Too many questions...

I was out of town for a couple of days and so i asked my neighbours to take care of the "lighting" of the tank till i get back, which was 2 days from then, when i return i see terrible green water bloom! Now i'm sure this is because of the excess photoperiod. I've gone through various stuff online and most of these suggest a spike in PO4. But i liked the explanation given by Flora in some thread that

"You have to imagine algae as a weed in your garden. If your plants arent doing well, then the weeds take over and become strong. If your plants do well, the weeds are subdued.
Your plants are being limited by the lack of other nutrients in the water, and by the lack of CO2 (DIY is very unstable unless your very good at it"

And this logic must have been explained by you guys several times to others too!
Anyways till now i was trying to fight this bloom by doing WC every alternate day, but it just got more tiring and more frustrating as i could not notice any particular improvement in the water condition. I was planning to start my DIY CO2 injection after i return from the trip but the bloom discouraged me n i thought to wait till it gets better or i get some algae eating fish/shrimp. But after going through some articles around here it seems to me Co2 shud be given a go and also ferts,
I have not yet added any ferts or CO2 in my tank, which is only recently planted, 2 weeks back,
Tank's been running for bout 3 months, its a 60g tank, photoperiod as of now is 9-10 hrs/day.
Substrate has laterite soil, nothing else added that can prove to be a nutrient for plants.

Now my questions are,
1. Am i correct in planning to start the dosing of ferts and co2 with the algae bloom still in my tank?
2. Any other alternative practice to keep my plants healthy n yet get rid of the algae?
3. I've got star grass which is turning brown/transparent n kinda melting away, y is it happening to only star grass of all the plant varieties i have?
4. Also recently i have noticed snails in my tank, possibly intorduced in egg forms along with the plants i ordered...is it a cause for concern? I looked up the pics of the snails on the internet and seems like varieties of ramshorn snails.

 

Hey,
Thanx for the reply!
You are absolutely correct about the availability issues of UV n excel.

Can you explain to me what form of nitrogen spike led to GWA?

My tank has 3*40 watt osram fluoroscent tubes meant for plants with home made aluminium foil reflectors. Tank height is 2 ft. Tank size is 60g.

I dont really see excellent growth n any of the plants except ambulia which i guess anyways tries to run towards the surface to get as much light as possible. Also the cryptocoryne species and hygrophila difformis do show good signs of growth. I had instances of brown algae and hair algae before the trip, but somehow they vanished.

For DIY CO2 i'll be using the venturi reactor, which i've already built, installed and tested with normal air, looks good to me as there are very minute bubbles released outside the reactor. after a while it almost formas a carpet of bubbles just under the surface of water...i.e. it doesnt break out of the water surface. But i dont know how CO2 concentrated air bubbles would react...

Photoperiod as mentioned b4, as of now is 9-10 hrs, am i overdoing it for the situation or this duration is fine with the kind of lights

Thanx again and Regards
Mohit

 

Thanx for the reply!
I was actually short of money and time to get a pressurized setup. So i decided to go with DIY, and i was suggested to go for venturi reactor by Tom to help a lil in stabalizing the co2. or i so i believe. So basically i still wanna go the DIY route.

As i said earlier bloom's cause most probably is the longer photoperiod for 2 days when i was out of town,
I dont really try to rescape anything, except mebbe replant a few stems if they break loose from the substrate (used to happen on a daily basis when i had a pleco in it but after i gave it away i dont remember more than 2 -3 cases when i actually touched my scaping)
Organic matter in terms of fish poo is minimal, however i think its the snails and the dead leaves that might be fuelling the NH4 production. The tank is placed in a hallway which doesnt get any sunlight at all, infact its almost dark as night if we dont switch on the lights there.
The filter i use is a powerfilter having a capacity of 1100 l/hr, i dont think i've disturbed it since the last 1 month or so mostly because i had negligible fish and no plants in most part of that period. (Is dat harmfull otherwise?)
I dont wanna go for the blackout, simply because my plants dont seem too healthy to cope up with that, or atleast i wudnt want them to. Daphnia too woulnt be a good idea cuz i have angels and i'm not sure how would they treat daphnias!

So now finally, the only 3 options i see are:
1. start dosing ferts n hope plants start growing up, (i think i'll have to add co2 too along to prevent any imbalance, plz give your thoughts regarding that)
2. keep the water changes going and try and reduce the green tint.
3. Do nothing and hope it just kills itself!!

Please temme which of them will most likely result in clear water.

Thanx again
Mohit

 

Thanx for the reply,
I'm still not convinced about the blackout route because i doubt if my star grass can survive the prolonged lack of light with the condition it is in today.
I've also observed instances of brown algae and hair algae in my tank before but they seem to have dissappeared with the onslaught of green water. DOnt exacly know wot that means though, just an observation that struck me.

