CO2, Algae, New Plants. Need guidance on strategy.

[Mmiller2001]

On 4/17/2022 at 11:18 AM, Minanora said:

Last tangent for ferts... What is up with these macro ferts reach containing so much K2O? I feel like that makes dosing each macro with these nearly impossible.

@Seattle_Aquarist, @Mmiller2001, what do each of you use for macros on your 75s?

 

also, should I be concerned with my GH (15°) and KH(10°)? I know that is impacting the nutrient uptake for some minerals, but I wonder if it really matters as much with the lower (6.8-6.4) pH.

I believe that's just the source that's used to derive K.

Ideally, and dependent on live stock, softer and lower KH water is better for most plants. But you can certainly have a nice planted tank with higher numbers. It might take longer as the plants adapt.

I use GLA 

KNO3, KH2PO4 and KSO4 

For building GH, CaSO4 and MgSO4.

 

Edited April 17, 2022 by Mmiller2001

[Minanora]

On 4/17/2022 at 10:34 AM, Mmiller2001 said:

I believe that's just the source that's used to derive K.

Ideally, and dependent on live stock, softer and lower KH water is better for most plants. But you can certainly have a nice planted tank with higher numbers. It might take longer as the plants adapt.

I use GLA 

KNO3, KH2PO4 and KSO4 

For building GH, CaSO4 and MgSO4.

 

Good point, on all points.

My water hardness and KH isn't something I can easily change for my water source without making an insane upgrade to our R.O. holding capacity. However, my husband wants to upgrade so we have more r.o. water for brewing beer. The only thing we're having an issue with is making space and plumbing things for the addition. A fishroom shed with a holding tank would easily solve the problem but my idea has been met with heavy resistance. There's a concern that I'd possibly move into said shed.

[Minanora]

On 4/17/2022 at 6:49 AM, Jack.of.all.aquariums said:

Feel free to tag me. I don't mind helping 😁

@Mmiller2001 has got you covered with dosing. I'll add a few things outside of dosing strategies because my methods are quite a bit different and I don't want to make it more confusing haha

More plants! In my opinion your tank is still pretty lightly planted. Start propagating what you can. If you have questions about propagating any species I'm happy to help.

Don't fear trimming. The plant leaves that are fully covered in algae are a lost cause. Just trim them off.

Ignoring the algae most of your plants look very healthy. You're on a great path!

I am a crazy person and just ordered more plants. I need to whack back the stargrass. I'll group the cuttings together and plant them in the center area below the Nymphoides hydrophylla. I'm going to add a few more crypts, more java ferns, and some anubius. Now that I have co2, going to add some pearlweed again. It survived before, but didn't thrive. This time around I have more confidence that it will do well. Going to add more density to my existing plots of S. Repens, and adding more red plants in various areas to add dimension. Feeling confident. This should be a good expansion.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Minanora

[Seattle_Aquarist]

On 4/17/2022 at 10:18 AM, Minanora said:

 

@Seattle_Aquarist, @Mmiller2001, what do each of you use for macros on your 75s?

 

 

also, should I be concerned with my GH (15°) and KH(10°)? I know that is impacting the nutrient uptake for some minerals, but I wonder if it really matters as much with the lower (6.8-6.4) pH.

Hi @Minanora

Over the 14+ years that I have been doing planted tanks I have tried several fertilization methods:  PPS; PPS-Pro; Estimative Index (EI); being the ones that use the various 'salts' (KNO3, K2SO4, KH2PO4) with good success.  The various All-in-One fertilizers use the same 'salts'.

In the last 3 years I have been moving away from using 'salts' dosed into the water column as the primary way to provide nutrients to my plants.  After attending the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA / https://www.aquatic-gardeners.org/) International Convention in 2019 and listening to a interesting and informative talk by Vin Cutty about nutrient uptake by various plant species I decided to try a different direction - more along the lines of Aqua Design Amano (ADA) by providing the greater part of macro nutrients through the substrate. Why?  Two reasons the first being that I believe that the more nutrients that are suspended in the water column the more algae issues I was having.  The second was if we exam bodies of water where plants grow healthy and in abundance they contain little to no nitrogen in the water.  So where to plants receive their nutrients.......in the root zone.

