# Why do i get BGA when i dose Thrive +?



## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

After an amazing first 3 weeks with my first co2 setup, things are starting to go a bit sour. I have fresh UNS contrasoil in the tank, co2 at 1-2 bps with the drop checker lime green, about 26-32 watts of light, lights on for 6 hrs with co2 coming on one hour before lights on and one hour before lights off. Tank is a 12 gal long. I have a canister with jet outflow, surface skimmer, and a powerful wavemaker so there is plenty of surface agitation as it is a stream tank with 12 rainbow shiners and 2 white cloud minnows. I have monte carlo, dwarf hairgrass, Christmas Moss, blyxa japonica, hydrocotyle Japan, some staurogyne repens, and I (used) to have some healthy mats of UG but it has since melted off. The hydrocotyle is the only thing pearling. Now I went without dosing ferts for the first week, then tried dosing one pump of thrive c and I got BGA. Removed it, did a water change, and added the wavemaker and the algae disappeared. During the next WC I dosed one pump thrive + and again, BGA appeared. I did another WC and dosed one pump of thrive + again and the BGA has only gotten worse. Now I have standard green algae over my driftwood and rocks. It seems like every time I dose the all in one ferts it makes everything go sour, but my plants haven't been growing as well since after the 3 week mark. They started out strong and now things have slowed down. What am I doing wrong?

I know the UG probably melted from the algae and also from the sudden addition of water column ferts. But im only dosing about 1/4 of what EI calls for, so why is algae becoming a problem? I'm doing my best to remove the plant melt, but have a hard time getting the monte carlo because all the new growth is growing off the melted stuff. My nitrates are about 20 ppm but I don't currently have a way to test phosphates. Does anything seem off here? I'm wondering if I'm having issues because of a nutrient deficiency, or an excess in a micro/macro....here's the tank from day 11-16







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Here it is today, day 28. UG is pretty much all gone but a few threads of leaves here and there. As you can see algae issue and also the monte carlo isn't looking so hot.


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## Plinkploop (Jan 24, 2021)

Is it truly bga (cyano)? Or is it sheet? Cyano smells pretty bad. Sheet is more earthy smelling.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Looks like regular algae as opposed to cyno which is really a bacteria infection. Since this is a new tank with an active substrate, are you doing the daily water change of 50% in the first week, every other day in the second week, and 3 times in week 3 and twice in week 4 schedule? If not then thars your problem. At this point I would do a few BIG 70+% water changes in a row and then do 2 water changes a week for the next couple of weeks before going back to a more normal 70+% water change once weekly. Also can plant more stems or use floating plants to soak up excess nutrients. This is a new tank so plants are not going to be growing well right away.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Plinkploop said:


> Is it truly bga (cyano)? Or is it sheet? Cyano smells pretty bad. Sheet is more earthy smelling.


It's a mix of both. I always battle with cyano in my tanks, every single one which is what leads me to believe my tap may already be high in phosphates perhaps? Then when I dose macros with the all in one it triggers the cyano? I just bought a phosphate test which will be here later next week so hopefully I may have a better idea of where to go from here once I figure out where the tap is at.



minorhero said:


> Looks like regular algae as opposed to cyno which is really a bacteria infection. Since this is a new tank with an active substrate, are you doing the daily water change of 50% in the first week, every other day in the second week, and 3 times in week 3 and twice in week 4 schedule? If not then thars your problem. At this point I would do a few BIG 70+% water changes in a row and then do 2 water changes a week for the next couple of weeks before going back to a more normal 70+% water change once weekly. Also can plant more stems or use floating plants to soak up excess nutrients. This is a new tank so plants are not going to be growing well right away.


