Trying to “balance my tank”, battling algae.

[Roger C]

I am fine with the green algae on the glass. I can scrape the glass every week or 2.
It is the black/brown thick stuff that coats the décor, plants and substrate that I want to be gone.
It coats the plants and kills or at best stunts growth. The amazon sword has gone from a beautiful bushy green plant with 16in leaves to a tiny ugly black coated thing with a few 5in leaves.
The fish seem to be doing fine.

Goal: Get rid of algae. Better plant growth for a more natural environment for the fish.

What I have tried with no success over the last 2 years. Giving 1mo +/- to see results:
Water changes daily 10%, weekly 40%, no water changes.
Lights 12hr day, no lights 1 week, 6hr day
Dosing ezgreen, ezcarbon, ezroottabs, flourish potassium.
Removed driftwood, rocks and décor.

Setup:
60 gal tank 24in high x 4ft long, with glass lid (running over 2yr)
Feed: xtreme krill, xtreme community, tetra min tropical granules, frozen blood worms 1x week, o-nip tabs.
hanging led shoplight 40w 1 ft overhead 8hr day
Eheim ecco pro 300 canister (clean every 6mo or so)
MarineLand penguin 200 HOB (rinse filter weekly)
2 air stones
Heater @ 74 degrees
Gravel substrate with some crushed corral mixed in.
About 30 fish, small barbs (gold, tiger, rosy, Odessa, green, and others)
Plants: pothos, crypts, amazon sword, Anubis.
Nitrate 20, nitrite 0, ammonia 0,  hardness 300, buffer 120, ph 7, phosphate 3
above reading are subjective, based on my interpretation of the color chart.

New:
CO2 AquariumCoop regulator and diffuser, set at about 2 bubbles per sec.
placed diffuser under a “wavemaker” 90% of bubbles are circulated making 1000s of small bubbles floating around the tank. The drop checker shows no change after 24hr, it is still blue.
 Added more plants. Super jungle val, 2 red stem plants unknown name, hornwort and jungle fern.
Added back in the factory led lights (Shoplight + intank)
Lightly mixed 2lbs fluval stratum into substrate

Should I keep the co2 at current low level for 2 weeks. Watch for any improvements or turn up the co2 now.

 

[Sleepy]

How long has the tank been setup with the plants? One very strange thing about your parameters is having such hard water with such a low PH not sure what to make of that. Also like you have already stated this needs more plants especially if you are injecting Co2 and 12 hours of light plus it kind of looks like this tank is getting sunlight also I would change all of those things just based on your pics.

 

edit: Actually just figured out why your PH would be that because of the Co2 silly me lol

Edited February 17, 2023 by Sleepy

[knee]

Maybe there's not enough PAR at the substrate. 3' away from the light is a lot and you might need another light to provide adequate PAR at substrate.

Also, if drop checker is showing blue then you're not really dissolving co2 into the water. Do you have a lot of surface agitation? 

Is the stratum new? It could be releasing ammonia into the water and the algae is feeding from that.

[nabokovfan87]

On 2/17/2023 at 11:39 AM, Roger C said:

60 gal tank

CO2 AquariumCoop regulator and diffuser, set at about 2 bubbles per sec.
placed diffuser under a “wavemaker” 90% of bubbles are circulated making 1000s of small bubbles floating around the tank. The drop checker shows no change after 24hr, it is still blue.

Double the CO2 you're dosing in.  You don't have nearly enough for that volume of water.  Are you pre-dosing in the CO2 prior to lights on and stopping it an hour before lights out?

[MattyM]

More plants! Shoot for 70% planted or so. Can you dim your light? Sometimes I find longer times at lower intensity is the trick. And you don't have to have your drop checker turn green, a boost of CO2 may be all you need but you won't know how much you have until you do this: 

I'd say I'm around 10-15 ppm of CO2, and plants are doing great in those tanks. 

[Roger C]

On 2/17/2023 at 2:59 PM, Sleepy said:

How long has the tank been setup with the plants? One very strange thing about your parameters is having such hard water with such a low PH not sure what to make of that. Also like you have already stated this needs more plants especially if you are injecting Co2 and 12 hours of light plus it kind of looks like this tank is getting sunlight also I would change all of those things just based on your pics.

 

edit: Actually just figured out why your PH would be that because of the Co2 silly me lol

Plants went in day 3, 2 years ago. Zero sunlight enters this room. Also why is this crypt doing "OK- not great" 12in from the dying Sword? Will add more plants, tired of buying them and watching them die. water wisteria dead, java moss dead, Crinum dead, lucky bamboo dead.....

