Confusion About Lighting.

I don't know about lighting regimes, but your plants will only grow as fast as the least available resource. Light, CO₂, nutrients etc. If you have (say) plenty of light and fert, but not enough CO₂, then the algae will grow using the extra light and fert that the plants can't utilise.

I was getting quite a bit of brown algae in my tank for the first few months and then it seemed to slowly sort itself out as the tank matured. I also think that getting a lot of floating plants helped as it cut down the intensity of the light reaching the tank. I still get some brown algae in a certain place on the glass in winter as the low sun (ha!) can slant in and hit the tank for an hour or two.

I'm not sure this has answered your problem, but I think the algae is caused by an imbalance of available resources, not just the amount and timing of the lights.

In another thread, I'll see if I can find it, Natalia said that liquid carbon was not the same as CO₂. Hopefully, she will come along with some advice.


Here it is, in the 6th post down
http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,161.0.html
New member ady81 seems to know about plants as well.

Hi there, Co2 and liquid carbon are not the same thing but do the same job. Plants use co2 during photosynthesis they use the carbon and release the oxygen, liquid carbon is just free carbon (ie not attached to oxygen) that the plants can use to grow.
When it comes to algae when you have excess light and ferts you will get algae so you could try a bit less of both and see how that goes. They are no real fixed rules as to light and ferts and every tank will be a little  different its just a game of trial and error to find a nice balance for your tank to grow plants and not algae.
 In my tank I don't use liquid ferts and only light the tank for 6 1/2 hours a day sometimes longer if im busy watch it, and that seems to work for mine but that dose not mean it will work for everyone.
Hope this helps 

Hi Helen,
Thanks for that...I have looked at planted tank site and to be honest none really match what I am getting 

But hopefully it will continue to improve...I have done my regular water change today and scrubbed the rocks of this stuff and at the moment it seems to have stopped growing on my plants.

If it starts again to any degree I will reduce my lighting down to 6 1/2 hrs for a while. I have upped my liquid carbon to 3 1/2ml from 3ml and will see if that also helps.

Once again Thanks.

Hi Natalie,

Thanks for that.

My tank is a Rio 180 and I estimate that it is about 160 Litres after taking into account decor etc.

Most of my plants are fairly easy, to medium care, apart from a red Cabomba which is not doing too well, and I think I will replace very,very soon.

I have a 1 litre bottle of neutro C02 which they recommend 5ml per 250 Litres and I am dosing with 3 1/2ml daily at the moment. I am also dosing 8ml of neutro T fertiliser daily.

My lighting is 2 x 45w T5 tubes as supplied with the Juwel tank.

I doubt it's the substrate. I'd go with too much fert - I too have easy grow plants and have no algae problem at all and I use root tabs and one dose of fert every two or three weeks with 1 x 11W T5 in 47 litres.

You could use it as an excuse to get a little group of otocinclus - they're so cute!

Hi Natalia,
I do not know the names of all my plants as the lfs does not label and I always seem to get the "part time" shop girl who does not know the names but will give you the names that I know and brief descriptions of the others.

I have two red lotus....four stems of water wisteria...one aponogeton (do not know which type but has largish ruffled leaves) one large and one small swords....two unamed crypts but was told they are a "tall" one.... four other groups of unknown small crypts with red/brown and green leaves...six stems (with roots) of  Hygrophila rosae...three groups of a small reed/grass like plant..maybe sagitteria....one very small clump of vallis..and three unknown small plants with rounded leaves which start off green and then change to purple/darker green.....and a small clump of dodgy looking red cabomba which has nearly had it.I will try and upload a photo of the algae tomorrow .

Hi Natalia,
My camera is playing up but these photos are the best I can do at the moment. This one is of the substrate.

This one is of one of the plants...it is not a very good photo I am afraid.

Hi Mervyn,

I recognise that sort of algae. And I agree it is very frustrating. I had the same issues as you in that it was smothering my plants. And it isn't one that is easily identified from the list of James' planted tank site. I think the one it most looks like is the brown aglae or diatoms, but I'm not totally convinced that it is this.

How long has your tank been set up? (Several months, based on my memory of your other posts). What water test kits do you have? If you have a full suite of test kits, it would be really helpful to see what readings you have for things like iron, calcium, phosphate and nitrates, general and carbonate hardness (GH and KH).

I'm desperately trying to remember in what order  I made changes to my tank to solve the various different problems - the first was the annoying algae. (Once I got that sorted I found that some of my plants weren't growing very well and that was due to other mineral deficiencies, which when tackled more or less obliterated the remaining algae issues). On the old board, I had a lot of great conversations with Natalia, but unfortunately my very pregnant brain is not functioning too well at the moment so you'll probably need Natalia to remember our discussions, when she has a chance to post!

Do I remember you saying that you've added the T5 lights as a replacement for T8s? If so, what was the wattage of the T8 tubes, and I am assuming that you changed the ballast as well. T5s produce a lot more light energy than T8s (for the same tube length), so if you have upgraded, you will have increased the light energy available in your tank. Also T5s are available as HO (high output) which are more efficient and will give you even more light energy, do you have these?

Optimising plant growth and minimising algae is all about balance. So if everything is in balance, and then you increase the light, you will increase the algae issues as the plants can only grow as much as the least available resource. All the algae is doing is mopping up the excess of the other resources. I spent a long time measuring my phosphate levels in my tank and agonising over why a reading of about 1ppm (which is fine for a planted tank) would be causing me problems. Then I read in an article that the ratio of phosphate to nitrate was the important factor, not necessarily the reading of the phosphate. This is when I realised that a lot of my algae problems were due to very low nitrates. So now I dose nitrates.

You've already said that your nitrates are much higher than mine ever have been, so this is unlikely to be the cause of your algae issues. But by understanding the ratios of the other minerals and nutrients in your water, it'll be easier to work out what needs re-balancing to get rid of the algae.

Have you tried having your lights on with a siesta period? If you do, you'll probably need to do this for a couple weeks to see if it has any effect and have the lights off for about 4 hours in the middle of the day. You could have them on for about 5 hours either side, if you wanted.

Also does the low winter sun catch your tank at all?  I moved my tank in the spring, only on to a perpendicular wall, and this made a big difference to the colour of the water (which had always had a very feint green tinge only visible in the white bucket I use for water changes). The move meant the tank was totally out of reach of the direct sunlight. Until the last few weeks in November. And the vague green tint has come back to my water, but not as much and it doesn't cause any other problems. So I've decided not to do anything significant about it (other than slightly larger water changes just to keep control of the algae) as the sun will soon be a bit higher and no longer reach my tank (in the mean time I try to keep the curtains closed in the mornings!)

It might also be worth having a look through the Tropica website to try and identify your plants. A lot of the UK shops get their plants from Tropica, and their list of plants is pretty comprehensive. It also tells you what basic conditions each of the plants like, so you can identify whether you have all low light plants or a mix (I have a feeling that red camboba is a demanding plant).

Sorry I haven't been able to give you an answer to your algae problem, but I hope I have given you some ideas to try out. Keep persevering and it will sort itself out. For me it was a very sudden realisation that  I'd not had to cut nasty leaves off or scrub the front of the tank for ages, normal maintenance was enough to keep it looking good.

Good luck.