I didn't do more than twice a week for the first 3 weeks, mainly because only about 1/4 of the tank substrate is aquasoil. I only put in cups of it where I was planting. I'm currently on week 4, so is it still worth doing multiple water changes? And should I try dosing full EI or with my plant selection do you think half dosing EI would be sufficient? According to rotalabutterfly for a full EI dose it suggests 1/16th of a tsp of thrive + 3-4 times a week with one 50% WC weekly


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## Plinkploop (Jan 24, 2021)

Newbie283 said:


> It's a mix of both. I always battle with cyano in my tanks, every single one which is what leads me to believe my tap may already be high in phosphates perhaps? Then when I dose macros with the all in one it triggers the cyano? I just bought a phosphate test which will be here later next week so hopefully I may have a better idea of where to go from here once I figure out where the tap is at.


I'd be interested in if cyano is activated by tap phosphates. I have mainly factored my ever lingering pockets of cyano in my turtle tanks to stagnation (the same thing that's happened in a few of my past planted tanks) but maybe it's a phosphate thing. Though my last test (a month ago) gave me a reading of 0.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

In a new setup with good light and limited plant mass the most important thing to focus on is keeping the water uber clean. That means large regular water changes and using organic removal media like carbon and/or purigen. After that light is the biggest factor in how much and how fast algae will grow. So if you didn't keep your light on a tight leash (starting with 4 hrs) and do the water changes mentioned by @minorhero the likely of getting algae is very good. 

The active soil has plenty of nutrients for a while. You can only get so much leverage out of co2 in a thinly planted tank since it's benefit is directly related to plant mass in terms of algae control.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Asteroid said:


> In a new setup with good light and limited plant mass the most important thing to focus on is keeping the water uber clean. That means large regular water changes and using organic removal media like carbon and/or purigen. After that light is the biggest factor in how much and how fast algae will grow. So if you didn't keep your light on a tight leash (starting with 4 hrs) and do the water changes mentioned by @minorhero the likely of getting algae is very good.
> 
> The active soil has plenty of nutrients for a while. You can only get so much leverage out of co2 in a thinly planted tank since it's benefit is directly related to plant mass in terms of algae control.


It may be worth noting that this was a fully cycled mature tank that I simply rescaped. So when I set the co2 up, I had just torn down a mature low tech scape, replaced part of the substrate with sand, added handfuls of contrasoil in the planted areas, and rescaped it. I kept my filter media and everything. So the contrasoil was placed in a fully cycled aquarium. My nitrates are always super low (less than 5ppm) so I dose the thrive directly after a WC which at half EI dose takes me to around 25 ppm. My lights were on for 8 for the first 2 weeks but I since cut the time to 6 hours on in total. I have tons and tons of flow in the tank, so the algae and cyano can't be from lack of flow. Does this still sound like a nutrient issue? I'd hate to keep dosing full macros and accidentally put the phosphate level too high. At this point should I just dose micros until I figure out how much phosphate is in the tap?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Newbie283 said:


> It may be worth noting that this was a fully cycled mature tank that I simply rescaped. So when I set the co2 up, I had just torn down a mature low tech scape, replaced part of the substrate with sand, added handfuls of contrasoil in the planted areas, and rescaped it. I kept my filter media and everything. So the contrasoil was placed in a fully cycled aquarium. My nitrates are always super low (less than 5ppm) so I dose the thrive directly after a WC which at half EI dose takes me to around 25 ppm. *My lights were on for 8 for the first 2 weeks but I since cut the time to 6 hours on in total.* I have tons and tons of flow in the tank, so the algae and cyano can't be from lack of flow. Does this still sound like a nutrient issue? I'd hate to keep dosing full macros and accidentally put the phosphate level too high. At this point should I just dose micros until I figure out how much phosphate is in the tap?


The no3 isn't the problem it's any ammonia coming off the substrate. The lights on for 8 hrs was a huge contributing factor in my opinion. When you rescape a tank the existing bio-filter can't react fast enough, which is the REAL reason you have BGA (Inadequate bio-filter/plant mass.) Nothing takes up ammonia like plant. BTW it only takes a tiny amount of ammonia to trigger spores into algae, it doesn't have to register on a test kit.

What light are you running?


