[Faythee]

Hi ! I just joined, first post. I have been in the fishkeeping hobby close to 10 years. Became very bored and decided to try a planted tank to rejuvenate my interest. :smile2:

I started it in my 75G a few weeks ago, already well established. I have sand substrate (combination of pool filter sand & N. Atlantic beach sand). I added Ruffled Amazon, Hairgrass, and Anubia.

I dosed weekly with API Leaf Zone and also used the API Root Tabs.
I had a typical fluorescent light on it at first, but repaired my Coralife light and got a 10,000k bulb for it and used the blue bulb I already had for it. I left both lights on about 10/hrs per day.

I was VERY quickly overwhelmed with brown algae. I have always had issues with it, due to phosphates in my tap water I was told....but this was crazy fast insane algae !

Anubia still did well and Hairgrass started crawling. Amazons had brown spots and bad leaves.

Yesterday I completely stripped the tank and cleaned algae and added a bunch more plants. I have not added any fertilizers or root tabs. I want to see what y'all suggest first.

I REMOVED the fluorescent light. I bought a phosphate test kit.

Water parameters AFTER stripping and starting over are:
Phosphate .5 (tapwater is .25 as of today)
Nitrate 5.0
PH 7.5
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0

Looking for suggestions .....for everything ! :surprise:

 

[CowBoYReX]

I would say do not use blue lights and get more like 6500k for both bulbs, it will help IME.
And brown algae is caused by silicates plus PO4 and I think the blue/actinic light contributes

 

[Faythee]

Okay...thanks !