# What is my problem



## BiscuitSlayer (Apr 1, 2005)

At first glance, I thought your CO2 levels were too low. My plants had a similar look to yours prior to me going pressurized CO2. How much phosphate are you dosing per week/day?


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

CO2 is what I keep thinking, but I´m injecting about 3 bubbles per second, shouldn´t that be plenty?
Im dosing about 1/8 tsp KH2PO4 3x a week.


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## dr.tran (Oct 8, 2007)

Is there anything else ur dosing?


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

At WC I dose:
1/2 tsp KNO3
1/8 tsp KH2PO4
1/8 tsp K2SO4
3/4 tsp CaCl
1 tsp MgSO4

day 2
Micros and 3ml Iron

day 3
1/2 tsp KNO3
1/8 tsp KH2PO4
1/8 tsp K2SO4

day 4, same as 2
day 5, same as 3
day 6, same as 2
day 7, nothing


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

I´ve wandered about for how long I should be shutting off the co2 at night? Could this be causing an imbalance in co2 saturation and therefore helping the algae?
Should I perhabs shorten the period that the co2 turns off, or maybe let it run through the night?


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## MrJG (Feb 21, 2007)

Are you testing your nitrate/phosphate levels though the week to get a feel for how much nutrients your plants are actually taking out of the water column? I know this is one of the primary reasons to dose using the EI method (no testing) but it it looks to me like you have a small amount of plant mass for a 55G with a good amount of light over it and a good amount of ferts going in. Increasing plant mass might go a long way to taking care of the problem.

Couple of questions: 
Are you using a 4dKH solution in your drop checker? If not you may not be getting the amount of CO2 into the tank that you think you are regardless of your diffusion method. Leak?

Is there any particular reason you want to raise the hardness of your water? Do you have fauna/inverts that need the extra calcium? Some folks spend lots of money to get very soft water like you have.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

you have too much light and not enough plant bio-mass.. lower the lights to 2wpg and you'll see a difference.

or add more plants.


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

I´m not measuring nitrates.
I am using a 4Kh solution for the drop checker, and it stays green and the plants do pearl alot during the night, a bit less during the day. 

What about calcium deficciencies and buffering the water for Ph swings?? 

Should I perheps stop dosing calcium, magnesium and baking soda?

I went to the local pet store and got some cabomba, and I´ll try to increase the plant mass more.

If I lower the light to 2 wpg, wouldn´t my already scrauny glossostigma fade away? 

Thank you all very much for your inputs and advice.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

shoot for 2.5 if you're worry about the lights.. It's all a rough guess anyway. 
try putting a root tab under the glosso to see if that'll give them a boost.

It seems like the main problem is nutrient... try upping the ferts quantity?
But lower the lights anyway.


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## MrJG (Feb 21, 2007)

So you should be ok on the CO2 levels in the tank...

What you are looking to do is balance the tank a bit between lighting, plant mass, and dosing. If your CO2 is solid you are all set. 

You can either add a lot more plant mass to out compete the algae that is present...
Or if I understand correctly you have the full wattage on for 8.5 hours a day... try running the 3x39W for only 8 hours and then supplementing those with the 2x30W for maybe 2-3 hours a day. 

Either way once you make the change you need to give it a week or two before you start seeing the changes. There should definitely be a point to where things take a turn. 

Honestly I'm giving advise based my experience with a 20 gallon and my reading here but I would do both. I don't feel comfortable giving advise on the specific dosing amounts but it does look ok (the dosing schedule). 

As far as buffering your water, you'll find two separate camps of thought on that one. The majority of what I've read and works for me is to not fight the water you have. General stability of the PH is the key and not a specific number (of course there are situations where you want a ranged value). Adding buffers to maintain a certain PH level can add as much to instability as not bothering it one bit.


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

OK, I think I´ll be reducing the lighting a bit, adding more plant mass and reducing the calcium, magnesium and baking soda by half.
I´ll post here again in a couple of weeks regarding the progress. 
Many thanks for the assistance.


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## Naja002 (Oct 12, 2005)

I ran 3-4 bps on my 55g with 2.36wpg (130w). I had very few issues. I would say that with that much light--your C02 is low. Increase your C02 until the drop checker goes yellow-green. I realize that you have a drop checker--but how often do you change the solution in it? Lowering the light is a simpler solution--with or without a midday burst. My suggestion would be to either:

Up your C02 and learn how to work with the lighting that you have
or
Reduce the lighting and leave the C02 where it is--don't reduce both.

Safer route would be to reduce the lighting--but its Your Call. :thumbsup: 


I would skip the baking soda completely--its not needed. The GH you can determine by your plants. Very soft water is very Good-- :thumbsup: --be Happy! I would skip the Ca and Mg until the plants started telling me that they need it--then add 1Kh until they are Happy. You may not need any. PH swings via low Kh is a myth--don't sweat it. 