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Asteroid said:


> The no3 isn't the problem it's any ammonia coming off the substrate. The lights on for 8 hrs was a huge contributing factor in my opinion. When you rescape a tank the existing bio-filter can't react fast enough, which is the REAL reason you have BGA (Inadequate bio-filter/plant mass.) Nothing takes up ammonia like plant. BTW it only takes a tiny amount of ammonia to trigger spores into algae, it doesn't have to register on a test kit.
> 
> What light are you running?


Yeah cutting it down to 6 helped. I was completely algae free for 10 days...until I dosed thrive again. On the weeks I didn't dose anything, no cyano. When I wouldn't dose thrive I wouldn't have any issues. But my plants were starting to slow down and melt so I assumed it was a nutrient deficiency. I'm running two Lominie Asta 20s, and they are raised about 6-8 inches above the top of the tank because the tank itself is shallow.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Newbie283 said:


> Yeah cutting it down to 6 helped. I was completely algae free for 10 days...until I dosed thrive again. On the weeks I didn't dose anything, no cyano. When I wouldn't dose thrive I wouldn't have any issues. But my plants were starting to slow down and melt so I assumed it was a nutrient deficiency. I'm running two Lominie Asta 20s, and they are raised about 6-8 inches above the top of the tank because the tank itself is shallow.


If the soil is new you probably don't need to dose anything but maybe some pottasium and micros, but either way I don't think thats playing a role in algae. You want to be preventive from the getgo, that means short light cycle, large regular WC. Once the spores are triggered and become visible algae they are like other plants. So cutting it back will help in the long run, but the tank has to catch up with good plant grow.

BTW I have the same tank and yes very shallow so light can easily overwhelm it. I actually rescaped mine, without removing anything other than water changes. Look at my link for 3 foot at bottom of this post. The first pic is rescape and 2nd is what is was originally.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Asteroid said:


> If the soil is new you probably don't need to dose anything but maybe some pottasium and micros, but either way I don't think thats playing a role in algae. You want to be preventive from the getgo, that means short light cycle, large regular WC. Once the spores are triggered and become visible algae they are like other plants. So cutting it back will help in the long run, but the tank has to catch up with good plant grow.
> 
> BTW I have the same tank and yes very shallow so light can easily overwhelm it. I actually rescaped mine, without removing anything other than water changes. Look at my link for 3 foot at bottom of this post. The first pic is rescape and 2nd is what is was originally.


Very nice! I love the simplicity of both scapes. It's definitely a super cool footprint tank, just hard to get adequate flow on the far side which is why I added a wavemaker in mine. The shiners really love it. I will buy a micro fert in that case, and try dosing just micros and possibly nitrate if my fish don't produce enough throughout the week. Is a 50% weekly WC enough or should I try doing a 75%? My work schedule doesn't really allow me time to do more than one a week. Also, should I cut my light back to 5 hours in that case?

I noticed in your journal you noted you were keeping amanos with your pressurized co2. How is that going? I just made a separate thread about if anyone has had success with them. I've read conflicting info online about it. I'd like to get a crew of them to help take care of this algae.

Btw here's a link to a video of my tank about 10 days ago when the UG was still alive and the algae was gone. Funny how quickly things took a turn. This will give you a better idea of my flow and setup


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Newbie283 said:


> Very nice! I love the simplicity of both scapes. It's definitely a super cool footprint tank, just hard to get adequate flow on the far side which is why I added a wavemaker in mine. The shiners really love it. I will buy a micro fert in that case, and try dosing just micros and possibly nitrate if my fish don't produce enough throughout the week. Is a 50% weekly WC enough or should I try doing a 75%? My work schedule doesn't really allow me time to do more than one a week. Also, should I cut my light back to 5 hours in that case?
> 
> I noticed in your journal you noted you were keeping amanos with your pressurized co2. How is that going? I just made a separate thread about if anyone has had success with them. I've read conflicting info online about it. I'd like to get a crew of them to help take care of this algae.
> 
> Btw here's a link to a video of my tank about 10 days ago when the UG was still alive and the algae was gone. Funny how quickly things took a turn. This will give you a better idea of my flow and setup


Thanks, I think you did a very nice job with the rock placement in yours. I've had the amanos in there for two years now and still thriving. I think they only live 2 to 3. I also have well over 100 cherry shrimp from a starting group of just 5. No problems with high co2 (drop checker yellow). I think that's partly acclimation getting them used to it. I did lose an oto to high co2. They seem very sensitive. 

