Pepere

Done by a Masters grad student in Biochemistry. No magic bullets to instantly kill it off. No dim your lights tweak your ferts, get algae eating animals… Rather reducing the conditions that makes your tank too inviting to BBA… just 10 and a half minutes… Very well worth watching a few times…

After shortening the Cardinal Lobelia and Ludwigia Repens. yes I seriously reduced the Val. I have some new plants coming in the mail so made space for those…

I bought this 10 watt preset at local Petco. I would worry about the 50 watt over shooting the temp setting due to thermall mass and inertia.

Saturday morning, weekly servicing. I start by filling a bucket about 3/4 full and add dechlor to it and then transfer over the driftwood, rocks, java fern, anubias, hornwort, water lettuce, and the box filter. As you can see the majority of the plant load is removed. Then I siphon out 2 pails of water using the turkey baster to lift up detritus from the substrate and hoover it away with the siphon. Here you can see how much crap the box filter with an easy flow kit is able to remove in 1 week. Thank you @Cory for inventing the easy flow kit. It is absolutely AMAZING how much it increases flow! Then replace everything and refill. I am at day 17 of no visible growing algae after finally getting rid of it. Still not declaring victory, but loving the look every day… New pic after everything settled from servicing..

I am starting a new journal for the fishbowl and separating it from the learning to aquascape journal. Here is my new 17 gallon fishbowl This is the third layout of hardscape… simple Undergravel filter using Easy Flow kit for increased flow and a home made adapter. Safe T Sorb substrate with mesh bags of aquasoil toppedwith Black Diamond Blasting Sand. No CO2. led floodlight bulb in an architectural lamp on a timer… Easy plants… java fern, anubias, ludwigia repens, bacopa, pink flamingo crypt, monte carlo s repens… trying to learn to balance a non co2 tank. A skill that has so far eluded me… Two weeks later.

Here is a photo after a week of growth before trimming back. I will post another after the trimming session.

I had a Pink Flamingo crypt hanging on by a thread for months and months. Like around 6-9;months….New leaves sprouting just barely as quickly as old ones melting away…. It just never was taking off…. Then it took off…. And I can’t definitively tell you why. But it certainly wasnt a change of flow or filtration. It could very likely be mere coincidence that the crypts had established themselves sufficient for growth to expand at the same time as you changed from a canister filter to a box filter. My experience of changing to canister filters from box, sponge, undergravel filters, hobs, have been unflinchingly positive. Better flow yields less detritus in bottom of tank, better co2 suspension, less algae. Better flow circulates nutrients to leaves better and removes leaching metabolites from leaves better.. The only tank I dont have a canister on is my 17 gallon fishbowl. I think it would be unwieldy in the bowl due to the round sides. In that I have a UGF and a box filter both sporting easy flow kits that greatly increase the flow from them. The round glass walls of the tank seem to slow down flow a lot less than standard aquarium walls..

The Fluval 307 does seem a bit big for a 20 long… I run 207s on my 29 and a 107 on my 20 high.

You might try a flow bar just below the surface of the water on the back pointing to the front. this spreads out the flow significantly and induces a back to front circular flow. It hits the glass and washes down the front, comes back across the substrate and back up. The majority of the noticeable flow will be the top boundary level and down the front of the glass. I have fish that play in the flow at the front glass, but just an inch away from the glass a fish can just sit there and just lazily move from flow… I have this setup on three tanks and with 6 Emerald Green cories kicking up any detritus on the substrate and Re suspending it the pickup pulls that in to the canister. I suspect your Celestial Pearl Danios would be fine sticking in the lower current areas with this setup while you run it at full flow. If you went with Sponge filters instead, I dont think debris loads would get any better than what you have now…

I started a 17 gallon fish bowl without CO2 because I wanted to try again balancing a non co2 tank to get to no noticeably visible algae. I am not declaring the war as won as yet, but at least 1 battle has been. This iteration I have had far less algae then I ever had kn my other tanks before going high tech. Co 2 canister filter etc… I developed that annoying thin long filament strand that gets entangled in plants like strong spider silk. It has been eliminated for now and has been gone 14 days and counting…. Again, not claiming victory… I have a diy modified under gravel filter plate with Easy flow kit replacing the uplift tube. And I have a Lees triple flow medium box filter with an easy flow kit on it with polyfill for mechanical filtration.. No CO2, mostly easy plants, Ludwigia repens, crypt Wendetti, pink flamingo crypt, anubias, bacopa, java fern, rotala, water lettuce, hornwort, s repens… I wouldnt say it is less work than the co2 tanks though. Maybe less trimming of plants, but that is it.. I clean the box filter weekly vs monthly for the canister. I spend more time on water changes in fishbowl as I am stirring up sediment with a turkey baster and siphoning it away that I dont have to do with the canister.. perhaps you might want to invest in a ph controller for your co2 solenoid, Then bubble count becomes less of a concern… My low tech 17 gallon fishbowl My high tech 29 gallon display tank.

