I have been keeping fish in planted tanks for some time, but until now had only kept easy plants that did not require too much light. I just set a new 29 and decided to get a good light to expand the range of plants I can have. A picture is enclosed below to give you an idea of my plant mass (sorry for the quality). The tank has an Amazon sword, some S. repens, cabomba, hornwort, red root floaters, a golden creeping jenny, a very small amount of hairgrass (I don't want a carpet, just want a touch of grass in front of the driftwood), and two plants I got from my LFS that they could not identify (the big red one on the left, and a shorter stem you cannot see because it is behind the red plant). Substrate is just pool filter sand.
I have a Finnex planted + which I keep on the "Sunny" setting (marginally less bright than "max") with an 8 hour period, and a siesta in the middle: 4 hours on, 2 hours off, 4 hours on. I have 9 rummy nose tetras, 10 embers, and 2 otos (the plan is to add more fish later). Since I consider myself a newbie when it comes to plants I started using the "EI light" method for a 29 gallon. I don't (yet?) have CO2, but I use Excel, so my "EI light" recipe is:
- 1/4 tsp KNO3 3x week
- 1/16 tsp KH2PO4 3 x week
- 6 ml Seachem Flourish 3 x week (on days when I do not dose macros)
- 3 ml Excel 6x week, and 13ml Excel @ water change
- 1/4 tsp Seachem equilibrium at water change
- 50-60 % water change once a week.
My parameters are:
- Temperature: 78
- pH 7.4
- Ammonia and Nitrites: 0
- Nitrates just before the water change: 40
- I don't have a kit to measure hardness, but my tap water is 100 ppm (fluctuates during the year but stays close to 100).
For the first couple of months plants were growing nicely and no algae (I have some diatoms which I expected in the new tank). But as you can see in the picture, after about 2 months I suddenly started getting what looks like a lot of green spot algae on the substrate mainly near the front of the tank (where water flow is better), and then some on the front glass. Plants are algae-free, and only the bottom two inches of the glass is showing any GSA. Eventually I figured out that in the early morning, this time of year, the sun shines through a window at just the right angle to hit the lower front of the tank directly for about an hour. About 2 weeks ago I added a board to prevent the light from hitting the tank, but the algae is still there. It doesn't seem to be growing as quickly on the substrate anymore but it is still growing on the glass, so the sun wasn't the only problem.
After some reading I learned that using Excel is nowhere near as effective as real CO2, so I now realize I am dosing too richly. I could benefit some help deciding what I need to do. As far as I can tell I have two options:
1. Since I am happy with the growth rate of my plants, and CO2 would result in much faster growth (and much more maintenance) at first I thought I'd keep using Excel and reduce the amounts of micro and macro nutrients by half (keep the same daily schedule, but dose half the amounts of micros and macros each day). Would this help the algae problem? And even if it does help the algae problem, could this make the Nitrate problem worse by possibly reducing plant growth, or would the Nitrates go down once I lower the amount of KNO3?
2. If reducing the nutrients would not help reduce both Nitrates and algae, I think I'd have no choice but to start using CO2 injection. The increased maintenance would be a very small price if it does get these problems under control.
So, should I try reducing the amount of nutrients I'm dosing? Or is that not likely to solve both problems, and I should just go straight to injected CO2?
Finally, I have been using Seachem equilibrium at a relatively low dose (1/4 tsp at water change). Since my tap water is around 100ppm hardness, is 1/4 tsp appropriate? Do I need more? or do I not need it at all?
I have a Finnex planted + which I keep on the "Sunny" setting (marginally less bright than "max") with an 8 hour period, and a siesta in the middle: 4 hours on, 2 hours off, 4 hours on. I have 9 rummy nose tetras, 10 embers, and 2 otos (the plan is to add more fish later). Since I consider myself a newbie when it comes to plants I started using the "EI light" method for a 29 gallon. I don't (yet?) have CO2, but I use Excel, so my "EI light" recipe is:
- 1/4 tsp KNO3 3x week
- 1/16 tsp KH2PO4 3 x week
- 6 ml Seachem Flourish 3 x week (on days when I do not dose macros)
- 3 ml Excel 6x week, and 13ml Excel @ water change
- 1/4 tsp Seachem equilibrium at water change
- 50-60 % water change once a week.
My parameters are:
- Temperature: 78
- pH 7.4
- Ammonia and Nitrites: 0
- Nitrates just before the water change: 40
- I don't have a kit to measure hardness, but my tap water is 100 ppm (fluctuates during the year but stays close to 100).
For the first couple of months plants were growing nicely and no algae (I have some diatoms which I expected in the new tank). But as you can see in the picture, after about 2 months I suddenly started getting what looks like a lot of green spot algae on the substrate mainly near the front of the tank (where water flow is better), and then some on the front glass. Plants are algae-free, and only the bottom two inches of the glass is showing any GSA. Eventually I figured out that in the early morning, this time of year, the sun shines through a window at just the right angle to hit the lower front of the tank directly for about an hour. About 2 weeks ago I added a board to prevent the light from hitting the tank, but the algae is still there. It doesn't seem to be growing as quickly on the substrate anymore but it is still growing on the glass, so the sun wasn't the only problem.
After some reading I learned that using Excel is nowhere near as effective as real CO2, so I now realize I am dosing too richly. I could benefit some help deciding what I need to do. As far as I can tell I have two options:
1. Since I am happy with the growth rate of my plants, and CO2 would result in much faster growth (and much more maintenance) at first I thought I'd keep using Excel and reduce the amounts of micro and macro nutrients by half (keep the same daily schedule, but dose half the amounts of micros and macros each day). Would this help the algae problem? And even if it does help the algae problem, could this make the Nitrate problem worse by possibly reducing plant growth, or would the Nitrates go down once I lower the amount of KNO3?
2. If reducing the nutrients would not help reduce both Nitrates and algae, I think I'd have no choice but to start using CO2 injection. The increased maintenance would be a very small price if it does get these problems under control.
So, should I try reducing the amount of nutrients I'm dosing? Or is that not likely to solve both problems, and I should just go straight to injected CO2?
Finally, I have been using Seachem equilibrium at a relatively low dose (1/4 tsp at water change). Since my tap water is around 100ppm hardness, is 1/4 tsp appropriate? Do I need more? or do I not need it at all?