If you don't have a programable light, yes I would cut back to 5 hours until things stabilize. I have a Finnex 24/7 on mine so I run only 3 hrs peak the rest is lower / viewing type light so my lights are actually on around 15 hrs. But you can achieve good growth with just 5, I've easily done it starting with 4.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Asteroid said:


> Thanks, I think you did a very nice job with the rock placement in yours. I've had the amanos in there for two years now and still thriving. I think they only live 2 to 3. I also have well over 100 cherry shrimp from a starting group of just 5. No problems with high co2 (drop checker yellow). I think that's partly acclimation getting them used to it. I did lose an oto to high co2. They seem very sensitive.
> 
> If you don't have a programable light, yes I would cut back to 5 hours until things stabilize. I have a Finnex 24/7 on mine so I run only 3 hrs peak the rest is lower / viewing type light so my lights are actually on around 15 hrs. But you can achieve good growth with just 5, I've easily done it starting with 4.


Thanks! It's hard getting things to look natural with such a harscape heavy setup but im super pleased with how this one came out. I will test my phosphate, try dosing micros only, and shorten the light cycle to 5 hours. I'll also try out some amanos to help with the algae. Is there anything specific I should do to acclimate them? Ph is 6 or below (api liquid kit doesn't measure any lower) and kH is about 4.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Newbie283 said:


> Thanks! It's hard getting things to look natural with such a harscape heavy setup but im super pleased with how this one came out. I will test my phosphate, try dosing micros only, and shorten the light cycle to 5 hours. I'll also try out some amanos to help with the algae. Is there anything specific I should do to acclimate them? Ph is 6 or below (api liquid kit doesn't measure any lower) and kH is about 4.


I usually just temp match the bag for 5-10 minutes. Definitely turn off co2 when acclimating and then let it ramp up the next day.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Asteroid said:


> I usually just temp match the bag for 5-10 minutes. Definitely turn off co2 when acclimating and then let it ramp up the next day.


I'm going to stop on my way home to get 4 or 5 of them. By the time I get home the co2 will have been off for about an hour, but I will drip acclimate them for 1-2 hours to be cautious. Hopefully they will help with the algae as well as everything else I'm trying. I bought niclogs liquid fert set, one bottle is macro and the other is micro which is nice because now I can dose both separately. I'll start dosing the micros at full EI and after awhile once the aquasoil looses its potency I will try ramping up macros. I'll update once I test my phosphate and let you guys know how the algae is. Since my UG has completely melted I think I'm going to try some marselia crenata in its place. It's a shame because my UG was so lush and then poof.. all gone within a week.


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## jake21 (Aug 11, 2019)

So I had this interesting situation in which the bacteria in the substrate was eating nitrate and the gas produced by it was producing cyano. I solved the issue by directing a bit of current over the substrate but it was rather amusing. Of course as a bonus the nitrate in the tank stayed below 2 despite a heavy fish population. Probably not your issue but still....


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

jake21 said:


> So I had this interesting situation in which the bacteria in the substrate was eating nitrate and the gas produced by it was producing cyano. I solved the issue by directing a bit of current over the substrate but it was rather amusing. Of course as a bonus the nitrate in the tank stayed below 2 despite a heavy fish population. Probably not your issue but still....