Plants pearling a lot at night would indicate anaerobic (no 02) conditions--with fish life in this tank--I'm not sure how that would work....


From this thread I can only gather that You don't test. Yes, EI is a non-testing regime, but I always like to have a clue of what's going on in the tank. Why add N if I don't need to? Same with P. You may want to grab an N and P test kit and get a gauge on those 2 levels. You may need more at that light level. You may need less. Right now--nobody knows.

HTH


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## MrJG (Feb 21, 2007)

Sven curious on how its going with the changes?


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## AquaShrimp (Jun 3, 2008)

*Algae Problem Solved?*

It seems that you have very interesting algae, what i recommend you do is talk to the store about your algae and maybe the pet store will be able to help you rid that algae in your planted tank. :thumbsup:


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

It looks like you have hair/ thread algae.
Some unknown algae
and high tech tank with reletively few plants.

This is all indicative of overfertilizing your tank. Remember that fertilizers are great for well stocked tanks, otherwise they just feed the algae. Having multiple simultaneous algae outbreaks in your tank tells me that there are excesses in your tank. 

I would suggest scaling back your fertilizer usage and investing in some quick growing low light plants to soak up whatever excess nutrients you have and may introduce in the future. A couple of large water sprites would do the job. 

Hope this Helps

---Gio


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## billm90 (Jun 19, 2008)

can someone give me some pointers as to where to get a test kit for a planted tank.
will this test kit show where these measured levels need to be?

I got into this about a year ago. I just went up to a 55G tank, canistor filter and I double my DIY co2. I have 5 watts per gallon and a ton of plants. I am having major hair algae as well.

I have tried using algone in the canistor, it did nothing.
The last 3 weeks I ran the lights for about 3 hours a day and the plants are starting to suffer, so I have stopped that. I also stopped dowing liquid ferts. I have flourish, and 2 other types I cant remember what.

I even tried running the lights at 68 watts for 3 hours. (I have 6 flourecents, 4 overdriven)

I also have a UV light on this tank. I dont think it is helping anything.

I also picked up an ro/di unit I have yet to set up. will this help opposed to tap water?


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

Well it´s been a while now. I did cut back on the ferts, alot less baking soda (1/8tsp), also alot less mgso4 and cacl2, but still dose 1/2 tsp kno3*3weekly and 1/8 tsp kh2po4. iron still 3ml *3 a week, still the same micros. 

the algae is not as bad, hair algae and staghorn is gone but I´ve been getting BGA and BBA. I´m back to thinking that the co2 might be getting outgassed during the night, causing an imbalance in the co2 levels?
The growth of my plants has also slowed down alot. I have 3*39W t5 on for 8 hours a day, increase that perhaps? I do find that my drop checker is darker during the morning, but during the evening it has gone light-green/yellow.


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## SpeedEuphoria (Aug 5, 2008)

Your turning off CO2 at night correct? I think you should turn it back on sooner to get the levels up before the lights come on


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

I used to turn the co2 off for about 12 hours at night. I started wandering if my algae issues were because of fluctuations in the co2 content of the water. So I followed your advice, speedEuphoria, and cut the "off" period to about 6 hours. 
The morning after I found that my fish looked a bit off colour and stressed, so I plugged in a bubbler and the fish looked alot better in a short while. Although I haven´t still found my YoYo loaches, and I´m afraid that they´ve died. 
The following night I ran the bubbler again, and the morning after the plants were pearling like never before. I´ve kept my spraybar pointing downwards so the movement on the water surface has been very limited. 
So this leads me to wandering if my problems have been because of low o2 rather then low co2 as I was afraid of?
What kind of problems does low o2 have on plants? My glossostigma has f.ex. almost died off. Is it possible that that might be connencted to low o2 levels?
Any thoughts?


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## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

The tank, plants, fish, even the bacteria, substrate and filter
media need 02...

Read this a few times if needed, and follow the link on BOD 
read that too.

Some more reads.
Dead Zones...
http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/18/dead.zone/index.html?iref=newssearch


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## flanders (May 3, 2008)

Instead of turning on and off the CO2, you could just run an airstone at night. This is what I do. Put the airstone on a timer to come on just before lights off, and turns off a little before lights on. This has really helped out my tank.


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

Wölff, thank you for your advice, will read this.

flanders, I am running an airstone (aka bubbler) at night.



> The morning after I found that my fish looked a bit off colour and stressed, so I plugged in a bubbler and the fish looked alot better in a short while. Although I haven´t still found my YoYo loaches, and I´m afraid that they´ve died.
> The following night I ran the bubbler again,


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## Sven (Dec 3, 2002)

Wö£fëñxXx, thank you again for the links, reading them made things alot clearer to me. 
I recall these growing dead zones were on the news here about 2 weeks ago.


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