# Added Flourish, got algae.



## psalm18.2 (Oct 16, 2010)

2.5g planted tank was doing good until I added Flourish. After adding I got some ugly algae. Everyone said my light was too low, but the plants grow great.


----------



## Darkblade48 (Jan 4, 2008)

What are your conditions (lighting, fertilization, CO2) like?


----------



## urbach (Apr 16, 2009)

Fertz doesn't caused algae. It's your lighting (too long photoperiod or/and strong light) and lack of co2.


----------



## psalm18.2 (Oct 16, 2010)

I posted here about my light and everyone said I had low light.


----------



## AlyeskaGirl (Oct 6, 2011)

So, if your tank was doing fine then why did you add ferts? Plants showing deficiencies?


----------



## urbach (Apr 16, 2009)

Basically fertz alone will not caused algae. It's lighting and lack co2. If not your lighting then it's your Co2.


----------



## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

psalm18.2 said:


> 2.5g planted tank was doing good until I added Flourish. After adding I got some ugly algae. Everyone said my light was too low, but the plants grow great.




what is the PH of the water? what kind of algae are you getting?


----------



## dzega (Apr 22, 2013)

AFAIK flourish is a brand name. 
you need to specify what exactly you added. and a pic of algae you having.


----------



## urbach (Apr 16, 2009)

dzega said:


> AFAIK flourish is a brand name.
> you need to specify what exactly you added. and a pic of algae you having.


Flourish is not a brand name. It's product name. Seachem is the brand name. He added fertz called Seachem flourish.


----------



## MiSo (Oct 26, 2005)

I have a 10 gallon tank that I neglect and algae was never a problem for it. I started putting a few drops of fertilizer in and BAM. Started growing algae. I've started to neglect it again and guess what. No algae. I do no ferts and no co2. Plants aren't taking off but there's no algae. So from my experience; I'd have to say ferts can throw your tank out of balance and cause you to grow algae.


----------



## urbach (Apr 16, 2009)

MiSo said:


> I have a 10 gallon tank that I neglect and algae was never a problem for it. I started putting a few drops of fertilizer in and BAM. Started growing algae. I've started to neglect it again and guess what. No algae. I do no ferts and no co2. Plants aren't taking off but there's no algae. So from my experience; I'd have to say ferts can throw your tank out of balance and cause you to grow algae.


If your tank are planted then you need fertz, co2 and photo period. Balance those 3, you will have nice planted aquarium. Fertz alone won't throw your tank off balance. It's the combination of fertz, co2 and photo period that will caused algae if you didn't balance it properly.


----------



## MiSo (Oct 26, 2005)

Are you trying to argue an excess of nutrients will not cause algae?


----------



## urbach (Apr 16, 2009)

Fertz without enough co2= algae, fertz without correct balance of light and photoperiod= algae. Too much fertz with correct co2 and light= multiple defiency at once in a plant. Simple as that.


----------



## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

Lot's of folk's use fertilizer's and lot's of em (daily with EI dosing), +fish food's,fish waste, and don't get algae.
8 watt's of t5 over roughly two gal is maybe a bit much, but could be bout right depending on how long the light is on ,or how high over the tank the light is.
Seachem's flourish comprehensive is largely water,and micro nutrient's with not much in the way of macro nutrient's (a little).
T5 bulb's NO or HO are still considerably more light than T8 bulb's.
2 gal tank ain't very deep and the light is often more than what folk's think they need.
Organic waste in the way of fish waste,fish food's,poor maint, are more likely to precipitate algae bloom than adding fertilizer unless WAYYYY overdosed and even then,,what may be too much?


----------



## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

the thread owner never mentioned if he/she is using anything else beside Seachem flourish comprehensive, this product will cause hair algae if overdosed, in my case hair algae was very common issue when high Fe levels were added to the tank from Seachem's flourish comprehensive, the same issue *did not *occur when using csm+b, i think it has something to do with the chelate they use. but, lets not blame the fert so fast before correcting all the other possibilities first. 

can you provide all the detail about your tank from A-Z. in the previous post i asked about the PH, the reason behind that was because if you were using seachem Nitrogen then PH would have played important role, Seachem uses Urea in their nitrogen which could results in green hair and green water algae if the PH is high.


