[ZheRooH]

The light is on for 8 hours a day and the co2 comes on an hour before and stops an hour before lights go out. The dropchecker is green but not limegreen.

I try to do 2 waterchanges per week.

Photos below, this is before maintenance, I need to trim the sessiflora on a weekly basis.

So the algea that I see are the green fuzzy one and bba. This week I also see some Cyano appearing on the sand.

I've been wondering to add a small powerhead maybe for more flow.

I dose 8ml of plantedbox all-in-one per day + 4ml of phosphate (I have almost nothing in my tank after the all in one)
Also 8 ml of Easycarbo

Edit: according to greenaqua, these algea appear if you have an imbalance in co2, they also suggest turning it on 2/3 hours before light and stop together with light, could this help?
Should I perhaps up the dose so that I get limegreen dropchecker and also up my fertilizer?
Pls help I want a lush tank, it looks good from far but not when closeup

 

[ZheRooH]

Seems like no one can help me

The cyano is getting worse.

The glass is so dirty after a few days.

 

[Scully]

I've never dealt with Cyano but if you're looking for help then some more info will be needed.

How big is the tank? What kind of equipment are you running(Filter, light, temp)?
Your dosing regime means nothing without the voume of your tank.

What are your parameters(Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, P/K, TDS, temp)?

EasyCarbo shouldn't really be necessary if you're running pressurized CO2. However you could try turning off your filter/powerhead and waiting a couple of minutes to stop flow. Then taking a pipette of some sort and spot treating bad areas of algae with up to the normal dose of EasyCarbo. Wait like 10 minutes and then turn everything back on. This might help kill some of it, just be careful because some plants can be sensitive to it.

 

[ZheRooH]

I've never dealt with Cyano but if you're looking for help then some more info will be needed.

How big is the tank? What kind of equipment are you running(Filter, light, temp)?
Your dosing regime means nothing without the voume of your tank.

What are your parameters(Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, P/K, TDS, temp)?

EasyCarbo shouldn't really be necessary if you're running pressurized CO2. However you could try turning off your filter/powerhead and waiting a couple of minutes to stop flow. Then taking a pipette of some sort and spot treating bad areas of algae with up to the normal dose of EasyCarbo. Wait like 10 minutes and then turn everything back on. This might help kill some of it, just be careful because some plants can be sensitive to it.

Hi there, well it's not just cyano, that just popped up now suddenly, as you can see there's other green algea on the plants. I mostly try to spot dose with the easycarbo.

Tank is a Lido 200 from Juwel, 200liters (tall tank), I have Chihiros wrgb2 60cm on there for 8 hours a day and the temp sits at 23-24°C.

I got a powerhead come it today, so fitted that for more flow (hydor 900), filter is Oase biomaster 350.

So I just did this test after a 50% waterchange, and after dosing the 8ml fertilizer and 4 ml phoshate (I assume I need to dose even more, though mostly when I test values are higher around 15)

NH4 : 0mg
NO2: 0mg
NO3: 1 - 5 mg
PO4: 0.1 mg
PH: 7 - 7.2
Kh: 8
Gh:14
Fe: 0.1 mg

 

[Asteroid]

Are you running the light full strength for 8 hrs? You could probably up your co2, but you need to watch your fish. A 1.0 PH drop is usually safe between degassed tank water and co2 peak. So take a sample out of tank shake it and let it set for a day and then test your water at peak co2. A 1.0 PH drop usually indicates good co2 ppm.

When you have bba growing on slow growing plants it's almost always a light/co2/organic waste management issue.

 

[ahem]

Cyano loves sand. Anytime I’ve had light colored sand I’ve gotten it. I now have seachem black sand and there is a cyano splotch beneath the surface of the sand where a beam of sunlight hits the tank.

At first glance your tank is not heavily planted. You might want to look at nutrient levels and light. Also the the large white sand all the way around is perfect for both diatoms and cyano, so you’ll need to manage that well.

How old is your tank? At first many algae’s will strike but they subside as the tank matures.

For algae, expect no quick fixes. Remove what you can (eg I would consider sucking up infested sand and replace with new clean sand). Plants that are impacted, prune and/or remove. Plants that are injured prune and/or remove. Some algae responds to h2o2 injected on it. (I use this kill hair algae that I can remove)

I use excel daily at daily dose on bottle and think that confers an anti algae benefit but can’t say for sure. It might be a security blanket but I’ve watched a few algaes in my tank pop up and then magically go away in a day or two.

