Algae problems in brand new aquascapes

[Plant-master]

Hi, I’m new to the forum and was having some trouble with algae in some new aquascapes. These tank have new plants in them and More to come but I am still working on the balancing process of these aquascapes, my dwarf hairgrass tank Has grown some thick algae on the top within like seven hours. I just gotten back from school and looked at my tank and all the algae had just grown. Since these are new tanks I’m assuming they have a lot of micro nutrients which is causing the algae to grow. I was thinking maybe the pressurized C02would have the plants out complete the algae. Is there a way I can keep this algae At bay and have a lush carpet? Also my Beta cube tank has some brown algae growing on the Bacopa. 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Plant-master

[Plant-master]

On 1/5/2022 at 3:50 PM, Plant-master said:

Hi, I’m new to the forum and was having some trouble with algae in some new aquascapes. These tank have new plants in them and More to come but I am still working on the balancing process of these aquascapes, my dwarf hairgrass tank Has grown some thick algae on the top within like seven hours. I just gotten back from school and looked at my tank and all the algae had just grown. Since these are new tanks I’m assuming they have a lot of micro nutrients which is causing the algae to grow. I was thinking maybe the pressurized C02would have the plants out complete the algae. Is there a way I can keep this algae At bay and have a lush carpet? Also my Beta cube tank has some brown algae growing on the Bacopa. 

Nitrates both nitrate were 0 ppm 

 

[HotTunaCartel]

That looks like diatoms (brown algae). 

I had one of my tanks covered in it, my issue was not a new tank issue but I have read that most tanks will go through this process.   

If it gets out of hand its really hard to get rid of and you really have to work at it, and yes it will spread really fast.  

The co2 won't help out with this but your plants will explode after you get rid of the diatoms 

When I had the issue I checked everything, thought it was my water but ended up being thousands of dead mosquito larvae that were decomposing under the substrate.    

What I did was to hook up a hob filter with a sponge and lots of filter floss inside.  I think took a big fish net, like the large one from ACO and put that in the tank and stirred up the substrate.  The net would catch quite a bit and the hob would catch particles and clogged up fairly quick.  You can usually get diatoms off plants without uprooting them, let it flow in the water column and use something to manually remove it.  In my case, I split the tank up into six sections and gravel vacd one section every third day.  Eventually I got all the dead larvae out got most of the diatoms out and haven't had a problem since.   

This is what mine looked like when I had the outbreak 

[Plant-master]

On 1/5/2022 at 6:02 PM, HotTunaCartel said:

That looks like diatoms (brown algae). 

I had one of my tanks covered in it, my issue was not a new tank issue but I have read that most tanks will go through this process.   

If it gets out of hand its really hard to get rid of and you really have to work at it, and yes it will spread really fast.  

The co2 won't help out with this but your plants will explode after you get rid of the diatoms 

When I had the issue I checked everything, thought it was my water but ended up being thousands of dead mosquito larvae that were decomposing under the substrate.    

What I did was to hook up a hob filter with a sponge and lots of filter floss inside.  I think took a big fish net, like the large one from ACO and put that in the tank and stirred up the substrate.  The net would catch quite a bit and the hob would catch particles and clogged up fairly quick.  You can usually get diatoms off plants without uprooting them, let it flow in the water column and use something to manually remove it.  In my case, I split the tank up into six sections and gravel vacd one section every third day.  Eventually I got all the dead larvae out got most of the diatoms out and haven't had a problem since.   

This is what mine looked like when I had the outbreak 

Thanks, do you think 50 percent changes every day will help? 

Edited January 6, 2022 by Plant-master

[HotTunaCartel]

I have read that helps out some people.  You could try but water changes didn't help me, it was more the manual cleaning that helped.   On thing that might help, I see you have a prefilter sponge on your filter.  Try wiping off the plants and let the prefilter sponge suck it up and rinse the sponge daily.