[Benjamin]

So I've had my first planted tank running since January and finally got around to planting and stocking it in May. A week or two after adding plants and fish there has been a hair algae outbreak that I have not been able to get under control...

Specifications:
55g Dirted and Capped with Black Diamond sand
Pen Plax Canister Filter with foam, floss and bio media
Lights: 3 Florescent T8's 2x 32W and a 40W all plant specific
running the lights 10 hours a day and the plants I have are all showing great growth and propitiation so far.
My water is very hard, test only goes to 7.5 and it's above that.

Stocking List:
4x Platys (2 Fry so far!)
2x Bandit Corys (planning on getting more of these guys soon!)

I do not dose any ferts and have been trying to get diy CO2 going but have not been very consistent with it and haven't been producing much more than maybe 5 bubbles per minute. I am thinking that getting the CO2 up and running may help?
Also as it is the summer time my tank temperature has been fluctuating daily. I turn on a fan to cool the tank and have the heater kick on at 73F but the temperature still goes between that and 80F. The fish have never seemed stressed but maybe it has an effect on the algae?

Anyway, sorry about the long write up, any suggestions on how to balance out this tank?
(The picture is of course after I had scraped all the algae off of the walls and cleaned the log and plants, but it shows the plant load anyway. I can put up some pictures of the algae tomorrow if it would help)
Thanks everyone!

 

[Raymond S.]

What size tank?

 

[Benjamin]

55 gallon

 

[roadmaster]

Would reduce lighting period to total of six hour's daily for first few (6 to 8)Week's.
Aquariumfertilizer.com (macro micro package), and feed fish once a day.
May be able to get away with no fertz for a time with nutrient's that soil contain's, but plant's will eventually need more in the way of nutrient's as they grow larger and plant mass increases and nutrient's in soil are used up.
Is my belief that the ability of plant's to draw nutrient's from both the sediment as well as the water is win/win for plant's.
You could stand with some more in the way of fast growing plant's like watersprite,vallisneria,hygrophila,ludwigia.
Once every couple week's 30% water change assuming moderate fish load.
My two cent's.

 

[Raymond S.]

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/10-lighting/184368-lighting-aquarium-par-instead-watts.html
There is a T8 chart on that thread. I would be guessing only to say that you may have
higher light than you think with three bulbs in there. Until the tank has several growing
plants in it I'd take the suggestion of the roadmaster about limiting the hrs per day.
Whenever this type of algae got into my tanks it was at a time when the light hrs were long and/or there was just too much in there for the tank.

 

[Benjamin]

Okay so I turned my lighting down to 6 hours a day and i also threw in a clump of big milfoil stems from my "native-invasive" tank to suck up any excess nutrients.
Will reducing the light cycle have any effect on my plants growth rate?

 

[roadmaster]

Okay so I turned my lighting down to 6 hours a day and i also threw in a clump of big milfoil stems from my "native-invasive" tank to suck up any excess nutrients.
Will reducing the light cycle have any effect on my plants growth rate?

Yes plant's will grow slower.
would trade slower growth over algae any day.
After some week's,you can then increase the hours by one and wait /watch for another week and increase another hour up to eight/nine over time.
If algae begin's , back off an hour.
Increasing light, increase's more demand from plant's for CO2 and possibly more of all fertilizer's ain't low tech or low maint then.
Best to start with lower light till plant's get a good start, even if it is slower than you like.