I'm still experimenting and the majority all of the macro-nutrients my tank receives are from DIY Osmocote Plus root tabs.  I've had to learn to be careful with the Osmocote Plus however.  First is the product is very heavy in nitrogen (19-6-12 / N-P-K) with ammoniacal nitrogen (ammonia) being the source of over 50% of the nitrogen.  Ammonia is toxic to fish, and if too high also causes plant burn.  So first I had to find a safe amount to dose and a way to minimize the impact of the ammonia on the fish and plants.  My first attempts were the use of high cation exchange capacity (CEC) substrates like Safe-t-sorb with sufficient depth (3-1/2") so that when the capsules were placed they were not easily dug up by Corydoras and water circulation around the implanted tabs was minimal with plenty of nutrient absorbing substrate between the tab and the water column.  I was also careful to place tabs well away from roots so minimize the possibility of root burn.  After some trial and error I am getting closer to attaining levels I want on macros.  I augment the root tabs with minimal water column dosing of nutrients based upon symptoms I see plants exhibiting.  Since Osmocote Plus contains no micro-nutrients except for a small amount of calcium I use CSM+B and Seachem Flourish Comprehensive to provide those. If macro-nutrient deficiencies arise I dose a small amount of macro-nutrients (usually potassium and phosphorus) into the water column.

The results so far have been good, not great but good.  I get good healthy plant growth and my algae growth issues have dropped substantially without any changes to my photoperiods. -Roy
45 gallon tall with DIY root tabs and supplemental water column nutrients

Edited April 18, 2022 by Seattle_Aquarist

[Minanora]

On 4/17/2022 at 12:56 PM, Seattle_Aquarist said:

Hi @Minanora

Over the 14+ years that I have been doing planted tanks I have tried several fertilization methods:  PPS; PPS-Pro; Estimative Index (EI); being the ones that use the various 'salts' (KNO3, K2SO4, KH2PO4) with good success.  The various All-in-One fertilizers use the same 'salts'.

In the last 3 years I have been moving away from using 'salts' dosed into the water column as the primary way to provide nutrients to my plants.  After attending the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA / https://www.aquatic-gardeners.org/) International Convention in 2019 and listening to a interesting and informative talk by Vin Cutty about nutrient uptake by various plant species I decided to try a different direction - more along the lines of Aqua Design Amano (ADA) and providing the greater part of macro nutrients through the substrate. Why?  Two reasons the first being that I believe that the more nutrients that are suspended in the water column the more algae issues I was having.  The second was if we example healthy bodies of water where plants grow healthy and in abundance they contain little nitrogen in the water.  So where to plants receive their nutrients.......in the root zone.

I'm still experimenting and the majority all of the macro-nutrients my tank receives are from DIY Osmocote Plus root tabs.  I've had to learn to be careful with the Osmocote Plus however.  First is the product is very heavy in nitrogen (19-6-12 / N-P-K) with ammoniacal nitrogen (ammonia) being the source of over 50% of the nitrogen.  Ammonia is toxic to fish, and if too high also causes plant burn.  So first I had to find a safe amount to dose and a way to minimize the impact of the ammonia on the fish and plants.  My first attempts were the use of high cation exchange capacity (CEC) substrates like Safe-t-sorb with sufficient depth (3-1/2") so that when the capsules were placed they were not easily dug up by Corydoras and water circulation around the implanted tabs was minimal with plenty of nutrient absorbing substrate between the tab and the water column.  I was also careful to place tabs well away from roots so minimize the possibility of root burn.  After some trial and error I am getting closer to attaining levels I want on macros.  I augment the root tabs with minimal water column dosing of nutrients based upon symptoms I see plants exhibiting.  Since Osmocote Plus contains no micro-nutrients except for a small amount of calcium I use CSM+B and Seachem Flourish Comprehensive to provide those. If macro-nutrient deficiencies arise I dose a small amount of macro-nutrients (usually potassium and phosphorus) into the water column.

The results so far have been good, not great but good.  I get good healthy plant growth and my algae growth issues have dropped substantially without any changes to my photoperiods. -Roy
45 gallon tall with DIY root tabs and supplemental water column nutrients

I love the look of Safe-t-sorb as  a substrate. I find the color palette very complimentary to plants. I will one day try the same thing you're doing. For now I'm not doing any more tanks or redoing any of the ones I have set up. Goal for now is to stabilize and reach that sweet spot with what I have set up. Three of the five tanks I have, I've attained this goal. The 75 is being a stubborn child. But that's entirely my fault for having decision paralysis when I started having things die back and algae set in.