Yes i am new to DIY, but even i had planned to use 2 yeast bottles and change 1 each week. I read somewhere that green water gives way to more green water as the dead algae cells fuel the NH4 production which gives rise to more green water and again as Mike said. Also i'm weary of cleaning the filter now because i'm scared it might kill the bacteria that converts the NH4 into nitrites n nirates.

Basically from wot i understood till now, this just seems like a cycling of tank with plants in it. I think i've made my decision n so heres the plan of action:

1. I start dosing and co2 and reduce the light period from 9-10 hrs to 7 hrs. which i think is just enough for the plants to absorb effeciently and not provide too much light for algae to bloom, offcourse algae too would be using the 7hrs duration! Or alteratively reduce the light intensity (dunno if that theory would work, please comment!)

2. Reduce the water changes to only once a week to minimize the fluctuation in any of the parameters, but at the same time dont choke my tank with nutrients.

3. also mildly rinse the filter sponge just to remove the debri from it, every 3-4 days, along with removing leaves manually to prevent any decomposition. Also was planning to get my fish stock of tetras by this weekend, so postpone it till i control this situation

If theres something that i'm doing drastically wrong, please tell me before i begin.

Also wot nutrients do i dose? I'm not sure if i need to dose Fe because i'm already using laterite soil and dont want too much iron. But if you think i should, please tell me a source for chelated iron.

Thanx alot again,
Mohit

 

Surprise!

Hey there,
Today i witnessed something in my tank which i could not understand and so i'm posting this here.
My tank has been suffering from algae bloom since the last 3-4 weeks. It wasnt a severe case of green water but when i tried to peep into my tank from the sides i cudnt see further than mebbe 5 inches. That bad was the visibility.

To add to my problems my water supply had been disrupted and we were recieving water from tankers. Now the issue is that the source of the water is never known and so what mix of compounds present in the water would never been known. So i decided to put even water changes on hold to avoid any spikes in any of the compounds present in water (i'm guessing cud afford it as i only had 1 angel and snails in my tank other than plants)
I even kept the photoperiod same as earlier which is around 10-12 hrs a day.

Now the fun begins, today morning when i switched on my lights i noticed water was clearer. I went for the side of the tank and was surprised to find that now i can see almost across the other side of my 4 feet tank! I went to work n i've just returned to find the visibility has further improved since morning...

I'm just hoping it continues to improve and i finally get that clear water tank back!

Apart from this, there has been considerable improvement in stargrass growth which i was worried about. Infact there was this very tiny top end of the stem of star grass which somehow seperated from the plant back then, n i still thrusted it in the gravel, it is now a small plant with leaves coming out, n it feels really satisfying and amazing to see and realise life makes u such a good fighter!

Now the question is wots happening to the algae? Please, can anybody throw some light on it!

Thanks and Regards
Mohit

 

Hey there,
just wanted to update bout the tank, the water has finally cleared up completely today and i can see across my 4 feeter from the sides. But i still havent figured out wot caused the algae to disappear without anything intervening,
no ferts, no water changes for 3-4 weeks (since the bloom appeared), no co2.

Question remains, wot happened to the algae?

Regards
Mohit

 

Hey there!
After much thinking this is wot i cud come up with to try n understand wot exactly happened to the algae.

1. Algae bloom woud be because of any of the nutrients thrown off track of the equilibrium levels. (althugh in my case i believe it was the excess photoperiod dat triggeredthe bloom)
2. The bloom will remain till the nutrients are back to the equilibrium levels.
3. Since algae grows at a considerably fast rate, it will consume the excess nutrients at the same rate and if the tank parameters r untouched, the excess nutrient would deplete at that rate. (offcourse if its NH4 or some other nutrient that is converted, then bacteria etc would have to be taken into account n this logic would get a lil more complicated!)
4. After a while when the nutrients get to the equilibrium levels, the plants start competing with the algae and beat algae!
5. Now your tank is clean of algae.

In my case, i was not dosing co2 or ferts before the bloom, so not starting to dose these after the bloom, helped me. (or so i believe!)
But in case of others who have started dosing co2 and ferts, it would be advisable for them to continue dosing at lower levels.
However, if one continues dosing one would have to do water changes (especially if EI dosing is followed) to avoid choking the tank with ferts.

So by that logic do u think it would be a good idea to stop dosing ferts and co2 when the bloom appears, change water for a while and then stop changing water completely for best results?
I say this because i've normally come across ppl who have only succeeded fighting bloom after 2-3 months on an average (without blackout or diatom filters) whereas in my case it took bout a month.
Please Comment

Regards
Mohit