# Monte carlo turning white



## JxnDvs (Feb 23, 2018)

about two days ago a small area of monte carlo carpet has turned whitish grey. It does have some green hair algae on it but other parts of the carpet have way more green hair algae and they are still green. I dose two pumps of thrive+ and run pressurized co2 at 30 ppm and Ive got two fluval 3.0 running at 70%. the tank is a 20 gal tall. Also if anyone has got tips on the green hair algae that would be great. thanks


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Jun 15, 2008)

Hi @JxnDvs,



> Ive got two fluval 3.0 running at 70%


That is a lot of darn light!!!

How often are you dosing 2 pumps of Thrive +?

Do you know any of your water parameters? I am especially interested in nitrates (ppm of NO3), dGH, and pH.


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## JxnDvs (Feb 23, 2018)

ph is 6.4 when the co2 is on
gh 6
kh4
nitrate 5ppm
and i do 2 pumps of thrive per day
should I turn down the light and if so how much
I know 5 ppm is kind of low that it should be arround 20 but to get that high id need to put like 4 pumps a day or more
thanks for the help


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Jun 15, 2008)

Hi @JxnDvs,

With that much light over a 20 gallon tank, and the fact that you have CO2, the plants need a lot of nutrients (as you can tell from your 5.0 ppm NO3). If the white leaves are new leave that are just emerging it would likely be a calcium issue but from downloading and enhancing your photo it looks like older leaves are effected. It could be magnesium related but with only 5 ppm of NO3, and the light intensity (btw what is your photoperiod) I would first suspect insufficient nitrogen. I would either cut back on the light intensity and/or decrease the photoperiod and/or increase the nutrient dosing......maybe a combination of the three suggestions.

When trying to run a 'high tech' tank with high light and CO2 nutrient demand is high and with commercial liquid fertilizers it can become expensive. I started off with one 'high tech' 45 gallon tank and liquid ferts but after about 6 months I went to using dry fertilizers and currently dose them using the EI (estimative index) method.


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## JxnDvs (Feb 23, 2018)

photo period is 7 hours. I think I will remove on light and set the other one to 80% if you think that sounds good. and as for the ferts I have the greenleaf aquariums pps pro dry ferts that I used on my 65 gallon but since 20 gallons is pretty small I thought id just use an all in one type liquid ferts, but I think ill start dosing that on the 20 gallon so I can know exactly what ferts im putting in and how much of each nutrient.


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Jun 15, 2008)

Hi @JxnDvs,

I think that would be a good start. The leaves that have turned white will not recover, nor will leaves that have had a lot of cells die and are badly damaged. Hopefully with less light and more nutrients the plants will start showing improvement in 2-3 weeks. Keep up the weekly water changes.


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