At first it seemed like a circulation issue so I put the wavemaker in and didn't dose ferts for that week. It didn't come back so I dosed ferts the next week thinking the wavemaker solved the issue but then within a few days the cyano returned which lead me to believe it was an over supply of macros. With a planted tank and co2 injection, I need to supplement nitrate because ideally with my plant stock I should keep it at about 15-20 ppm, and none of my tanks ever get above 5. I'm going to try just micros for the moment, and if my nitrates seem too low I will buy a nitrate only liquid fert and dose just nitrate/nitrogen and micros. Im intrigued to get my phosphate test and see if that is indeed the issue at hand. I also got the amanos, all 5 survived acclimation (2 hour drip) and were all still alive this morning. Unfortunately I work all day so I won't be able to observe them once the co2 kicks on but hopefully they are all okay when I get home later. I'm also very curious to see if they work as hard as everyone claims!


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Hight nitrates aren't an issue as much as the source. There is a world of difference between dosed nitrates and those that are accumulating naturally from decomposing organics. FYI my tank generally has 50ppm+ of nitrates and 4-5ppm of phosphate without any algae issues. Algae is not triggered by no3, but by any small amount of ammonia that isn't processed quickly.

From my tank journal:



Asteroid said:


> Some notes about setup:
> 
> I usually don't test that much other than PH for co2 levels, but ran some numbers the other day. NO3 was definitely on the high end. This is attributable to normal EI dosing and limited plant mass.
> 
> ...


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Asteroid said:


> Hight nitrates aren't an issue as much as the source. There is a world of difference between dosed nitrates and those that are accumulating naturally from decomposing organics. FYI my tank generally has 50ppm+ of nitrates and 4-5ppm of phosphate without any algae issues. Algae is not triggered by no3, but by any small amount of ammonia that isn't processed quickly.
> 
> From my tank journal:


Yeah my problem is opposite of some people....not enough nitrates lol! Not a bad problem to have I suppose.


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## Stan510 (Feb 15, 2021)

You just need to scrub and make water changes. Also adding more water plants would help a whole lot..you've got rich conditions for just a few small scale plants. Ease off the fertilizer until you have more plants.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

So some test results. My tap water has 2ppm of phosphate in it, my tank registered 1ppm. A lot of the resources I've read online say phosphate levels above 1ppm will cause algae issues, especially if the nitrate is low but phosphate is high. Im sure now my tap is the reason why I've had cyano issues in my tanks. Nitrate was only 5ppm. I know now that my plants are consuming the macros but just not the entire amount, and by dosing the phosphate ontop of already having too much in the tap probably triggers the algae. Im going to buy a nitrogen only fert, and try just dosing nitrogen and micros. Since I only have a micro fert for this WC I'm going to remove the algae, cut the light down to 5 hours, and dose micros only 3x a week and see where that gets me. The amanos are all still doing well and have chipped away at some of the algae but it's barely noticeable. I'll update again in another week. I got some hydrocotyle Japan mini and marselia crenata to replace the spots where my UG melted off. I'm not sure if I want to add more aquasoil at this point and risk more algae/harming my shrimp or if I want to just try the crenata in sand.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Another update: I tried another week without dosing a NPK fert and only dosing micros and there was no major spread of the cyano/green algae like I see when I dose an all in one fert. My amanos are still doing quite well too. I noticed some pinholes in my s. repens leaves indicating a potassium deficiency, so I also bought a K only fert. Once the N and K ferts come in I will work them into my new dosing regimine, probably dose N twice a week and K and micros 3x weekly and just leave the phosphate out since my tap is supplying enough. I'm going to play with the nitrogen to try and get a 10:1 ratio of Nitrogen to Phosphate and hopefully that may help with the algae issue.


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## Stan510 (Feb 15, 2021)

I'm also believing a correlation between Brush algae and iron dosing. I've not added iron the last almost three weeks and with water changes see less of that algae. Plants still look green..so maybe just use iron as a boost when needed,or with immature aquariums on a schedule.


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## jake21 (Aug 11, 2019)

The only time I find i need iron is for certain red plants. I never add iron for green plants and over the past 2 years they mostly seem fine.



