BGA and green hair algae Problems

Hi

I first came here after reading the EI article at Portal - Aquarium - Wasserpflanzen - Flowgrow and liked the informations that I found here. Thanks for this great place to learn.

I riped apart my scape after wrongly suspecting the Savana/Mopani wood to poison my Crystal Reds. Long story short shrimps are gone and algae are taking over.

The green hair algae was present soon after I started the tank inside the Vesicularia montagnei moss and the Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba'. The BGA began after removing the wood and a big pruning of the plants. The substrate was also disturbed by the action.

The tank is a 30l Dennerle nano cube complete set with bio CO2.

Plants are:

• Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba'
• 2 Cryptocoryne spec. "Flamingo" (one nearly gone but makes new leafs)
• Vesicularia montagnei (soon gone)
• Ceratopteris thalictroides (reintroduced because BGA started after I removed it)
• 5 Rotala rotundifolia (I try to get them right this time)

Fishes:

• 8 Corydoras hastatus
• 8 Hyphessobrycon amandae

Snails:

• 4 Clithon sp. (diadema) souleyetana
• 3 Neritina natalensis

Fertilizer:

• EI 5dl with 30g KNO3 and 5g KH2PO4 4 times a week 5,5ml per 25l (estimated water volume of the tank).
• EASY-LIFE ProFito Fertilizer extra complete (what a joke - no N and P) 2.5ml once per week.
• Dennerle deponit mix under the substrate

Water change is 10l every week.

The last measured water parameters (JBL test kit) are:

• 28 °C
• 6 °dKH
• 6.5 °dGH
• 0.025 - 0.05 mg/l NO2
• 5-10 mg/l NO3
• 0.5 mg/l PO4
• 0.05 mg/l Fe
• >30 mg/l CO2 (I try to get it more stable)

I would like to rescape the tank with sand but wonder if this is wise at the moment because of the algae and the fish.

I am willing to test ideas and can dedicate a second thank with out CO2 with a much bigger algae problem and some snail that i multiply to move them in to a pond in the near future. The second tank will be shrimps only in one to 2 months.

Last weekend I build a photometer but haven't calibrated it yet with reverence fluids. My be this could help with more accurate measurements in the future.

What do you more experienced underwater gardeners think about my mess?

Thanks in advance for your knowledge.

Regards, Dominik

 

I decided to first change the substrate and do a plant only scape.

The old sediment had a ugly smell to it and developed BGA in no time in the bucket. So I blame the dennerle deposit mix and my first uprooting as triggering BGA factors.

I added some clay balls to the sand for my crypts, hope this will do the trick with out the danger of a BGA bloom after the next uprooting.

I'm still not sure if a blackout is needed or if I can battle the now really small amounts of BGA in the tank.

Any advice is welcome and I am searching right now all BGA related articles at this site, now that I have member access

Regards,
Dominik Riva

 

The filter could indeed be a problem, I will clean it as soon as possible.

I have a dennerle Nano Light 11 W with 6000 Kelvin and 900 Lux running at the momend but could add a second if needed. This lamps are about 10 cm from the water away and can not adjusted in the hight only in two angles.

The longtime CO2 test shows a nice green but I am not so positive about the water current in the tank. I got a second filter and plan to add it to provide better circulation and lessen the time it takes for the first filter to fill up with organic matter. I use the DIY CO2 method with sugar and yeast with a dome to hold the gas under water to provide the time to get it in to solution and don't give it a chance to poison my fish. I wonder if this is the best method for such a small tank, because I fear a little bit for my Corydoras hastatus as they could get a sip of CO2 in place of normal air.

I also fear that I now have to less plant mass after the rescape and to much fish. NO2 peaks at the moment with a estimated value of 0.1 mg/l (JBL drop test).


Changed the yeast and sugar DIY CO2 and cleaned the filter.

Regards,
Dominik Riva

 

I am wondering about epsom at the moment. I can't seam to wrap my mind around how it could be used in my tank.

Here are some pictures of the tank.





Regards,
Dominik Riva

 

Thank you for your advice.

I don't know if you get the idea of the CO2 bell, so I will explain the concept I use in this tank in more detail.

The method I use is a device to control the unstable input of CO2 from the fermentation by limiting the area of water that is allowed to touch the CO2. So only at this area CO2 can dissolve in to the water and the overproduction of my DIY CO2 system is periodically released as one big bubble to the surface to protect the fish. I addition the bell or dome if you like acts as a reservoir of CO2 in the case I have to disconnect the CO2 system for changing the yeast and sugar about once a month. This system gives me 3 main factors to control the amount of CO2 in the water.

1. a guesstimate about the needed area of the bell where the gas touches the water
2. water movement at the area where the CO2 and the water touches
3. the amount of water surface disturbance that drives the CO2 out of the water

I was told this is the only practical method to keep the CO2 stable with the DIY yeast CO2 method as it is impossible to control the production of CO2 in any practical way. I know it is not the most efficient method to get the CO2 in the water but it efficient enough for me as I can get very high concentrations of CO2 in my small tank. If I can trust my CO2 longtime indicator in the tank I have around 80 mg/l CO2 at the moment. I pushed it that high by increasing the water movement under the dome. As a consequence I had to add the second filter that disturbs the water surface and protects the fish from a nightly build up of CO2 in the water.

If my description was unclear you can see the dome in the upper left corner of the first picture in my last post.

With this understanding of the method I use for CO2 it should be clear that it does not directly matters at which depth the dome is placed in the tank.

