# Staghorn algea problems.



## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Lots of things to change, but let's start with the basics of the water condition.

You should not have any ammonia or nitrites in the tank. When you see either of those two, then your tank is not fully cycled yet. You test shows you have ammonia, but you didn't test for nitrites. Still, the ammonia reading is enough to indicate that the tank's not fully cycled. I suspect you caused this when you scrapped a bunch of plants and over-cleaned the tank. You removed the very much needed bacteria. Now the tank is going through a mini-cycle.

Never clean and scrub everything. It seems like a good cleaning is a good idea, but it's actually not. It removes the bacteria necessary for a healthy aquarium. That bacteria is on every surface of the tank, including the plants and glass. If you clean too much of it out, then you will cause the tank to loose so much bacteria that it is no longer cycled. That is what I think has happened in your case.

I realize your post is about algae and not water, but the water conditions is what is causing the algae. Staghorn algae likes poor water conditions.

You said you don't like doing 50% water changes because of the chlorine smell. You MUST add dechlorinator to the water when you do a water change. I recommend Prime. That's what most people use. It's cheap and works great.

Now having said that, it is advised that planted tanks have 50% water changes every week. That's what I do and what you'll see most people around here do. To make it easier, most of use a water changer (Python style). When it's time to fill the water back in, we first add the Prime to the tank and then add the tap water. The Prime will dechlorinate the water as it's added to the tank. This does not hurt fish, inverts or plants. But it must be added. You cannot add the tap water without the dechlorinator, such as Prime.

Regarding your snails... you have soft water which will cause the snail's shells to dissolve. I have hard water so working with soft water is out of my scope, but hopefully someone can offer some help with that.

BTW, can you post a picture of your tank? That will help us all see what you're working with so we can help you better.


----------



## lighthouse G (Nov 11, 2008)

hey Vikki thanks for your advice. I did another water change yesterday and removed a good to large amount of detris from my gravel bed. I believe this was the source of my ammonia reading as well as others like ALGAE. I think one of my problems was not stirring up the water above the gravel to kick up the detris and vacuum it out it only hit me when you said python style. I have been doing water changes with out doing this....so today I bought a smaller vacuum to get in between the tight area's of my tank and making this part of the water changing routine. I took some pics of my tank for you to see. The other question I have is do you have to dechlorinate the water in your tank first or can you treat the water then put it in your tank?


----------



## lighthouse G (Nov 11, 2008)

*here are some pic's*


----------



## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Nice looking tank! There is one plant you have that is not an aquatic plant and will die (adding more ammonia to the tank which you do not want). It's the striped one in the back row, second from the front of the picture. You appear to have another one of those plants further down. Let me guess. You got those in a tube at PetSmart, right? Don't buy those plants. Most of them are NOT aquatic plants. I have no idea how they get away with selling them. You aren't the first to get them. I'd return them if you still can.

That may be staghorn, but it may also be BBA. Let's hope it's staghorn, but it's not looking like staghorn in those pics, especially how the algae is forming on the edges of the leaves with fuzz; this is exactly what BBA looks like. BBA can be handled, but it's not nearly as easy as staghorn.

I noticed that you have a double check drop checker. What is the CO2 indicator color showing? Green, greenish-yellow, yellowish-green or yellow?

I'd also like to see a FTS of the tank (full tank shot picture) so I can get an idea of the overall plant mass.

Cut off and throw away affected leaves. Most of the leaves I saw in the pics are completely covered and need to be removed. If you find a leaf with just a small amount of algae on it, you may try treating it with Excel or H2O2 (ask if you need help with this), but I don't know if either affects staghorn. Both will kill BBA.

While you don't want to plunge the vacuum tube deeply into the gravel, do get the stuff on top. I have also found swishing the tube just above the substrate will kick up some detritus that's then easily vacuumed out.

The weekly 50% water changes will do wonders for everything, your fish, plants and to help get rid of the staghorn.

You can most certainly add dechlorinator to water before putting it in the tank. This is ideal. But for those of us with large tanks, buckets aren't reasonable so we use python style water changers. This means the water is hosed directly from our indoor sink faucet to the tank. So there's no way to add dechlorinator to the water before it's put in the tank. So in this case, you put in a full amount of dechlorinator for the tank (if replacing 50% water, you still add enough dechlorinator for 100% of the tank's total water volume). 

Typically, I first drain the water with my python. I'll hover over the substrate where I can, but as the tank becomes more filled with plants, I'm finding this more and more difficult to do. However, all those extra plants assist with cleaning out the detritus so that's not a problem. Once I've drained 50% of the water, I add Prime directly into the tank. Then I start filling the tank with my python, using water directly from the sink's faucet. So the water coming into the tank is NOT dechlorinated; however, the Prime that I already put in the tank removes the chlorine and chloramine immediately when the water is in the tank. I've had numerous fish that love to swim in the current of the incoming water (which is not dechlorinated) with no ill effects. A little exposure isn't a big problem as long as it's just that - a little exposure.


----------



## o snap its eric (Jan 12, 2004)

the only time i noticed staghorn was after fussing with the tank such as moving a lot of gravel around or messy planting causing debris to float around and somehow causing staghorn on plants? This is only an observation. What i did was up the CO2 and plucked away as much staghorn as i could and increased my dosing and slowly it disappeared.