Stan510 said:


> I'm also believing a correlation between Brush algae and iron dosing. I've not added iron the last almost three weeks and with water changes see less of that algae. Plants still look green..so maybe just use iron as a boost when needed,or with immature aquariums on a schedule.


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## Stan510 (Feb 15, 2021)

Iron can boost some plants..but at what price overall? Is what I've learned. Swords will break out of a dormancy of no new growth with iron. But,once a tank,and mine now has,an established near full compliments of plants,feeding the fish seems almost enough. I feed my fish a processed beefheart and heart is high in iron. Could be that is enough?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Stan510 said:


> Iron can boost some plants..but at what price overall? Is what I've learned. Swords will break out of a dormancy of no new growth with iron. But,once a tank,and mine now has,an established near full compliments of plants,feeding the fish seems almost enough. I feed my fish a processed beefheart and heart is high in iron. Could be that is enough?



Simple answer is that not all tanks fit neatly into one bucket. Some highly driven tanks with high light, co2 and delicate stems can't flourish without added supplements. Although I do agree many tanks dose extra FE unnecessarily.


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## Stan510 (Feb 15, 2021)

Its very much on individual set ups. I went with more hardy plants and they are holding up well. I'm sure if I had the equivalent of a reef tank with red and orange and gold plants..dosing is par. What got me to where I am now is down to weekly potassium and iron on occasion.Even the same plants in the same system can have needs change is a real rule.


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## alang (Nov 25, 2007)

Newbie283 said:


> It's a mix of both. I always battle with cyano in my tanks, every single one which is what leads me to believe my tap may already be high in phosphates perhaps? Then when I dose macros with the all in one it triggers the cyano? I just bought a phosphate test which will be here later next week so hopefully I may have a better idea of where to go from here once I figure out where the tap is at.
> 
> 
> I didn't do more than twice a week for the first 3 weeks, mainly because only about 1/4 of the tank substrate is aquasoil. I only put in cups of it where I was planting. I'm currently on week 4, so is it still worth doing multiple water changes? And should I try dosing full EI or with my plant selection do you think half dosing EI would be sufficient? According to rotalabutterfly for a full EI dose it suggests 1/16th of a tsp of thrive + 3-4 times a week with one 50% WC weekly


If you have brand new aquasoil its going to create lots of ammonia. Its basically ferts for your plants. Adding more ferts on top of this could be contributing to your algae problem. The WC schedule mentioned above is a really good for brand new tanks with full aquasoil. Since you only have small areas your WC schedule might be very different. Just monitor ammonia levels and do WC when needed. When you have no more ammonia start adding ferts. 
Keeping a more consistent tank will help a lot.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Another update, the cyano, green algae, and diatoms are completely gone and my plants are finally starting to spring back to where they were at around week 2. Just dosing the micros was very successful for me. Currently my dosing schedule is N K and micros on Sunday after the water change, K and micros on Tuesday, N Wednesday, K and micros Thursday, and then nothing Friday/Saturday. Dialed the lighting back to 5 hours as well but haven't touched the co2. I added some marselia crenata and hydrocotyle Japan "mini" to fill in where my UG melted, still a few blades of UG hanging on here and there so it may come back. The amanos are all doing very well too. I think I found a good dosing schedule. Phopsphates hits 1ppm right after my WC and by the end of the week it's down to .5 ppm, and I'm going to keep nitrate steady at 10 ppm, and just dose everything _except _phosphates.


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## Stan510 (Feb 15, 2021)

Don't forget- the cleaner you can keep the prefilter? That takes a load off the need to add micro and macro's. Still need them,but a clean pre filter you will notice makes for a healthier tank. I don't read enough how important it is to do that and it kind of gets me rankled that people say "I haven't cleaned my canister/sump in months or a year. Sure,if you have no fish or one Neon..but its bad- very bad,advice to fishkeepers to say things like that.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Stan510 said:


> Don't forget- the cleaner you can keep the prefilter? That takes a load off the need to add micro and macro's. Still need them,but a clean pre filter you will notice makes for a healthier tank. I don't read enough how important it is to do that and it kind of gets me rankled that people say "I haven't cleaned my canister/sump in months or a year. Sure,if you have no fish or one Neon..but its bad- very bad,advice to fishkeepers to say things like that.