I worry about the Corydoras hastatus because they like to gulp air from the surface and dissolve it in there bowel and I fear a gulp of CO2 from the dome would be a bad thing for them. They are not the smartest of the animals as one stupid fish killed it self by getting stuck between the dome and the glass already.

Thank you for the suggestion about the plants. I have already planted 4 Rotala rotundifolia and 1 Ceratopteris thalictroides that I hope will take of soon and grow like mad in my limited experience. I will consider adding more plants but I would prefer the existing plants growing soon like mad over restructuring the tank later.

It interests me, why you think that I would loose some of the crypts. Can you explain this to me?

My biggest problem at the moment is NO2 I suppose it comes from the missing bacteria that I removed with the old soil. I was foreseeing this problem and tried to now feed the fish but at last I gave in and had mercy with them only to see the NO2 rise like mad. At the moment I test for the concentration which forces me to change 50% of the water almost daily.

Regards,
Dominik Riva

 

Hi Biollante,

It is nice to hear that the CO2 dome is understood at this place because I grow a bit old of explaining the concept at the swiss aquarium forum, where I posted a journal about the construction of my DIY CO2 system.

Looks like I would need to find a smaller dome If I would place it deeper, as this dome the size of about 1/9 of the ground area would look bad if placed deeper, not considering the possible grater CO2 output.
But still, how big is the difference in placing the dome at a grater depth?

By counter-flow devises, do you mean the venturi designs at http://www.barrreport.com/articles/41-diy-internal-reactor-great-yeast-co2-users.html and http://www.barrreport.com/articles/3444-dual-venturi-diy-external-co2-reactor.html? These devices look very nice to me but I am a bit concerned about control because I now have a feeling for the dome but with the reactors I haven't figured the controlling factors out, yet.

With such a small tank I am very interested to get the CO2 emitter as small as possible with out loosing the control I have now with the dome.

Thank you for relaxing my mind about the Cory’s gulping CO2, I really appreciate this information.

As I am new to keeping fish I like to ask you about what you feed your Cory’s? I suppose it would be too much luck if you care for the same species as I do. Any advice about this lovely little critters is very appreciated.

The biggest plant mass I can add in a short term is the old rug of HC, that I keep in the dark at the moment to get it free of any algae. Sadly I am at a tight budget for the rest of this month. The other plants that I could add are plants that I grow emersed as reserve in a tiny greenhouse for seedlings but they are only kept alive there and would not provide much plant mass.

Regards,
Dominik Riva

 

The crypts are a "flamingo" version of the Cryptocoryne wendtii so they meybe look worse then they are But you are right, not all of the original portion did great in my tank.

Good call, I was getting a bit fast in tossing away not good looking stuff to prevent algae.

That is a thing I found out some moths ago as I needed to dig them out periodically back then with the old layout.

I don't think this would make any sense as the shipping cost would be more then the plants I suppose. Thank you for the very generous idea, I appreciate it very much.

I would have to try, never thought about this, as I am sort of a online aquarist

I didn't had a problem with the growth of the HC with my setup yet.

The water sprite will fill this tank alone if left unchecked and not replaced from time to time And I try to get the Rotala to form little shrubs this time by cutting it in to shape.

Thank you for clarification on the link. I achieve this long time by using a big fermentor (5l chainsaw canister - 2l oil chamber is used to bubble the gas through water) and I don't mix the sugar and the water so that the sugar will dissolve over time.

I got that point as I read it a lot of times here on this forum.

Yes, I experienced the lag in reaction of the drop checker (BTW strange name) but thank you for mentioning the time frame.

I didn't make the test solution my self but green is normal and is supposed to repessent 20 mg/l for a dark green, 40 mg/l for a light green and 80 mg/l for the yellow green that I see now.

I did learn some things, thank you very much.

Regards,
Dominik Riva

 

Hi Biollante and VaughnH,
I am right at misspending the rest of my youth at the moment

The dome is at version 0.2 and looks a lot better then version 0.1 but is also about 4 times bigger.

I would like a smaller version about 1/2 the size of it but I haven't found the right container to misuse yet.

The tank is 30cm*30cm*35cm in size. I absolutely need to warp my mind around that venturi counterflow design, it sounds like it could be build quite small.

I get to a month of operation at a temperature of 25°C now I have more like 30°C and get about 3 weeks worth of CO2 out of it but the thing is huge compared to the tank and I need to use a trick to not make all the sugar immediately available to the yeast. Not mixing the sugar with the water does the trick with less mess and nearly the same result as embedding the sugar in to gelatin.

I thought so. I feed them with 2 kinds of catfish sticks and a selection of frozen food and some times life if I am at the pet store and some small kind is available.

I still not understand the dosing and the effect of the Epsom Salt as much as I would like.

Thank you for your knowledge.

We call it a CO2 longtime test over here. Your assumption about the origin of the name makes sense to me, Thanks.

Regards,
Dominik Riva

 

Thank you for the great links, I will need some time to digest them in to my brain

I found that it is not really worth your time to play with gelatin as not dissolving the sugar in the first place works well for me and spares me to wrestle with the gelatin.

I fill in the sugar (750g) first, add the water (3l) and some dry yeast (one of that 7g sachets) that I dissolved in to a bit of water. Pouring the water over the sugar dissolves enough sugar to feed the yeast at the start. But I don't mix this cocktail at all! This method has worked so well for me that I never messed with the gelatin trick. Lore has it that the gelatin can give you a few days more then the method I use but the lower girlfriend factor and the multiple in time it takes to set up is not worth the little gain for me.

I guess my chainsaw canister is way to big and produces a lot more CO2 that my tiny little 30l tank needs but I like to have some reserves.

Regards,
Dominik Riva