# Green Spot Algae



## ken6217 (Sep 1, 2003)

I have a question reagrding why have this. I see it mainly on slow growing plants. I really don't even see it on the glass. I have no other kind of algae. The tank is set up about 4 1/2 months but I have had this problem for quite a while. I have 3.6 watts per gallon, pressurized CO2, GH= 6, KH=4, Nitrate= 5 ppm, Phosphate= .30 - .50 ppm. I do 25% water changes per week. The P and N is from my dosing. Any suggsetions? 

Thanks,
Ken


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

At 3.6 wpg anything can go wrong... 
A few thoughts....
At that amount of light your CO2 has to be up to snuff, just because it is pressurized does not mean you have good levels. How many ppm of CO2 do you have in the water column ? 
Also how are you dosing the tank? You mention that you dose P/K but dont say how much or with what...
All tanks are different for dosing through plant selection also... slower growing plants dont use up nutrients as fast making it more difficult to balance. A 30 gallon tank with same lights and different plants will dose differently. How about Iron ? You made no mention of Fe dosing ?
Water circulation in a tank is also a thorn with me... usually spot algae thrives when there is not enough water circulation and filtration... also do you clean your filters regularly ? Lighting period... how long ? Any outside, natural light hitting tank ? It could be anything...

The only thing I can suggest is to reset the water parameters with a 50% water change and dose bare minimum for a bit to see if if it helps... safe to say , you have an excess of something or not enough of another. Not quite enough info to really help but I tried to give you some things to think about. Maybe someone else has an idea that I have missed. 

These tanks are riddles that you have to solve... :lol:


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

Uh oh... I thought I read you had spot algae... :roll: 

What does it look like? Thats not good if its growing only on plants..


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## ghettobanana (Feb 5, 2004)

I have never measured Iron other than watching my duckweed. It’s stupid and not very accurate. Too much or too little Iron/CO2 is not going to give someone green spot algae. It is due to lights. Most people with high watts per gallon get it on the glass and slower growing plants. It’s normal.

On a side note....I would get more fish or feed them better (2x or 3x a day) with bloodworms, beef heart, pellets. This way you do not have to mess with adding Phosphates. Plants store a lot of Phosphates and you want them to suck up any that become available and not have it hanging around. I have a heavily planted tank with 5 Discus. I feed them 3 times a day and never add Phosphates. You want this to be your limiting factor. Hope this helps.


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

> Most people with high watts per gallon get it on the glass and slower growing plants. It’s normal.


 Normal ? 
Improper nutrients and high watts = algae, not just high watts. 

Also, I knew I read "spot algae" somewhere... it was the thread's name....pheeeew, I thought I was losing my mind... LOL


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## ghettobanana (Feb 5, 2004)

Ye of little wattage. Not everybody wants 2.6 watts on their tank. Some people like Glosso and other plants that require high wattage. How do you know he has improper nutrients? Other than the fact that I would suggest a 50% water change I didn't read anything there about his nutrients. He never mentioned it. He didn't even tell us what he uses and how often. Go and read about green spot algae if you want to learn more, but you will see that it’s normal on slow growing plants. Here let me give you a link so you can read before you post. http://www.floridadriftwood.com/algae_identification.html


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

> How do you know he has improper nutrients?


Because he has algae...


> Here let me give you a link so you can read before you post


Great link ghetto... here is a quote from your source


> Different algae may emerge depending an what ration of nutrients are in excess. That is why even established aquariums can experience outbreaks if there is a temporary imbalance in nutrients. We believe algae is best controlled in planted aquariums with nutrient control


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## ghettobanana (Feb 5, 2004)

Here let me give you another link you will enjoy. This is by Chuck Gadd, if you have been in aquaria for more than 2 years you will have heard and respect his opinion. http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_algae.htm

Chuck says about "Green spot algae"

Hard green spots of algae. Often appears on glass, and on the leaves of very slow-growing plants.
I mention this one first because it's the most common, and the simple fact is, you can't do much about it. I clean my glass weekly to take care of it. I noticed some growing on the older leaves of my Anubias coffeefolia. To control that, I re-arranged some plants, so the slow-growing anubias doesn't get so much direct light. This has greatly decreased the green-spot algae on the plant leaves.

I would say Chuck knows more than you and I put together.


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

Let me ask you something ghetto... if it was "only" light based and not nutrient related at all dont you think that it would be present in all tanks since every tank has lights ? Any algae, including spot algae, is an opportunistic feeder, control the feed and you will easily control the algae.


> if you have been in aquaria for more than 2 years you will have heard and respect his opinion.