[Roger C]

On 2/17/2023 at 3:57 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Double the CO2 you're dosing in.  You don't have nearly enough for that volume of water.  Are you pre-dosing in the CO2 prior to lights on and stopping it an hour before lights out?

No, the co2 is on the timer with the lights, the co2 proof airline hasn't come yet. using regular o2 airline. I was going to setup a second timer when I replace the airline.

[Roger C]

On 2/17/2023 at 3:00 PM, knee said:

Maybe there's not enough PAR at the substrate. 3' away from the light is a lot and you might need another light to provide adequate PAR at substrate.

Also, if drop checker is showing blue then you're not really dissolving co2 into the water. Do you have a lot of surface agitation? 

Is the stratum new? It could be releasing ammonia into the water and the algae is feeding from that.

I get a LUX reading of 4500 at the top of the tank. at the bottom it only reads 200. I will place my 48in coop light on the tank and take new readings. I like the shop light it is out of the way for doing Maintenace.

Yes, lots of surface agitation. The co2 is set VERY low for this size tank. I always start low and work my way up.

The startum was added with the new plants the day before I added the CO2. and that is even a small amount for the tank. I have a 4lb bag and only added about half. 3 days ago. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 2/17/2023 at 2:47 PM, Roger C said:

Yes, lots of surface agitation. The co2 is set VERY low for this size tank. I always start low and work my way up.

I understand completely.  It's very hard for CO2 to get dosed in a tank that big and not have it be inline or in a reactor.  There's just a lot of distance to cover.  Ultimately, even on my 29G.... bad example because my regulator is probably wonky..... I am doing 4-5 bubbles a second without much fuss.  I could probably do more.  I probably need to do more.  This is also a taller tank, more opportunity for things to diffuse while your tank would be shallower and longer, needing more flow across the tank to spread the bubbles out.

It'll get there, but that's the obvious one to me.... spraybar / pumphead or something to push that across and keep it in the water longer.

Once you get CO2 working, drop checker doing it's thing, then you can run PH tests and dial it in.  Prior to that, you're basically trying to get the flow right and the diffusion dialed in.

[Sleepy]

On 2/17/2023 at 5:28 PM, Roger C said:

Plants went in day 3, 2 years ago. Zero sunlight enters this room. Also why is this crypt doing "OK- not great" 12in from the dying Sword? Will add more plants, tired of buying them and watching them die. water wisteria dead, java moss dead, Crinum dead, lucky bamboo dead.....

The sword needs way more nutrients that the crypt you want to target feed it more root tabs. You’re getting algae from too much something so in my opinion you don’t have have enough plants growing to warrant that much co2 and 12 hours of light dial it back and add more plants.

[knee]

On 2/17/2023 at 2:47 PM, Roger C said:

I get a LUX reading of 4500 at the top of the tank. at the bottom it only reads 200. I will place my 48in coop light on the tank and take new readings. I like the shop light it is out of the way for doing Maintenace.

Yes, lots of surface agitation. The co2 is set VERY low for this size tank. I always start low and work my way up.

The startum was added with the new plants the day before I added the CO2. and that is even a small amount for the tank. I have a 4lb bag and only added about half. 3 days ago. 

You cannot rely on lumens/LUX to tell you if the plant is receiving enough par. Lumens measure the intensity of light output visible to the human eye and LUX specifies the intensity of light in that given area. Our eye can only perceive certain wavelengths of light.

The wavelengths at the center of that range—green, orange, and yellow light—appear brightest to our eyes. Those at either end of the spectrum—blue and far red light—take on a dimmer appearance. Meanwhile, your plants use a lot of the red and blue light spectrum, while doing very little with green light. Unless you got a PAR meter on hand, the lumens/LUX wont really give us much information on what they can do for plant growth.

 

You'd need to increase CO2 to make the drop checker lime green. It's not the best way to measure co2 but it's a good way to quickly determine if you're over or under injecting.

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by knee

[Roger C]

On 2/17/2023 at 4:34 PM, MattyM said:

More plants! Shoot for 70% planted or so. Can you dim your light? Sometimes I find longer times at lower intensity is the trick. And you don't have to have your drop checker turn green, a boost of CO2 may be all you need but you won't know how much you have until you do this: 

I'd say I'm around 10-15 ppm of CO2, and plants are doing great in those tanks. 

As I stated in the OP I added more plants 3 days before adding the CO2, the empty spots are where I planted jungle val and the fish have dug it up, I replanted until nothing was left of it. Now they are working to remove all the leaves from the stem plants. I am sure it is the rosy barbs. They have even grabbed plants from the tongs while planting. they just pick pick pick...