----------



## lighthouse G (Nov 11, 2008)

*a few more pic's*


----------



## lighthouse G (Nov 11, 2008)

hi Vikki,

the drop checker is green... It may look somewhat blue in the pic because of the background. I take my white dosing spoon and put it to one side and look through the other side to get an accurate reading. Right now I have increased my bps to 5 that is up one since my original post. Ph is down to 5.93 since this was done so I know the Co2 is dissolving and the drop checker has slightly changed to a little lighter green but the fish are fine including my Angel. I have no more plans to increase it but I am still dosing excel in excess to help rid the stag horn on a few rocks and such and is doing some damage.

HOWEVER...... I believe your right out bout the BBA and some guidance on this bugger would be appreciated. I will cut all severally effected plants again!

I got a real laugh when you guessed where I got that one plant and I thought it wasn't a true aquatic plant but I bought it any way. The leaves have some algae on them so I will 86 them to help rid the algae in the tank.


----------



## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Yeah, just about everyone gets at least one of those chain store tube plants, only to find out the hard way that they're a big lie! Since I'm also a regular gardener (have been for decades), I recognize many of the plants in those tubes and am outraged that they are doing this to people who are trying to start their first planted tank.

Now to the BBA. Yuck. You will not like it. And there is only one way to really get rid of it. You MUST increase your CO2. Green or even light green is not high enough. To reach 30ppm (the CO2 level needed to stop BBA), that drop checker should be 1 teeny-tiny bit away from pure yellow!

Another way to get an idea of how much CO2 dose is to dose enough to change the pH by 1 full point. So if your pH is normally 8.0 (mine is), then you'll hit 30ppm when the CO2 drops the pH down to 7.0.

The yellow color and 1 point drop in pH are guidelines! They're pretty darn good guidelines, but do be cautions as this level of CO2 is quite high. So you need to slowly increase the CO2, waiting a day (and especially a night) between each change. This way, if it does begin to affect your fish, you'll catch it quickly enough to keep them safe.

You can and should cut out all leaves affected by BBA, but you will be cutting forever and be treating with Excel and/or H2O2 forever if you do not get the CO2 high enough. ~30ppm CO2 is the *ONLY* thing that will stop BBA.

Compared to BBA, staghorn is nothing. Pull/cut out whatever staghorn you see and then make sure you keep the water clean with weekly 50% water changes. Do that and your staghorn will be history almost immediately.


----------



## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Oh, one other thing. Your tank is starting out very nice! But you're in a difficult "middle" stage in which you have some plants, but not many. Successful planted tanks are pretty much an all-or-nothing issue. You either have no plants or you have a full tank full of plants, but not just "some" plants.

Since most planted tanks do not start out fully planted, it's good to use a weedy plant that helps get you through that in-between stage. I usually recommend hornwort for this. You can also use Egeria densa (Anacharis), but it melts with Excel so it's generally not recommended for a tank fighting BBA.

Hornwort is cheap and grows very fast. It has no roots so you can float it or weight it down to make it look like a stem. You need to get enough to really fill in that tank. And I mean FILL IT. You need enough plant mass to imitate what you normally see with most planted tanks. Then, as you continue to plant your more desired plants, you can reduce the hornwort. Eventually, you can toss all the hornwort out.

I've bought hornwort from this seller on eBay before when my tank was in that in-between stage. I was happy with the transaction. She only shows two auctions for it as I type this now, but she'll post more. She usually keeps some available at all times. The "6 large bonus" should do great in your 125g. You can probably get away with even less since it does grow like a WEED.

So stuff your tank with plants, keep up with a good EI fert schedule, raise that CO2 up to ~30ppm, and keep up with the weekly 50% water changes, and you will be surprised at how great your tank will start looking. After that, I am not responsible for your addiction to planted tanks.


----------



## lighthouse G (Nov 11, 2008)

*thank you*

Thanks Vicki.... I was Planning on getting more plants this weekend about six and I'll see if they have that plant you mentioned. The Staghorn seems to be gone meaning I haven't found it yet in any little nook YET!:icon_eek: as far as tha BBA I cut (like you had suggested) a majarity of it but it is still present. 

However my ph is already low 6.4 from my Tap water and 5.8 now with 5bps whitch gives me a yellow/green from my DC. I'll cut some more this weekend and keep my peramiters were they are for another week while still dosing the excell. Thank you for all your help.:thumbsup:

ps. I feel the need to plants in my forty gal. breeder tank


----------



## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Yeah, staghorn is easy to get rid of. Good to hear that one has already taken a hike out of your tank. As long as you keep up with your water changes, you'll probably never see any staghorn again.

BBA, on the other hand... Well, let's just say that I no longer believe there is such a think as a BBA-free tank. The trick is to keep conditions so that it can't grow. And in that sense, it seems it's gone. But give it a tiny chance to start growing, and it definitely will!

I recently increased the timing of my lights for my 75g, and sure enough, I see some tiny BBA tufts wanting to make a return. It's not worrying me though because I'm not seeing anything to indicate a large breakout. Just a few tiny fuzzies on my intake screen. I think I may reduce my lighting back down if those little tufts look like they're growing any. My CO2 is already as high as I can get it without killing the fish so that means reducing the light to maintain the balance.


----------

