1st time planted tank 1st time algal bloom

769 Views 3 Replies 2 Participants Last post by dukydaf, Mar 6, 2017

Planted moore

Discussion Starter · Mar 5, 2017

I've never experienced an algal bloom before. Ive had many fish tanks over the years and I've read about algal blooms just bever had 1. I have a 29 gallon with 1 black moor, 5 oto cats, 2 true SAE, 18 ghost shrimp, 4 black mystery snails, a handful of hitchhiking ramshorn and pond? snails. I wouldn't say the tank is super heavily planted. 1 banana plant, 1 Nymphoides indica, 1 10" bunch of hornwart, 2 tennis ball sized bunches of guppy grass, 1 mystery crypt, 1 bronze crypt, 3 small java fern, 1 fragment of java moss, 4 stalks of purple cabomba, 1 5" Amazon sword, 8 10" stalks of red temple, piece of pillia type plant, 4 6" stalks of ludwigia possibly repens. All of this under 2 23w 5000k CFLs.

Is this a K issue? Do i need to buy the 6500ks? The only reason i didn't was because i visited 3 lowes and a home depot in 1 day and none had higher than 5000k. My local Lowe's usually carries 2pks of the 6500ks (alot of growers in my area).

Ive read you just need to wait out algal blooms but does that include aquariums with higher light than the typical low W T12-T8 tubes?

Thanks in advance

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dukydaf

· #2 · Mar 5, 2017

Hello planted moore and welcome to the forum.

K(Kelvin) numbers only provide information on the color of the light visible to human eye. It does not provide any information on spectrum distribution etc. Given that they are CFL I would not worry about changing the lights just because of the Kelvin. If you like the yellow tint than keep with it.

What type of algae do you think you have ? You can post a pic here if you do not know.
Do you dose any fertilizers to your aquarium ?
How often/much do you do water changes ?
How new is the aquarium ?

It takes a time to understand and get a feel for each aquarium-aquarist pair so do not stress over it we have all gone through some type of algae bloom. Keep at it and you will see improvement.

Regards,
duky

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Planted moore

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 6, 2017

It looks like this. Can't figure out how to upload a photo. Thanks for the welcome. Its just green water. Very little "algae" actually growing on surfaces and what little is growing is green photosynthetic bacteria. Ive had algae before just never in the water column which is what I meant when i said algal bloom. This tank is about 2 months old. I change roughly 8 gallons weekly. Except a couple weeks ago i was out of town for 12 days and when I returned the tank water was green. I do slightly overfeed because the goldfish has a terrible time finding food but the shrimp and SAE make short work of the extra. I'm assuming this is just a new tank issue and will go away on its own but just checking because I'm new to planted tanks.

https://www.google.com/search?q=algal+bloom&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjN9-ihrMLSAhWJxVQKHeZYDrQQ_AUIBygB&biw=600&bih=960#tbm=isch&q=algal+bloom+aquarium&*&imgrc=oXofJaEnrF6yJM:

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dukydaf

· #4 · Mar 6, 2017

Uh, yes that is green water. The good thing is that fish and plants are not really affected by it and it really outcompetes the other type of algae.

Quick sure fix: borrow/rent a UV sterilizer for a week or so and the algae will be gone.

Water changes work for the moment but the algae grows back fast. Nutrient limitation/starvation might work in some cases but it did not for me. Blackouts reportedly work for some people, not for me and it weakens the plants. It is believed it starts from high NH3 in the aquarium, which is in line with you overfeeding. However what starts it and what stops it need not be the same thing.

As I said, the light type you have did not cause algae, it might have been a tad too intense. The plants there are not really fussy. Dutch aquarists grew superb plants under standard light bulbs or halogen lamps... how far is that from 10000K ? Light temperature is measured in K and is not a spectrum. The Kelvin rating (the same Kelvin used to measure temperature) is the result of the cumulated emitted radiation at different wavelengths and intensities as compared to a black body radiator of the same temperature. This is to say, that if you have a relatively full spectrum light source , the major emission peak will also pretty much cover the other emissions and largely influence the K rating. So you can get a relative full spectrum light source with a large intensity peak in blue and a smaller one in red and have it rated at 10000K. You can also get a LED light with a very narrow targeted spectrum that only provides bluish light and also have it rated at 10000K.

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