Help... what is this?

[jasonevans]

Does anyone know what this red stuff is? should I syringe it with peroxide or Excel? Remove my hair grass and scoop off top layer of gravel?
A aside, should I add anything to my water or just straight out of the tap + Prime?(water report below)
I rearrange the plants fairly often.
I just had a huge outbreak of this Grey-black algae that is now turning red or that is growing in next to the gray stuff, and is mostly growing around the hair grass, which I mowed that down really short which helped spread it around, (forehead slap) Now the red stuff is popping up all over.
My CO2 was down for a couple of days and I’m wondering if I have too much light.
I felt like I just about the hair algae under control, then I took out some large driftwood to put in the stones rearranged the plants yet again and now I have this, whatever this is.
starting over is a option.....lol any thought would be appreciated.
Tank water:
KH 2 GH 8
NITRATE 10ppm
NITRITE 0
AMONN 0
Phosphate 2.0 -5.0
Ph 6.6 (from drop checker) 7.6 at night

TANK: ADA 60-H 24x18x18 32gal been up for over a year.
FILTRATION/CIRCULATION: 2 Eheim 2226 & a 2211 filter with glass Lily pipes + Koralia circulation pump flow rate 240gph
HEATING: Hydor 200W external inline
CO2: Atomic V3 regulator, Atomic 50m diffuser, 1bps, Timed Solenoid cutoff,
LIGHTING: 2 Marine-land Aquatic Plant LED 24” lights on 8 hours
FERTILIZATION: EI 1/4tsp NO3, 1/16 K 1/16 PO4, dry Plantex+B 1/16, WC 50% once a week
Iron root tabs
SUBSTRATE: Eco complete
PLANTS:
Lilaeopsis Mauritius, Fissidens,Bacopa, alteranthera, Nesaea pedicellata, , Wendtii green, Wendtii brown, and as of today Starougyne repens (Thanks Tom, they look awesome)
HARDSCAPE - Manten stone
FISH - 12 Cardinal Tetras, 6 Black Neon Tetra, 3 Amano shrimp, 3 shrimp, 3 Otocinclus 3
Nerite snails

DATA FOR 2011 WATER QUALITY REPORT City of St. Louis Water Division
Secondary Contaminants MCL Average Level Detected Range
Alkalinity, Total (mg/L) N/A 61 25 - 108
Calcium (mg/L) N/A 30.0 18.8 - 88.0
Chloride (mg/L) 250 23.2 14.9 - 36.7
Conductivity S/cm) N/A 532 356 - 608
Hardness, Total
(mg/L as CaCO3)
N/A 148 113 - 187
Iron (mg/L) 0.3 0.0284 N.D. - 0.0590
Magnesium (mg/L) N/A 18.5 11.7 - 24.3
Non Carbonate Hardness
(mg/L as CaCO3)
N/A 86.5 68.0 - 112
pH N/A 9.28 8.90 - 9.56
Potassium (mg/L) N/A 5.54 3.63 - 6.98
Sodium (mg/L) N/A 47.4 18.1 - 62.4
Solids, Total Dissolved (TDS)
(mg/L) 500 339 223 - 416
Sulfate 250 158 81.8 - 189

 

[dutchy]

This algae is caused by a CO2 deficiency, although brief NH4 spikes may be of influence too, when no water is changed after uprooting plants etc.
CO2 is definately too low, you should drop pH to 6.3 or use higher KH of around 4, although it might be that the KH drops because there is a CO2 deficiency. With a GH of 8 I'd expect a KH of around 6. Measure KH a day after the water change and again before the next one, see if there's a difference.
In the meantime you can use Excel to kill the algae. Remove as much as you can manually.

 

[jasonevans]

Thanks Dutchy,
So I did a plant rearrange, changed 1 eheim sponge pad, rinsing everything in tank water, then did a 50% WC, only Primed my water.
Woke this morning, 3 dead Amano shrimp, all the cardinals were at the surface gasping for air.
I thought I accidentally gassed the tank with co2, but it was not on. (new regulator that i'm struggling to get a consistent bubble count) Put in air stone checked nitrates (off the charts) immediately did another 50% WC, rest of the shrimp and fish seem to have recovered. 4 hours later took some water to LFS to have them check nitrates, not a trace, no nitries or ammonia. Could have been my test kit or it spiked because the dead shrimp in there overnight. Put in some safe start bacteria tonight.
KH 2 GH is 9. Thats what comes from the tap. I had tried seachem acid buffer and alkaline buffer, before also tried Amano's Soft. I prep the water in a 30 gal trash can with air stone and use prime. I feel like I need to keep it as simple as possible, so I don't mess it up..
So now I only adjust ph with the co2, So I will raise it per your suggestion.

Will the KH rise with more co2 or do I need to add something to raise KH to the tank or the aged water?
Back to EI dry tomorrow, because of that nitrate spike a little nervous to add anything.......

 

[Biollante]

Something Rotting?

Hi,

How old is this tank?

Sorry just reread missed the year old thing...

For the moment I recommend you keep the CO[SUB]2[/SUB] on 24/7, add aeration if you think you need too.

I think Dutchy is right and I think you are having ammonia spikes, keeping the pH under 7 lessens the danger.

Biollante

 

[Htomassini]

Trash cans can have anti germ anti bacterial coatings. So make sure it's not one of those.

If you want to soften the water, put a peat moss bag in your filter. It's amazing what the humid acids do for animals.your kh of 2 means your water should stabilize in the 7's. Remember that most test kits will pick up the chloramines in the tap water as ammonia.




Henry tomassini
www.theplantedaquariumstore.com
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[jasonevans]

Thank you guys, so nice to have all your experience to draw from, rubbermaid Brute trashcans are untreated...Whew....
Trying to stabilize this Atomic V3 regulator....arggg...set it and the bubble count keeps changing..... bought 2 and did not realize you can't return them.

 

[aquabillpers]

This algae is caused by a CO2 deficiency, although brief NH4 spikes may be of influence too, when no water is changed after uprooting plants etc.
CO2 is definately too low, you should drop pH to 6.3 or use higher KH of around 4, although it might be that the KH drops because there is a CO2 deficiency. . . .

Not to be disputatious, but if that were true every tank that is not injected with CO2 would be overrun with that red stuff, and they aren't. The cause of the that red algae is some kind of nutrient inbalance, and while more CO2 would mitigate the problem, the real cause is probably not enough plant biomass for the amount of nutrients that are being supplied.

The solution? Add a lot more fast growing plants.

Good luck!

Bill

 

[jasonevans]

Thanks Bill, I think you are right, my plant mass is lean, esp now as I just took out all the hair grass to get rid of the algae, spent hours picking out algae......later.....just added a bunch of egeria densa, think i'll cut my EI in half...phosphates are always high so I'll skip that...from overfeeding probably.
I have two full bottles of Amano's Step 2 and Brighty K, that is a lot weaker right? I don't have AS in this tank it's ECO complete, too many choices....
any thoughts...