I will say, when my substrate was new and full of nutrients my plants did the best. I can see the benefits of providing the majority of macros to the substrate.

[Minanora]

I'm still seeing the threadlike hair algae growing in some areas. I manually removed all of the waving thread algae I could on Saturday. So to see lengths of it still growing is frustrating. This is the most legit battle I've fought in this tank. Worse than catching fry out of the tank.

I'm tempted to adjust my photoperiod and/or light intensity again. Should I hold off for a month though? I'm going to have to leave the tank alone for two weeks while we're gone. Starting on the 30th. I don't want to negatively impact my plants by depriving them of light either. Most of my plants are medium light. The ones in shade areas are low light.

Here's my current light schedule.

[Minanora]

Seems like the areas I've removed on the hardscape are doing well at least.

 

The stuff on the java fern. That was a brand new plant on 4/6 with no algae. How do I combat this? Lower light?

Some staghorn algae that appeared. There are a few tufts of this that pop up slowly in random spots.

[Minanora]

Did a 60% water change today. scrubbed off more algae. Trimmed plants. Removed a lot of leaves that were totally covered in algae.

Nitrates were just below 20 this time. I had dosed easy green at a half does yesterday. Nitrates were at about 5ppm afterward. I only dosed micros today. I dosed a half dose. 2.5ml of gro+ micros.

With the addition of 48 more neocaridina shrimp I feel like things are getting a little bit better. I feel like there is less algae on the back wall as well.

The fight continues!

 

[KrazyJohn]

Hello,

I don't have as much experience as most of the posters here, but I had a similar problem with my tank recently 🙂

I found an article that was talking about total blackout, so I gave it a try. (it wont kill your plants or your fishes, well it didn't kill mine)

I removed what I could manually, cover my whole 125gallons with2 layer of industrial black garbage bags, top to bottom and let it in the dark for 4 days. Also added a air stone.

I fed the fishes once every 2 days.

In the morning of the 5th day I removed all the bags and all algaes were dead. I read some people doing it for up to 6 days, but I was too afraid.

It made my tank full of dead brownish algaes all over, brushed off all my glass and plants and did a 50% water change.

What ever was left, my ottocinclus and amano shrimps too care of it 🙂

Hopefully now after reading alot more about planted tank it wont happen to me again lol 🙂

 

 

[Minanora]

On 4/19/2022 at 7:23 PM, KrazyJohn said:

Hello,

I don't have as much experience as most of the posters here, but I had a similar problem with my tank recently 🙂

I found an article that was talking about total blackout, so I gave it a try. (it wont kill your plants or your fishes, well it didn't kill mine)

I removed what I could manually, cover my whole 125gallons with2 layer of industrial black garbage bags, top to bottom and let it in the dark for 4 days. Also added a air stone.

I fed the fishes once every 2 days.

In the morning of the 5th day I removed all the bags and all algaes were dead. I read some people doing it for up to 6 days, but I was too afraid.

It made my tank full of dead brownish algaes all over, brushed off all my glass and plants and did a 50% water change.

What ever was left, my ottocinclus and amano shrimps too care of it 🙂

Hopefully now after reading alot more about planted tank it wont happen to me again lol 🙂

 

 

That's a great success story. I may do this when I get back from vacation. I have too many unestablished plants (with more on the way) to be comfortable blacking it out. I had done a black out before but I didn't limit my feeding like you did and I didn't block the ambient light. My tank gets a small dose of morning and evening sun. Nothing over 300 W/m². But it still makes a difference.

My situation seems to be improving. Excuse the glare.

 

 

OMG the glare is my husband launching Elden Ring. 🤣

[KrazyJohn]

Yeah in order to work a black out, it need to be pitch black in the aquarium, no light at all.

I also changed one of my sponge in my filter for a week after I cleaned the aquarium. I put an extra fine one in order to catch all the tiny brown deal algae particules.

And all my regular plants survived, none died by the way.

It helps a lot also if you have algae cleaning crew.

I have Ottocinclu, Shrimps and siamensis.

