[kirlo357]

Ok, I have had this tank for about 6 months now. and have been using this forum to fix problems up till know. You all have lots of good advice
history: The first month I got ich from somewhere, so I used salt to treat it-and my plants started wilting, I left them, to replace when I was done with the ich. The fish started having problems after awhile with the salt, so I stopped it early. Replaced the plants that died and left it alone. The ich came back on some fish, then disappeared. I then dismantled the tank to bring to college with me, and when I reassembled it the stress caused some of the ich to reappear, and I lost some fish. But, it has been ich free for a month now!! yay!

I had diatoms I think in the first two months, lots of brown all over my plants. When I moved it I cleaned all the plants/rocks/driftwood as best I could and took any dead leaves off of the plants, replanting them with only green leaves.

Now, I still have brown on them, but the new leaves are growing in w/out brown, and I am waiting to see if they stay that way. The older leaves though have hair-like algae on them, so does my driftwood, and the Java Moss is covered in it-everything is still growing (not as fast as I thought it would) just covered. I also had green-spot all over my tank walls( the bottom half, which I thought was wierd), and some on the plant leaves, but during this weeks pwc I scraped all I could off.

Can anyone identify this algae and suggest a way to start getting rid of it? Will more time fix it? This is my firs planted tank, and so far I really like it, just the algae is annoying and I want to find a way to balance everything so that the plants can grow and the algae doesn't.

Also, my impression was that the stem plants would grow pretty quickly. I have Cabomba and a mint plant(?) They are both growing, no doubt. But I have only had to trim the cabomba twice since I got it, and the mint plant I never have, just taken the dead stuff off. And my red plants are not really growing at all, the new leaves they do have are not red, just bright green. and they don't seem to be growing any faster then the older leaves die.

Do I need more light? I was thinking about ordering this
http://fishneedit.com/30in-4bulbs-fixtu304.html
with 3 white (6700K) and 1 blue bulb
I know I would have to increase co2.

Thanks for reading all this and Kudos to you!

Specs:
79-80F
2 Hagen co2 connected to one glass diffuser
29 gallon tall
1-150gph penguin
1-150gph AquaClear
Aquasun T5HO 30"/48w w/super daylight and max plant growth bulbs
EI dosing w/ Macros, CSM+B, and iron

Plants:
Cabomba
Java Moss
Hairgrass
Four others that I'll post pictures of

Fish:
3 albino cories
1 spotted cory
1 false julii cory
1 habrosus cory
1 sterbai cory
1 Emerald cory
2 FAT ottos
4 Odessa Barbs
3 Small Angelfish
2 Kuhli Loaches
4 Galaxy Rasboras
Assorted Nerites
2 Ghost Shrimp
1 Bamboo Shrimp
1 Amano Shrimp

I feed once a day, in the morning, 6 days a week. Everyone is always hungry. Sunday is a 50-60% pwc and they don't get fed.

 

[DarkCobra]

AWESOME details and photography. Makes troubleshooting so much easier!

One thing missing is the distance between bulbs and substrate, which is needed to get some idea of how much light is reaching the bottom. That can vary according to your exact tank dimensions, substrate depth, and how the light is mounted. I'm going to assume it's about 19" for now. If so, or even if it's a few inches more, you have plenty of light.

That amount of light requires adequate CO2, otherwise the plants will grow slowly as they starve for carbon, become unhealthy, and attract algae.

A drop checker with 4°KH solution should be lime green, with no hint of blue remaining.

While I haven't used the Hagen CO2 system, I hear each one has a volume of about 1L. For yeast CO2, I would recommend no less than 2x 2L DIY bottles on a 29G. Which ideally will give you about 10-14 days operation per bottle, with the bottles being switched out on a staggered basis 5-7 days apart.

Once that's corrected, algae growth will slow down, and plant growth and health will improve.

But the fuzz algae you have is like a parasite. It weakens and drains resources from the plant it grows on. When it covers so much of the plant that immediately trimming it all away is not an option, I prefer to attack and kill the algae directly, so the plant can rebound faster. My typical weapon of choice is a H2O2 spot treatment. Should be fine for all your plants, except maybe the moss. Try treating a small portion of that and see what happens.

As sufficient healthy new growth comes in, trim away the old unhealthy growth.

 

[kirlo357]

Thank you DarkCobra!

I will try upping my CO2 to help my plants stay healthy, I was thinking that they needed more, but wan't sure. I'll increase the yeast mix in the Hagen for now, until I can go through 2 bottles of coke. Time to call on the boyfriend!

I tried the H2O2 today, I thought it was really cool how it targeted the algae areas. I wish I had an airstone that would pump bubbles that fine, they looked really cool. How long will it take to see if that worked at all-I only treated a few spots to test it.

 

[DarkCobra]

It usually takes a day or two for algae killed by H2O2 to start visibly decomposing.

 

[Abrium]

+1 to Cobretti, I couldn't of said anything any better.