I apologize in advance for the lengthy post...
I am currently fighting a brown algae infestation on a new tank startup and wanted to get feedback on my plan of attack.
My tank is a 120G tank which was setup 3 weeks ago. It is sufficiently planted with fast growing plants to get the tank up and started. Currently I have no fish or shrimp in the tank.
Substrate is Aquasoil Amazonia. CO2 is pressurized into a dupla reactor driven by an Eheim 2213 (more on this later). Additional water movement is provided by an Eheim 2028 and a RIO180 powerhead. Lighting is 2 250W Metal Halides - 6500K Iwasaki bulbs - photoperiod 8 hours - once again, I know too much, but fell for the more light is better trend a few years back.
Now to the issue, ever since startup I have been seeing a lots of brown algae. It is fairly loosely bound to the plants and comes off easily but there is alot of it and its hard to stay ahead of it. The plants are growing good and look healthy - had an initial partial melt upon planting but plants are picking up. Even my Rotala Wallichi looks good and has new pink growth.
I am following EI dosing. Current schedule is as follows:
Sun/Thurs Waterchange and add in 2tsp GH booster
Mon/Wed/Friday 1.5 tsp KNO3 .25 tsp H2PO4
Tues/Sat 30ml TMG
I am assuming that I need more CO2 (although the drop checker using Bill's 4dKH solution is showing green). I have purchased a 1/2" Mazzei injector (model 384) and am trying to figure out an inexpensive way to hook this up. I also have a Rhinox 5000 diffuser that I was going to experiment with.
The following link has an overall pic of the tank, a closeup of the algae, and the drop checker. I apologize for the less than great pics but my camera is autofocus and doesn't work well on the tank.
See my algae farm here!!
So.. too my questions.
I am assuming CO2 improvement is my best bet for improving conditions. This seems to be confirmed by Tom in another post I made about CO2. I am going to try to get the mazzei installed as the CO2 delivery method. May or may not keep the reactor depending on the success of the mazzei. Does this seem reasonable to folks?
Any thoughts on how to inexpensively hook up the mazzei? Can I hook it to the RIO180 or do I need something more powerful?
What kind of algae is this? I always see brown algae referred to as diatom but have never seen pics of it in long 'strings' like are in my tank. If it is diatom, many articles attribute it to low light or silicates. I doubt it is a light issue (even though my bulbs are 2 years old, I'm sure there is still plenty of light). If its silicates, no idea what to do about that since that would be a water supply issue.
I am currently fighting a brown algae infestation on a new tank startup and wanted to get feedback on my plan of attack.
My tank is a 120G tank which was setup 3 weeks ago. It is sufficiently planted with fast growing plants to get the tank up and started. Currently I have no fish or shrimp in the tank.
Substrate is Aquasoil Amazonia. CO2 is pressurized into a dupla reactor driven by an Eheim 2213 (more on this later). Additional water movement is provided by an Eheim 2028 and a RIO180 powerhead. Lighting is 2 250W Metal Halides - 6500K Iwasaki bulbs - photoperiod 8 hours - once again, I know too much, but fell for the more light is better trend a few years back.
Now to the issue, ever since startup I have been seeing a lots of brown algae. It is fairly loosely bound to the plants and comes off easily but there is alot of it and its hard to stay ahead of it. The plants are growing good and look healthy - had an initial partial melt upon planting but plants are picking up. Even my Rotala Wallichi looks good and has new pink growth.
I am following EI dosing. Current schedule is as follows:
Sun/Thurs Waterchange and add in 2tsp GH booster
Mon/Wed/Friday 1.5 tsp KNO3 .25 tsp H2PO4
Tues/Sat 30ml TMG
I am assuming that I need more CO2 (although the drop checker using Bill's 4dKH solution is showing green). I have purchased a 1/2" Mazzei injector (model 384) and am trying to figure out an inexpensive way to hook this up. I also have a Rhinox 5000 diffuser that I was going to experiment with.
The following link has an overall pic of the tank, a closeup of the algae, and the drop checker. I apologize for the less than great pics but my camera is autofocus and doesn't work well on the tank.
See my algae farm here!!
So.. too my questions.
I am assuming CO2 improvement is my best bet for improving conditions. This seems to be confirmed by Tom in another post I made about CO2. I am going to try to get the mazzei installed as the CO2 delivery method. May or may not keep the reactor depending on the success of the mazzei. Does this seem reasonable to folks?
Any thoughts on how to inexpensively hook up the mazzei? Can I hook it to the RIO180 or do I need something more powerful?
What kind of algae is this? I always see brown algae referred to as diatom but have never seen pics of it in long 'strings' like are in my tank. If it is diatom, many articles attribute it to low light or silicates. I doubt it is a light issue (even though my bulbs are 2 years old, I'm sure there is still plenty of light). If its silicates, no idea what to do about that since that would be a water supply issue.