Funny you say that actually for this tank specifically I just cleaned the canister at the one month mark because of the fact that my skimmer has the tendency to suck up any plant pieces that get uprooted. Rotting plant matter in the canister tank=disaster after a few weeks. I use filter floss in my canisters, easy cleaning I just replace the floss every 6-8 weeks.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

One final update: the tank is now completely algae, diatom, and cyano free. I think my algae issue was related to dosing extra phosphate when my tap already had a high enough level in conjunction with a low level of nitrogen. I have my nitrogen to phosphate ratio 10:1 now. The potassium was definitely the limiting factor, as my plants are extremely green and growing nice and full now. The amanos are working hard at cleaning up leftover food and such now and my moss and driftwood are spotless thanks to them. Here's some pictures of the progress, looking back at the pictures I posted originally there is a very noticeable difference in balance. I'm on approximately 8-10 weeks now since setup.


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## Kubla (Jan 5, 2014)

Looking good! Thanks for following up with your progress and success.


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## Plinkploop (Jan 24, 2021)

Congrats!!! Looks great!!!!


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## Stan510 (Feb 15, 2021)

Clean the filter and water changes cures many problems. I know they sell "phosphate remover" of some kind. It's a pad or something? But it's another chemical to the mix. Just some old fashioned ways works well.


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## Fishstery (Jan 24, 2018)

Stan510 said:


> Clean the filter and water changes cures many problems. I know they sell "phosphate remover" of some kind. It's a pad or something? But it's another chemical to the mix. Just some old fashioned ways works well.


Phosphate is a key ingredient for the planted aquarium. Removing it altogether would cause another limiting factor. However, in excess it has been known to cause algae issues, although many people say they have levels as high as 3-5ppm with no algae. I think when you look more closely at phosphate and algae relationship, the issue trickles down to high phosphate, low nitrate being the issue. When phosphate levels are too low, green spot algae will appear. My tap has an optimal level in it already and was getting replenished every water change, so I simply just needed to stop adding any extra via the all in one fert and omit it from my dosing regimen all together and just up my nitrogen to hit the 10:1 ratio. I bought separate macro ferts to be able to dose just nitrogen and potassium and micros.


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## Anon (Mar 16, 2014)

Plinkploop said:


> I'd be interested in if cyano is activated by tap phosphates. I have mainly factored my ever lingering pockets of cyano in my turtle tanks to stagnation (the same thing that's happened in a few of my past planted tanks) but maybe it's a phosphate thing. Though my last test (a month ago) gave me a reading of 0.


Hi @Plinkploop

I haven't been on the _Planted Tank_ for some time. But, I wanted to reply to your comment above. There is good reason to suspect a surplus of phosphate being a major factor contributing to the growth of Cyanobacteria. The problem in using aquarium phosphate test kits is that they only measure the inorganic form of phosphate - orthophosphate. But, aquarium water also contains dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) upon which Cyanobacteria are able to feed. Unfortunately, aquarium test kits are unable to detect DOP.

Anon


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## Plinkploop (Jan 24, 2021)

Anon said:


> Hi @Plinkploop
> 
> I haven't been on the _Planted Tank_ for some time. But, I wanted to reply to your comment above. There is good reason to suspect a surplus of phosphate being a major factor contributing to the growth of Cyanobacteria. The problem in using aquarium phosphate test kits is that they only measure the inorganic form of phosphate - orthophosphate. But, aquarium water also contains dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) upon which Cyanobacteria are able to feed. Unfortunately, aquarium test kits are unable to detect DOP.
> 
> Anon


Very good to know- I had no clue. That makes complete sense. I didn't realize dissolved organic wasn't picked up.


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