If you ever brought it back, I would be buying again… In the meantime I am using the AQQA and have it controlled by an Inkbird controller. As such my temps vary 2 degrees. Turn off power to heater when it hits 76, turns back on when it drops to 74. I figure this gives longer on time and fewer on off cycles. I love the low height that allows me to not have to unplug it when I do water changes. It hides so nicely behind plants. I like the controller being out of the water…

I prefer the smaller size of the Green Neon Tetras in smaller tanks. Less bioload allows a few more fish…

Vinegar will clean up the mineral deposits off of the glass lid nicely..

I will be renovating the livingroom before I get a 75. The room will be gutted to the studs and rebuilt. I plan on installing a drain next to the tank and a holding tank in the basement directly underneath. I plan on plumbing an overflow siphon from the tank to the drain so all I have to do to drain to 50% will be open a valve and it will drain to that level and stop, I will also have a drain plumbed in to the tank stand that I can slip an end of a gravel vac down in to so I can gravel vac without buckets. refill will be flipping a switch on the wall to turn on a pump.

It is possible. Especially as the plants grow in and start shading out the understory. I wouldnt right now though as you report you had better growth initially. In a tank not supplemented with co2 it is good to give it a longer period to see positive growth. Plants spend energy and resources to reconfigure themselves to changes in conditions. In a co2 tank, that can take 2 weeks bed fore seeing positive change. In a tank without co2 it can take up to 6 weeks.

No, but it is going to stunt plant growth. low phosphorous can cause it. And high light on Anubias can cause itto grow on Anubias…

I suspect you will be low on trace elements and possibly potassium and phosphorous depending on what the phosphorous and potassium levels are in your source water. The reason I suggested a deeper water change to lower nitrates down to around 10 ppm and then dosing back up to the 20-30 ppm nitrate level was to see if that gives your plants a surge of growth, which would indicate they were being limited by nutrients other than nitrate. The dosing instructions on the bottle are overly simplistic in many respects. Lighting is not the only variable.. plant mass is a much bigger variable .. and a 90 gallon tank is pretty deep. Par falls off quickly with depth.. those short plants at the bottom of the tank are seeing much less light than the ones growing halfway up…

Are you dosing Flourish Nitrogen to add nitrates?

I find adding some phosphorus helps clear up green dust algae on plants. I usually get it on Anubias. In case of Anubias if you can shade the anubias from high light that can help as well… your nitrates also strike me as quite low. Which Seachem fertilizer are you using?

8 pumps will raise nitrate levels less than 3 ppm in a 90 gallon tank. And Easy Green runs a bit light in the potassium or phosphorous dosing iirc… I would be inclined to do a sufficient water change to lower nitrates down to 10 ppm and then dose easy green up to 20-30 ppm all at once. At midweek test and see what you nitrates look like. based on plant load in your photograph, I would guess they will not have decreased. I would then re test at the end of the week. If nitrates are rising, livestock and feeding is raising nitrates faster than plants are consuming them… in that case, nitrate levels are not a good proxy for fertilizer dosing as other fertilizer components will be consumed even though nitrates are not indicating… I would then perhaps have dose Easy green on a guess… as to how much of the other components are being consumed… meanwhile nitrates may well be increasing… My personal inclination is to not let nitrates exceed 40 ppm myself. I realize many people have no problem with it higher than that in a planted tank…

Yes. And also high light and low light plants… low light plants can be planted near tank edges with less lighting or under shading by other plants…

Of course this begs the question of how do you know you “need” to do a water change? We only test for a few items.. ammonia nitrite, nitrate, gh, kh etc… As plants metabolise they create all sorts of metabolic waste products that are excreted into the water column and we dont test for them. Waste products tend to leach from the margins of leaves…esp. older leaves that the plant ceases to defend. Algae opportunistically colonizes on those margins loving the nitrogenous wastes… increased flow in an aquarium help in part by circulating fertilizer equally to all plants, but also by helping to flush waste products from leaves as well… but those compounds build up in the water… How many top aquascapers have a reputation for infrequent and small water changes? Of the scapes that impress me the most, the scapers advocate weekly deep water changes…. I certainly noticed far more success battling algae once I started weekly deep water changes…

Yep. I wasnt up for doing weekly water changes until I got sick of fighting Algae. I now feel water changes are more pleasant than fighting a losing battle against algae.

1 pump of Easy Green in 10 gallons of water provides 3 ppm Nitrate. On my densely planted co2 injected high light tanks I aim for 20-25 ppm Nitrate. I could get faster growth at 30 ppm nitrate, but that also means more frequent trimming… On my non CO2 injected tank I am at dosing to 15 ppm nitrate. On all tanks I do a 50% water change weekly, and then front load my entire dosageI to raise nitrates to20 ppm…. That would be 6 pumps in a 10 gallon tank. I also add about 3 ppm nitrates Wednesday morning based on my experience how quickly nitrates are consumed by my plants. Pretty much plants do not benefit much from Nitrate levels much above 30 ppm. The instructions on the bottle are not terribly useful to my needs.

Have you test ammonia levels?