[underwaterview]

HI Everyone,

I have a relatively young dirted, planted tank of about 20-22 gallons (its a 32 cube not quite full and with a fair bit of soil/gravel and wood/hardscape to displace). Its about 2 months old is all. Soil under gravel is eB stones premier/420 blend.. fairly rich but of course designed for veggies etc not aquariums.

Dont have parameters as my lfs has been testing, but nitrogen was essentially zero after cycling, and we have pretty hard water here.

I have a lot of floating duckweed, some Anubias, java moss, Rotala, Ludwigia. Probably need more plants. It has a fluval 207, and since about 10 days only, aeration w bubbles. The plants, other than the duckweed, could probably be growing faster. Anubias older leaves getting staghorn, esp on the edges, and newest leaves are somewhat crumpled downward on the margins... Rotala new growth somewhat yellow.

staghorn has been kinda blowing up over the past month, on one piece of wood closest to the light. I was going about 10 hours of light plus the sunrise/sunset, and fairly low on pink.

Now I have in pro-mode, with about 4 bright hours, followed by a 4 hour siesta, then four more bright, with the reds high on both well lit periods..
My darker period in the middle is not *dark* but everything is at or less than 10%. Would this help disadvantage algae?

Everything Ive read about staghorn algae indicates it comes on with low C02 or night ammonia.. I need to test but ammonia has never been detected...

thanks!

 

[Quesenek]

HI Everyone,

I have a relatively young dirted, planted tank of about 20-22 gallons (its a 32 cube not quite full and with a fair bit of soil/gravel and wood/hardscape to displace). Its about 2 months old is all. Soil under gravel is eB stones premier/420 blend.. fairly rich but of course designed for veggies etc not aquariums.

Dont have parameters as my lfs has been testing, but nitrogen was essentially zero after cycling, and we have pretty hard water here.

I have a lot of floating duckweed, some Anubias, java moss, Rotala, Ludwigia. Probably need more plants. It has a fluval 207, and since about 10 days only, aeration w bubbles. The plants, other than the duckweed, could probably be growing faster. Anubias older leaves getting staghorn, esp on the edges, and newest leaves are somewhat crumpled downward on the margins... Rotala new growth somewhat yellow.

staghorn has been kinda blowing up over the past month, on one piece of wood closest to the light. I was going about 10 hours of light plus the sunrise/sunset, and fairly low on pink.

Now I have in pro-mode, with about 4 bright hours, followed by a 4 hour siesta, then four more bright, with the reds high on both well lit periods..
My darker period in the middle is not *dark* but everything is at or less than 10%. Would this help disadvantage algae?

Everything Ive read about staghorn algae indicates it comes on with low C02 or night ammonia.. I need to test but ammonia has never been detected...

thanks!

In my tanks, like clockwork, I get staghorn algae on month 2-3 I think it has something to do with an immature biological state in the aquarium, but I have no idea.
What I do to solve it is I drop the lighting down to 5 hours a day and spot treat the staghorn algae with H2O2 with a syringe and let it sit with the filters off for an hour. I do this every day until all of the staghorn algae that I can see is red.

During the staghorn killing stage I make sure that the flow is good in the tank, and that Co2 can be accessed by all the plants especially in areas that the staghorn algae is the worst.
I also revise my tank maintenance, removing dead/dying plant matter, keeping plants trimmed up, as the number one algae killer that I've found is a strong healthy growing plant mass.

 

[underwaterview]

thank you,

How do you assure C02 levels can be accessed "by all plants"? Do you add?

Im also interested in how you spot treat plants w h202- Id assume this would really rock a fishes gills if they caught a whiff? When I read recs about h202, they say for example 25ml of 3% to 50 ml of tank water- so when you are just adding 3% and target applying- do you just stop when you have applied the aquariums max? still wondering how to avoid a fish swimming into the concentrate however spotty it is.. I have a tiny bit more staghorn that needs it.

I removed the entire log- plenty disruptive- and sprayed w fairly strong h202. All the green filamentous algae looks ok still, hard to say, but the staghorn turned red.

thanks again!

 

[Quesenek]

thank you,

How do you assure C02 levels can be accessed "by all plants"? Do you add?

Im also interested in how you spot treat plants w h202- Id assume this would really rock a fishes gills if they caught a whiff? When I read recs about h202, they say for example 25ml of 3% to 50 ml of tank water- so when you are just adding 3% and target applying- do you just stop when you have applied the aquariums max? still wondering how to avoid a fish swimming into the concentrate however spotty it is.. I have a tiny bit more staghorn that needs it.

I removed the entire log- plenty disruptive- and sprayed w fairly strong h202. All the green filamentous algae looks ok still, hard to say, but the staghorn turned red.

thanks again!

Generally it's an observation of the plants that tells me if they're getting the same Co2 levels as others.
An easy one is if one group of plants exhibit slower growth (slower than normal for that plant type given good nutrient dosage) or nutrient issues compared to the others in the tank.

If you don't add Co2 then it's not something you should worry about.

The way that I generally spot treat is in very small chunks of the tank, using 1-2ml per gallon if I need it. I treat the area every day until the staghorn algae is red and then I move into another area and do the same thing until the entire tank is completed. When I've done this in the past the fish never acted distressed from the dosage of 1-2ml per gallon.