Yes I have, and yes I do but if you sit Chuck down and ask him to elaborate I think he will surprise you with "the rest of the story" :wink:


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## ken6217 (Sep 1, 2003)

At that amount of light your CO2 has to be up to snuff, just because it is pressurized does not mean you have good levels. How many ppm of CO2 do you have in the water column ?
===============================================

I have my controller set at a PH of 6.7, and I calibrate every 2-3 weeks. My KH is between 4 and 5 dkh. Based on the PH, KH, CO2 relationship my CO2 level is ok.

The rest of the tank info is as follows:
I dose with Nitrate and Phosphate from Greg Watson and mix it as per Chuck's calculator. Ny nitrate is usually about 5-8 ppm and Phosphate is about .25 - .50 ppm. I test every other day with a Lamotte kit. I do 25% water change per week. 

Why did you mention that it could be bad that I have this algae on the plants only? I do get a lttlle of this on some other inanimate objects in the tank but not really the glass. I mainly see the spot algae onolder leaves or slow growing plants. It looks the worse on my marble queens. It looks more like dirt than anything.

Thanks,
Ken


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## ken6217 (Sep 1, 2003)

Buck,

Sorry I didn't read through your post thoroughly. Thats what I get for doing this while I work. You mentioned water circulation. I had added two power heads a couple of months ago but I noticed that there was no movement at all at the bottom third of the tank. I just moved the powerheads this past weekend. How much movement is acceptable?

With regards to iron, I seem to have a problem with this. I does Floursih twice per week and I underdose it. I hardly does iron at all as it seemed to me that it made the spot algae worse.

I appreciate your comments.

Ken


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

Just to eliminate certain questions, do this for a couple weeks Ken, 50% water change instead of 25%... or _at least_ a third of your water and then change the water flow in the tank.


> there was no movement at all at the bottom third of the tank


I have always found that the best water flow is at the bottom of a tank... not only because of the substrate freshening but also because it takes the nutrient pockets that can emit from the substrate and pushes everything up to be filtered and moved. Also, *most* of the slower growing plants that we keep will really flourish with good water flow over the rhyzome... if these plants rhyzomes recieve fresh "moving" water the entire plant will respond better. Older growth on these plants survive, stay healthy looking , but becomes "stagnant" if you will and become a target for algae. In nature that leaf would just die off but in our aquariums we tend to push them past that "natural" state. 
You said that you have no spot on the glass.... the reason I am thinking that the spot algae is not on your glass is due to the current water circulation. 
Where do your powerheads point ? Along the glass ? :wink:
If that is the case, you will get a "whirlpool effect" around your tank that you think isnt bad, but it will in effect create a large dead spot in the center of our tank where most of our plants tend to be. 
Also , the more foliage we have, the less circuation there is... powerheads need to be adjusted in location or even added to a tank to compensate for growth. :wink: 

Back to nutrients... What are you supplying the micro's with , Flourish also ?


> With regards to iron, I seem to have a problem with this. I does Floursih twice per week and I underdose it.


One more thing... dose your Iron *per the bottle*...it says 5ml per 200L... do not dose a smidgeon under that for now !You dont want to know what I dose for Iron in my tanks... I will tell you it is more then that in higher watts :shock:
Hey Ken I could have sworn that I saw photos of your tank at one time but I cant seem to find them... that would really help in trying to solve this... 
But for grins and giggles, try water flow at the bottom of the tank and a couple weeks of bigger water changes... Just a thing like "fresher water and better circulation " may take care of your problem...


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## ken6217 (Sep 1, 2003)

Hi Buck,

I will go with 1/3 water change. 50% is a real chore. Also I don't think I need it as all my parameters are ok and I test often. I also have lots of "clean up" crew fish.

With regards to water flow, I have two powerheads at opposite sides of the tank (across the front) aiming at each other. The two flows collide and disperse. I moved them lower in the tank then they were so that I see movement of the plants. By the way, how much movement is aceptable where it doesn't bother the plants? I see my Vals are right in the current. They are not being uprooted or anythng like that. Do I need to add a third powerhead? I am using the small Minijets. 

With regards to nutrients. Again this is another issue for me. (N,P,K, I have down to a science), but Iron and Micro nutrients I'm nervous about. This stems (no oun intended) from being wary of the spot algae.
I use Flourish, and I severely underdose it like I do with the Seachem Iron. I have a feeling that to het to 1.0 ppm iron I would have to dump it in basically. I have so many plants everythng gets sucked up. I had to dose so much N and P before I ever got a reading. This is with the fact that I have about 30 fish too.

===============================================
One more thing... dose your Iron per the bottle...it says 5ml per 200L... 
do not dose a smidgeon under that for now !
===============================================
I don't have the bottle here but I believe it will say something like add x amount per x liters to get a level of 1.0ppm iron. How do I handle that? How much would I put in at a time to reach this level? I don't want to have algae soup.


