Connections with plants and the dreaded BBA

[Fenrir]

So starting like 5 months ago I had a medium plant load in the aquarium using an old florescent tank light and the marineland advanced LED light on my 40 breeder, and both were on a timer. I was dosing 4 pumps as directed of easy green a week and weekly water changes. I started noticing black spots on the hardscape and didn't think much of it. fast forwarding 4 months BBA and BGA have now infested my tank and my tank is also heavily planted. Now after christmas this year I got a fluval 3.0 and set it to the day cycle as provided by Bently Pascoe, and my marine land goes on for 4 hours when the fluval is at it's peak of strongest light for my Montecarlo and pearlweed. I know that with the consistent dosing and lighting there really is one variable which is the plant growth itself, causing deficiency on nutrients in the water column. I've been trying to bomb the tank with nutrients the last two days with 10 pumps of easy green. I still can't even get to 5ppm of N. I don't know what to do and I am getting tired of fighting algae

 

Plants: 

Monte Carlo, over a dozen crypts, Red pearl Amazon sword, mult. stems of pearlweed, Italian and leopard Val, Bolbitis, 4 bunches of Anubias nana petite, 2 Normal anubias nana, 2 fist fulls of Golden Loydellia, Dwarf Sag. and finally one smaller clump of Java Fern.

 

Fish:

7 inch Poly teug. (will be moving to 210 once the tank is set up)

4 inch Poly Ornate (will be moving to 210 once the tank is set up)

2x 3 Inch Angels (breeding pair)

1 SAE

and a mating pair of Kribensis

 

[Brandy]

I feel your pain, though I have less light.

I would suggest that you lower your light and bring it up more slowly. Basically, if you have lower light you have less nutrient use. As the plants grow they can use more light and nutrients and sort of adapt up--and growth should explode to crazy levels. Like in the garden, weeds are faster to adapt, and they will scale up use and production faster than the plants you are trying to encourage if you till the whole yard and hit it with miracle grow right after planting. So lower light, dose until you get to 10-20ppm nitrate, hold it there, once the algae slows down you can try nudging both up a little.

[Fenrir]

My only worry with dialing down light is losing Montecarlo with having less light.

[Koi]

Your montecarlo won't die even if you just keep one light on, if you are really worried just position your lights directly above the montecarlo. Do you have good circulation in your tank? ie: can you see some movement on the leaves of your plants?

Correct me if I'm reading it wrong but you mentioned that you got algae once you switched to a stronger light? If so that could be the the cause of your algae outbreak and your plants are still adjusting to change. I'm not sure about what your lighting schedule is but it sounds like you switched from fluorescent bulbs (fairly low light) to 2 lights one being the Fluval 3.0. Its reasonable to understand that the plants are struggling to adapt to such a dramatic change.

if you're really insistent on keeping that much light, just be sure to stay on top of manually removing all algae and afflicted leaves and see if it comes back just as strong strong. From there you're gonna have to decide how to want to either tweak your lighting or your dosing.

Are you running co2 in this system?

 

[Fenrir]

No sorry i had the marineland and florescent bulb for the last 5 months and still had bad algae. I got the fluval on Christmas. I've seen faster growth but after a bit it slowed down. I'm going to be getting 6 more SAE'S Wed. Hopefully they will do 2 things increase bio load and also clean up the remaining bba. No I do plan on it though just saving up for a 20lb tank for the 210 gallon though. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by Fenrir

[Marnol D]

I feel as if BBA is low light, low flow, low co2 and high poshpates. Is you can avoid these your should be good. However if you get the spores in the tank due to transferring from another source you’ll have to manually treat with hydrogen peroxide. 

[Koi]

Could you say what lights you are running and what the schedule is? I'm having a little trouble gathering that information. I may have misread  but I thought you said you ran 2 lights at the same time. Im not to familiar with what day cycle setting is if you could kinda explain that as well.

Also im not sure if you answered the water flow question as well.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Koi

[Fenrir]

I will attach my schedule once home having connectivity issue with my light being at work lol.  I have the ramp up starting at 1pm and at 8pm my white warm white and cool white are at 100% till 11then the ramp down begins and ends at 1pm. Yes I do have the Fluval 3.0 and the the Marineland LED that goes on for 3hours when I have the Fluval at 100%. But I do have adequate flow enough where plants on other side of the tank are moving. My lfs is getting me 6 more SAE's and a surprise shipment of 4 Florida Flag fish. So I am praying maybe with more bio load it gives more Nitrates into the water column? And they will eat the BBA which I am happy about as well. let me know your thoughts.

 

[Koi]

I think you should definitely tone down your light by either the intensity or the photoperiod. Especially since there is no co2 in the system I think your plants are having trouble up taking all that light. It sounds like you want a carpet of montecarlo which is definitely achievable. In a 40 breeder, the distance from the light to your substrate is very shallow and doesn't need as much light as you think. You can achieve "high light" by either going max intensity or longer light duration but I think doing both is very overkill. If you really insist doing 100% I think you should go like 6-8 hours. If you like having lights on for 12 hours a day i would say try 50% honestly ( you can always ramp it up more if its not enough). Thats just a rough guideline in the directions I would go to tweak the lighting schedule you may have to add more or less for each of those examples.

If you like those fish definitely get them they will help combat the algae, but don't get them just to add bio load. You would see more benefit for your plants by adding nitrates with fertilizers because your plants need potassium, phosphate, and other micros but thats whole can of worms itself. I'll just mention now your issue isn't with the lack of nitrates. I suspect that your higher light is driving up nutrient uptake but you are bottlenecking cause of the lack of carbon. Since your plants are cant take up anymore nutrients (light can be considered as a nutrient) since its limited by carbon, any excess is being absorbed algae.

[Fenrir]

Well thank you for such an in depth answer! I will absolutely tone it down never really cared for that marineland anyway lol.

[Fenrir]

So I went ahead and created a new light regime the first was my old one and the second one is the new light schedule think this might reduce my bba infection?

[Koi]

I don't have a fluval 3.0 so the interface is a little foreign to me, but thats 12 hours right? Try it out for a few weeks and see. I think at this point it will be more productive for you to start making tweaks between your lighting and dosing. I would say try 8 hours if you could cause you can always add more time to your light schedule. But its all the same if after a few weeks from running 12 hours and the algae is still there just cut back a few hours. Same thing with the dosing try to figure out how many pumps it takes to hit that 10-20 range if at the end of the week you're still short do your water change and do a few more pumps. Wether you make changes to the lighting or dosing, give a few weeks at least and see what happens before you try to make another change.

Be sure to manually remove any algae where you can also