 

[Minanora]

@KrazyJohn my algae eating crew is similar. I have otos, neocaridina shrimp and a few amano shrimp. A couple of Ramshorn snails as well but after the plants go in today I'm going to do a dose of No Planaria to get rid of any hitchhikers. There's too much algae and I don't want a snail population explosion. I also don't want planaria or hydra hitchhikers either. I'll add more snails once the algae is under control.

I love snails, but I think having a boom of them is how this started. Had tons of snails, very little algae. I got hydra. I treated for the hydra but it also killed all the snails. That caused a nutrient spike and at the time I only had otos. They couldn't keep up and the algae took over.

[KrazyJohn]

@Minanora I try to avoid chemical as much as possible. I use snail to get ride of my snails lol.  I have a bunch of killer snail snails and they are also very pretty !

It keeps snail population at bay, you should look into them 🙂

[Minanora]

On 4/20/2022 at 6:07 AM, KrazyJohn said:

@Minanora I try to avoid chemical as much as possible. I use snail to get ride of my snails lol.  I have a bunch of killer snail snails and they are also very pretty !

It keeps snail population at bay, you should look into them 🙂

They are pretty. I have looked into assassin snails. I'm not keen on putting them in the 75. I manually remove excess snails from my stable aquariums which I don't mind doing.

No Planaria is powdered betel nut palm extract. Not for everyone but I think it's great stuff.

[Minanora]

Added a bunch of new plants. I still have more tissue cultures to add. But I think I made good progress today. 

Nitrate under 5ppm after the water change. 

I am glad I decided to add some more red. 

[KrazyJohn]

@Minanora very nice.

I have a few reds as well, I was reading to keep them red tho they need more iron 🙂

[Minanora]

On 4/21/2022 at 4:06 AM, KrazyJohn said:

@Minanora very nice.

I have a few reds as well, I was reading to keep them red tho they need more iron 🙂

That is what I have read, also. There's also one that needs to be starved of nitrates as well. Higher light seems to be called for in most cases, too. 

I'd been hesitant to add red since it wasn't the look I was going for. Then I put red in my shrimp tank. I feel like it adds a whole layer of depth to the tank that I didn't know it was missing.

[KrazyJohn]

I saw someone here mentioning some brand of light cheaper then the Fluval 3.0

I used the light guide on coop webpage, they recommend 4 light for mine cause its 125g.

You dont want to see the bill lol.  I wish I had seen that post about cheaper and better light before lol.

But what I like about the Fluval is the customization you can do !

I already see a difference on the cuba carpeting plants!

 

[Mmiller2001]

https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/fertilize-planted-tank/does-adding-more-iron-make-my-red-plants-redder

[Minanora]

The battle rages on.

The ludwigia has string algae and this photo was taken when the plant had been in the tank just over 24 hours.... Am I crazy? Or does this stuff float around and then attach and collect other bits that are suspended?

[Minanora]

On Wednesday I dosed a half dose of gro+ micronutrients. 2.5ml and a full 5ml of the flourish advanced.

Would easy carbon/Excel help ward this stuff off?

[Minanora]

On 4/21/2022 at 8:04 AM, Mmiller2001 said:

https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/fertilize-planted-tank/does-adding-more-iron-make-my-red-plants-redder

This is a good read. I also just read several of their articles about algae.

I feel like maybe I should have waited to add more plants.... Until after vacation. Sigh 😔

When adding new plant mass for how many weeks after should I be doing 50% water changes every other day?

[Mmiller2001]

On 4/22/2022 at 9:49 AM, Minanora said:

This is a good read. I also just read several of their articles about algae.

I feel like maybe I should have waited to add more plants.... Until after vacation. Sigh 😔

When adding new plant mass for how many weeks after should I be doing 50% water changes every other day?

Did you add a substrate?

[Minanora]

On 4/22/2022 at 9:13 AM, Mmiller2001 said:

Did you add a substrate?

Nope. Just plants. Lots of plants.

I've had two people that I've talked to in person (that plant guru and a saltwater fanatic) tell me to get a UV sterilizer... I feel like that would be bad for the good microbes and microfauna though.

[Minanora]

I ask about the water changes because of the melt from the new plants converting.

That darn thread algae popping up has me on edge. Especially after reading the 2hr article on green algae.

Should I shorten or lower the intensity of the photoperiod as well? I'm running that short dual siesta. The peak of my photoperiods intensity is 50%. I'm seeing my Nymphoides hydrophylla start to reach for light a bit now.