There weren't any phot's of my tank posted. I want my tank to look great before I post pics. I will soon after all of the help I am getting.

Thanks again,
Ken


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

I cant really tell you how much to dose Ken because come to think of it I dont even know how big this tank is or what else you have in there for plants... :lol:


> With regards to nutrients. Again this is another issue for me. (N,P,K, I have down to a science), but Iron and Micro nutrients I'm nervous about


I would be more nervous of underdosing, then overdosing Ken with regards to algae outbreaks...
Your plants _need_ certain nutrients to get their healthiest and if your plants are not healthy, the algae will move right in. Micro's and iron are important Ken, especially in a higher watt tank... I use Flourish and Flourish Iron as well, add 1ml Flourish per 12 gallons and add 1ml Iron per 10 gallons and you cant go wrong, if your watts are truly that high then I would even call this lightly dosed. 
Adding Iron until you can read it on a test is bad news, its very inaccurate and could cause you to overdose unknowingly.
As far as how often to dose, Heres what I do...
Each week I do a 30% water change, at that time I dose everything to maintain _my_ particular levels in the tank(which btw are more), 3 days later I again dose the tank. Then I do my scheduled water change a few days later and repeat. Usually every 3 wc's or so I up it to a 50% wc to be sure that no buildups of any particular nutrient are present, it kind of resets the tank again so you can control it better.

All Im trying to say is you cant be afraid to get algae and starve your plants, if they are at their best they will help you control the algae :wink:


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## ken6217 (Sep 1, 2003)

Buck,

My tank is 75 gallons with 260 watts power compact. I have 4" of substrate so I probaly lose about 20% thru displacement. So maybe I have 260 watts on 60 gallons?

I will follow your plan for Iron and Flourish. Flourish I think says 5 ml per 50 or 60 gallons once or twice per week. So I should do this twice a week.

Iron says: 0.5 - 1 ml per 10 gallons as required to maintain about 0.10 mg/l iron. So if the test kits are not accurate, and it doesn't say how often to dose per week, what schedule should I go with? 1 ml per 10 gallons say twice per week?

I really appreciate your advice. By the way, it looks like I have a lot more pearling since adding the additional iron. Is this possible?

Thanks,
Ken


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## PlantView (Feb 6, 2004)

I nearly always find discussions about approaches to this type of problem interesting since they tend to fall under what I consider "advanced" aquarium management.

It's true that a slow-growing Anubias leaf under 3+ watts/gallon is a "sitting duck" for algae colonization, much like a rock or piece of driftwood would be. But now that high-light tanks and CO2 injection are becoming relatively common, we hear about this kind of problem more and more frequently.

Among the macronutrients N-P-K it seems to me that specific algae control solutions frequently come down to the Nitrate-Phosphate (N-P) ratio in any given tank. As far as I can tell, Potassium (K) is seldom if ever implicated.

After the more obvious problems have been ruled-out, somehow I normally think of excessive Phosphate (or limited Nitrate, to put it another way) as being the offender in the majority of cases. This is certainly suggested by the well-known Sears-Conlin article.

Control of Algae in Planted Aquaria:
http://www.cam.org/~tomlins/algae.html

Anyhow, I thought I'd note this since currently there's a couple of interesting topics at Aquatic Plant Central in the Algae Specific Problems forum wherein some correspondents, including Tom Barr (plantbrain), specifically mention Phosphate as being the limiting factor with regard to green spot algae. In other words, just the opposite to what I would have thought.

PlantView


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## ken6217 (Sep 1, 2003)

So what is the dosage I should follow for iron? The Seachem bottle doesn't tell you how often. If you subscribe to the theory that iron test kits don't work.

Thanks,
Ken


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## OutKast (Jan 22, 2004)

> Phosphate as being the limiting factor with regard to green spot algae


Does this mean you can't raise your NO3 levels to suppress the algae? You can only reduce the PO4 in order to kill it?


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## PlantView (Feb 6, 2004)

OutKast said:


> Does this mean you can't raise your NO3 levels to suppress the algae? You can only reduce the PO4 in order to kill it?


Well, indeed you should increase NO3 if the scenario is such that a lack of NO3 is stunting higher plant growth, thereby allowing algae to develop and compete. Generally accepted "good" levels are:

Nitrate (NO3) = 5-10 ppm
Phosphate (PO4) = 0.2-0.5 ppm

However, what I found interesting are the statements in the following thread from another forum. Here the posters are suggesting the addition of PO4 in order to control green spot algae.

Algae Specific Problems - Anubias spot algae prevention:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=132

All else being equal, this struck me as counter-intuitive (or at least unfamiliar), but I have to acknowledge other's expertise and experience.

PlantView


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