockhoe14er]

Just to add some to what people are already saying. In my experience with Cyano it's really a nitrate problem. I don't think you are getting these problems because of too much fertalizer. I would load that tank up with nitrates, phosphates and micro nutrients. You really need to work on getting good plant growth. The fact that your plants aren't growing well tells you that you're missing something.

Many of us have had the same story and it really takes a lot of time to get things right. If i were you I would try to lower my lighting a bit more dose with ferts and water change once a week or so. I have been able to grow an HC carpet very easily with low light. In fact anytime i tried high light it would die pretty quickly and look terrible. This was even with CO2. HC is a bit of a CO2 hog so to allow the plant to gather enough co2 you should limit the light so that this becomes the limiting factor. Excel does work great with HC in my experience it loves the stuff so i would keep dosing that to help stimulate growth.

Lastly, Patients is a big issue too. Once you make a change you need to wait a while almost a month to see if it works. Your tank is reflecting conditions or about a month ago. So even if you have everything perfect today but things were screwed up a couple weeks ago it'll take time for you plants to get used to you new conditions. Algae is much better at adapting to new changes and plants are terrible at it. The only way plants can beat algae is if they have optimal condition's day in and day out.

Again i just want to stress that it really takes time. I struggled for about 2 years before i got it right. And its still a battle. It is very rewarding once your plants are growing really well.

I think your tank has the potential to look really amazing. I would not use the Abx and just try to fix the problem first. Good luck.

[HD Blazingwolf]

fertilizer does not cause it.. anyone that says that hasn't accidentally dosed too much before

i've had 15 ppm phosphates and 220 nitrates before and never had algae, or cyano problems because of it
cyano like most other algaes likes an unhealthy tank
ammonia makes it worse but isn't soo much an underlying cause of cyano

EDIT: excess nutrients in bodies of water will et handled largely by algae because there is not sufficient plant growth to reduce the nutrient levels.. nature will always balance itself. if plants wont, algae will... its simple

healthy bacterial colonies prevent cyano. keep the tank clean, the water changed and let bacteria establish itself, not just the nitrogen cycle bacterium. there are hundreds of species in our tanks that continually break down and change things.. keep oxygen levels rich, light levels low and perform frequent water changes over the next few weeks and it will eventually things will pan out

cyano is rich in protein and nutrients actualyl so drinking it isn't bad for you. many of the algae pills u can take to supplement food are strains of cyano.. loaded with energy they are.. they are the oldest surviving organism on this planet that scientists are aware of.... chlorination is not likely to do much harm in safe drinking level concentrations.. ur ap water is probably infested with other types of algae,, ur tank health will determine if it takes hold or not..


before u go the antibiotic route.. turning of filters and dosing peroxide is a lot safer, and will help preserve ur bacterium that ur realyl needing to grow

[puopg]

Had a similar issue in my tank about 2 weeks ago. First of all, if you got low light, IMO you dont really need EI as fish waste and food can provide the nutrients.

I think you could more fast growing plants to help outcompete the algae and then once things have settled back into it, you can slowly remove them.

What i did which worked great against the algae was a blackout. 3 days, 0 light. 50% WC before and after no dosing or CO2. Probably a good idea to drop an airstone in. Dosing excel before you cover can really help as well. But bear in mind not all plants handle it well (like hornwort or moss). You really need to cover everything. I used towels and jackets to cover mine. since i also had a diatom outbreak, the first thing i noticed when i unveiled my tank was, "oh fuk this plant is green, i totally forgot...". Plants took a hit, but they are recovering fine.

I think that if an algae outbreak happens, it can be real difficult to get things into order if your plants aren't healthy. I struggled for a month trying to get my plants to do well. Injected a ton of CO2, followed EI, but the diatoms didnt give a fuk. They coated the leaves of my rotalas and basically choked those plants out of light. Literally, i would drop in a new plant and within 12 hours i would see brown appearing on the edges of the leaves. I had plants doing better in no light than in my tank. After the blackout, so far the diatoms are still there, but significantly reduced. To give you an idea of how much reduced, since last friday i dropped in the same plant as before, only a few leaves have some brown on them, the rest are all good. Still, i hope they finish their cycle soon since this was an established tank before I induced the bloom.