 

[they call me bruce]

Correct me if I’m wrong but phosphates are a cause of cyano, why are u adding more?
Spot treat the black beard with peroxide.

 

[ZheRooH]

Are you running the light full strength for 8 hrs? You could probably up your co2, but you need to watch your fish. A 1.0 PH drop is usually safe between degassed tank water and co2 peak. So take a sample out of tank shake it and let it set for a day and then test your water at peak co2. A 1.0 PH drop usually indicates good co2 ppm.

When you have bba growing on slow growing plants it's almost always a light/co2/organic waste management issue.

Yep 8 hours full strenght, I do already have alot of bubbles going in. I'll test it.

Cyano loves sand. Anytime I’ve had light colored sand I’ve gotten it. I now have seachem black sand and there is a cyano splotch beneath the surface of the sand where a beam of sunlight hits the tank.

At first glance your tank is not heavily planted. You might want to look at nutrient levels and light. Also the the large white sand all the way around is perfect for both diatoms and cyano, so you’ll need to manage that well.

How old is your tank? At first many algae’s will strike but they subside as the tank matures.

For algae, expect no quick fixes. Remove what you can (eg I would consider sucking up infested sand and replace with new clean sand). Plants that are impacted, prune and/or remove. Plants that are injured prune and/or remove. Some algae responds to h2o2 injected on it. (I use this kill hair algae that I can remove)

I use excel daily at daily dose on bottle and think that confers an anti algae benefit but can’t say for sure. It might be a security blanket but I’ve watched a few algaes in my tank pop up and then magically go away in a day or two.

Yeah the easycarbo seems to be lower strenght than excel, when I spot dose on bba it needs several doses and days before it goes pinkish. Tank was set up in April. There's a bunch of plants though, there's still some growing in the background, got pogostemon stellatus and erectus that are slowly growing, also the bacopa compacta on the right is very slow growing. The rotala is not really growing fast compared to the sessiliflora (that needs trimming every week).
This stuff is so difficult to get right, I had algea when I set it up, had algea with and without co2 in this tank, bah.

I have 2 other tanks, nano, that I don't do much on not even with fertilizer and one of those has great growth (only green glass), the other not so good. So pretty weird. Don't mind the poor dead shrimp in the tank picture

Correct me if I’m wrong but phosphates are a cause of cyano, why are u adding more?
Spot treat the black beard with peroxide.

I'm adding phosphates because the all in one leaves me with zero and I assume the plants need more. I can stop with dosing that extra for a while and see the results.
I want to go to ei dosing anyway but the shop I use is out of stock for a while on the kits.

 

[rzn7z7]

Are you running the light full strength for 8 hrs? You could probably up your co2, but you need to watch your fish. A 1.0 PH drop is usually safe between degassed tank water and co2 peak. So take a sample out of tank shake it and let it set for a day and then test your water at peak co2. A 1.0 PH drop usually indicates good co2 ppm.

When you have bba growing on slow growing plants it's almost always a light/co2/organic waste management issue.

Agreed...increased CO2 and better overall maintenance (weekly water changes and frequent filter cleaning) will go a long way to solving algae issues


Green Aqua's algae guide is IMO recommended reading for anyone dealing with algae....hope this helps


https://greenaqua.hu/en/alga-tajekoztato

 

[ZheRooH]

Agreed...increased CO2 and better overall maintenance (weekly water changes and frequent filter cleaning) will go a long way to solving algae issues


Green Aqua's algae guide is IMO recommended reading for anyone dealing with algae....hope this helps


https://greenaqua.hu/en/alga-tajekoztato

I normally started doing 2 waterchanges per week of about 30%, but yeah, I clean the sponges of the filter once a week (oase).

I'll add some more co2 and keep an eye on it

 

[ZheRooH]

What is the ideal NO3 amount to have in my tank?

At the end of the month the EI dosing kit should be back in stock and I'll give that a go

 

[Asteroid]

Yep 8 hours full strenght, I do already have alot of bubbles going in. I'll test it.

I would only use at full strength 2-3 hrs the rest much dimmer. In addition test your co2, remove the algae-covered leaves and put carbon in your filter and keep up with good water changes. All of this will reduce organics and allow new leaves to grow cleanly.

My nitrates (from dosing) have been all over the place from dosing (10-80ppm) and no effect on algae. With what you have going there I'm sure anything from 10-40 ppm is fine. When you have mostly slow-growers your goal to me showed be "clean water" not fine-tuning ferts. When you see algae like that it's almost always organics-light-co2.