# Things going bad



## cowmilkcandy (Feb 6, 2014)

too much nutrients, not enough plants.


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## Varmint (Apr 5, 2014)

cowmilkcandy said:


> too much nutrients, not enough plants.


I agree. You have few plants and the ones you have are slow growers. Go get some fast growing stem plants that you will need to trim every few weeks. They will help to outcompete the algae. Replant the trimmings to make more plants to suck up more nutrients.

Go get some creatures to help clean up the algae and slime mold. Snails, algae eating gobies, otocinclus, and Amano shrimp can help.


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## Knotyoureality (Aug 3, 2012)

Ditto. The swords and the monte carlo are going to do better with root tabs than counting on nutrients in the water column and the anubia are slow enough growers to need little fertilization unless they're ramped up for actual active growth. 

You don't mention what your water change schedule is, but if you aren't doing good sized weekly wc's, now's a good time to start. It'll reduce the build up of excess ferts--almost certain given the lack of plants to soak up what you've been putting in--and, in my experience, goes a long way to help promote plant growth and inhibit algae. 

If you like the swords, they're a good option to quickly add a lot of plant mass to a tank for not too bad a price. Personally, I've always loved them as a tough, non-nonsense backdrop for angels and they bounce back fast if you get an algae problem and have to cut back a lot of affected leaves. Java ferns would complement the anubia and monte carlo nicely and are another tough as nails plant. You might also look into adding a fast growing plant like water sprite--it's light green, frilled leaf pattern would contrast nicely with your existing plants and it's a fast fast grower.


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## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

Don't be afraid, plant, plant, plant...  That's where the fun is.
I've set up my first planted tank back in June and it's pure pleasure. And fishes love it.


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## dkatsariotis (Dec 1, 2013)

Hi, thank you all for your replies. Is it ok to plant a few branches of Egeria Densa? I will also add a Nerite Snail. If i do a black out will my Monte Carlo survive?


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## dkatsariotis (Dec 1, 2013)

Hi again. Thank you all for your help. I cut down ferts and planted 3 banches of stem plants. One of them is Hornwort. The others i dont know but i asked for fast growing plants. I stopped lighting and now i wait and see. I also did a 80% w/c after scraping the algae from the glass. I also removed the brown dust from the Anubias using a soft toothbrush.i also vaccumed the gravel and removed as much algae i could.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

not enough plants / too much light (really only because of lack of plants)

As an example I just took out a good amount of plants from my nano tank and it blew up with algae. Not cool


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

Too much light, not a clean tank, not enough plants, poor substrate.

These are my initial thoughts on why your having problems.

You need only the finnex, keep it raised from the tank a couple of inches. You need more plants, fast growing stems as suggested.

You need to be doing more freq wcs that are roughly 50% a week.

If you can add root tabs that's good start for the substrate


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## dkatsariotis (Dec 1, 2013)

I forgot to mention, substrate is Seachem Flourite. Tank is in blackout state from yesterday.


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

In the pic is flourite?

That's really really dirty. You need to clean the tank better. To much organics.


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## dkatsariotis (Dec 1, 2013)

philipraposo1982 said:


> In the pic is flourite?
> 
> That's really really dirty. You need to clean the tank better. To much organics.


No this is a 2cm regular gravel. Under this there is about 5cm Flourite. I just hide it ;-)


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

None the less cleanliness is one of the issues you need to.address. fees less and fees less often


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## dkatsariotis (Dec 1, 2013)

philipraposo1982 said:


> None the less cleanliness is one of the issues you need to.address. fees less and fees less often


The dirt you see is because of the brown algae. I will post new photos after the blackout. I already cleaned most of it.


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## DayOlder (Jul 12, 2014)

Anubia really do not like that much light. They prefer to be shaded. Because they are such slow growers they will, at least in my experience, be one of the first plant in the tank to get BBA especially in direct light.


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

the anubius needs all / most of the leaves removed and pretty much let it start over.

its need to be out of the direct bright light.


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## BulletToothBoris (Jan 17, 2013)

floaters: use them.


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

Floating plants have their place for sure but not in all tanks and aquascapes.

If my tank is new and has yet to establish I start off with fast growing stems and easy to go slow growers like anubias. Floaters in this case works great to help keep nitrates low and eats up toxins before converting to nitrates.

In established setups with high demanding plants its not ideal. Imagine all your floaters blocking precious light and eating up all nitrates that the other more expensive plants need. This results in bottom out nitrates which leads to a deficiency which leads to algae problems like bba.


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