[JeffHerr]

This may not be your issue, but my green water and BBA went away in days once I started EI properly with Excel carbon supplementation and proper temp in the aquarium.

[abc]

I think you need more easy-plants in your tank. My algae problems went away when I put in more plants and then the fertilizer routine really worked as the plants out-competed the algae (and in your case, the cyano-bacteria too)

[Jaguar]

before u go the antibiotic route.. turning of filters and dosing peroxide is a lot safer, and will help preserve ur bacterium that ur realyl needing to grow

Thank you for all the advice. I did try peroxide - all it did was kill my HC!

I know I need more plants. But local selection is TERRIBLE and I honestly can't afford to buy plants online, at least this time of year (it's REALLY cold here). The Canadian SnS is pathetic and I can't buy plants from the USA. Shame really. I had to stalk one store for almost 6 months trying to get HC ... I finally got it (all 2 pots of it lol) and I haven't seen it anywhere since! I was really hoping this rotala would take off, but it doesn't want to grow. It grew just fine in my betta's spec, that's the strange thing.

As far as ferts go... I am only doing EI low light weekly. It is fairly modest amounts IMO. I don't know if it's still too much with how few plants I have.

[puopg]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

But local selection is TERRIBLE and I honestly can't afford to buy plants online, at least this time of year (it's REALLY cold here).

Who said you have to leave them in forever? Point is to get the tank stable first. I mean would you rather have like a ton of floating anarchis or the algae ridden tank? Also, how terrible are we talking here? Like algae infested leaves? Most pet stores carry anarchis.

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by puopg

Who said you have to leave them in forever? Point is to get the tank stable first. I mean would you rather have like a ton of floating anarchis or the algae ridden tank? Also, how terrible are we talking here? Like algae infested leaves? Most pet stores carry anarchis.

Yes... Like half rotted plants (if they have any) covered in algae for $7-9. Petsmart has it sometimes, but they have cyano and pond snails in their plant tanks x _x; If any store had *stable* stock it wouldn't be so bad, but it's a guessing game every time. I've made an hour and a half each way trip just to find out all they had was java ferns and java moss. I haven't been in a while though, next time I am out that way I will look. I don't have a car so it's not easy to just hop to 3 stores and browse. Next week I should be able to go

[Canuck]

Just looking on line I see listings for an Okanagan Aquarium club and BC aquarium club. If you are looking for plants locally, this would be among the first places to check. Generally most fish clubs have members with good quality clippings available.

[Jaguar]

Okanagan Aquarium Club disbanded many many years ago - I was told the woman who organized/hosted all of the events passed away. I am a member on the BC Aquaria forums. People will ship plants in the spring/summer, heck someone sent me a really awesome free plant package last year. But right now, rush shipping with heat packs and insulation makes it really expensive.

[Jaguar]

Today... been better, been worse:



I went to 2 LFS the other day looking for plants... first one has the biggest selection, but they had just moved so had very little stock... everything I have already unfortunately.

And then I went to Petsmart... oh the horror of their plant tanks. Loads upon loads of cabomba, but every other plant was half dead, rotted, covered in snails, cyano, or holes from the goldfish they stupidly put in the plant tanks. I managed to find one salvageable aponogeton undulatus... we'll see how it does.

[Jaguar]

Mid week update... Honestly looking pretty good at this point. Due for a WC and I can barely see any cyano. Maybe P limitation really was my problem. I dosed my fert mixes twice this week and I also raised the brightness of my lights about 10%. I'm surprised, really - I hope this continues. Nothing' really growing like crazy, but nothing's covered in cyano sludge any more, so... fingers crossed.

[sarahspins]

Looking at that HC.. I'd pull out as much as you can and pick out and replant the green stems. Yes, it's tedious and time consuming, but all of that dead and decaying plant matter isn't helping anything in your tank.

[Jaguar]

I am gonna do that next WC, I wasn't 100% sure if it was even gonna bounce back after all the cyano so I didn't want to mess with it. My aquasoil is really nasty, I had a bunch of emersed plants in there at one point and there is a lot of rotten root systems left behind... I may try and vac off the top inch or so of AS, and see if I can somehow separate my powder from normal type again, just to get it clean from all the dead plantstuff...