----------



## tchiseen (Oct 24, 2013)

happi said:


> the thread owner never mentioned if he/she is using anything else beside Seachem flourish comprehensive, this product will cause hair algae if overdosed, in my case hair algae was very common issue when high Fe levels were added to the tank from Seachem's flourish comprehensive, the same issue did the occur when using csm+b, i think it has something to do with the chelate they use.


Could you please elaborate on what you mean by high Iron can cause hair algae?
I recently had an algae explosion ( http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=494153 ) and now that you mention it, I recently started using Seachem Prime ( Amazon.com: Seachem Prime 500ml: Pet Supplies ) to dechlor my tapwater when I did changes. 

Not much else changed, I'm in a fishless cycle. 

I started dosing daily Flourish to get RID of the algae as well as dropping photoperiod to 6 hours. Am I just making it worse?


----------



## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

tchiseen said:


> Could you please elaborate on what you mean by high Iron can cause hair algae?
> I recently had an algae explosion ( http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=494153 ) and now that you mention it, I recently started using Seachem Prime ( Amazon.com: Seachem Prime 500ml: Pet Supplies ) to dechlor my tapwater when I did changes.
> 
> Not much else changed, I'm in a fishless cycle.
> ...



sorry there was a typo:

the same issue *did not *occur when using csm+b, i think it has something to do with the chelate they use. but, lets not blame the fert so fast before correcting all the other possibilities first. 


there is nothing much i could elaborate, i can only speak from my experience, if you are using high light and dose high iron then risk of Hair algae is quite high. the other theory is that Iron hate too much light and if you have too much light then you will most likely see iron deficiencies very often. Hair algae is very common in two of the cases, either you are dosing too much iron or there is a ammonia present in your water. 

so you are adding Flourish? you mean Flourish excel? this will destroy most of the algae no doubt about that. i would not reduce the light to fight the algae, you don't want to limit the plant growth by reducing the light, i would also fix all the other possibilities first such as flow, co2 etc. *Mastering a CO2 is the hardest Task in this hobby, everything else is very easy to do. *


----------



## anastasisariel (Oct 4, 2009)

If you have a low light tank in which plants are not using up large amounts of nutrients it is easy to see where adding too much fertilizers to your tank can cause an imbalance.

A lot of people here seem to be overgeneralizing and assuming the High light, CO2, and daily ferts scenario.. sorry but it is not always like this and if you look more into the low-tech side of things you will find that there is a balance found there also.

My advise to you would be if your plants are growing great and not showing any deficiencies in low light with no C02 then only dose tiny amounts of ferts.. for now, lower your photo-period.


----------



## psalm18.2 (Oct 16, 2010)

MiSo said:


> I have a 10 gallon tank that I neglect and algae was never a problem for it. I started putting a few drops of fertilizer in and BAM. Started growing algae. I've started to neglect it again and guess what. No algae. I do no ferts and no co2. Plants aren't taking off but there's no algae. So from my experience; I'd have to say ferts can throw your tank out of balance and cause you to grow algae.


Thank you.

I added feats because I wanted healthy plants. The money wort was showing some yellowing. Other plants were OK.

My experience has been that leaving tanks to nature usually grows the best plants. I had the Seachem Flourish sitting in the fridge so decided to use it. Hate seeing $$ go to waste.

I bought the Flourish for a 40gB tank originally. Although I prefer chemical free tanks.


----------



## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Most claim ferts will not cause algae and for the most part, it's true. However, I have noticed myself that in my 6 gallon that rarely gets any ferts, to much and I may get some algae. Ironically, if their are no signs of deficiency, the more likely it is that I get it. 

As for excess nutrients causing algae or not, I won't speculate. I can justify it being the ferts causing algae as that is the only time it happens so it's controlled. At the very least, you are throwing off the balance of the tank and that leads to algae which is a good enough rational for me to go by.


----------

