# Where am I going wrong? Constant tank failure...



## MarkM (Sep 16, 2012)

I likely should not post as I can not help, but, had to say that I had pretty much the same results. I have had a fish only tank for about ten years and tried plants four times each time a failure and each successor attempt with changes I thought would improve results. My last attempt ended about 2 months ago when I was faced with growing a tank full of algae and dying plants each three days and spending 3-4 hours cleaning things up. 

I added a CO2 system and PPM fert program last time which together with the plants not growing made a wonderful environment for the algae. 

I have since learned that I had too much light, I did not take sufficient care in planting my plants, and I had questionable substrate.

I have changed the substrate now. Changed my light now so that I have low/med light at the correct color, and am prepared to plant using more care next time.

I am going to try low tech this time and not use my CO2 or PPM fert program and see what I get. I am letting my tank stabilize after the new substrate and will order plants in another week.


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

I'll start by saying that you are not cursed! Many of us have had similar experiences in our past.

First time I got BGA, I was a newbie with a single tank. Had just added a new plant from a LFS that apparently carried it. It grew alarmingly fast and the tank soon looked a lot like yours - a disaster zone. I dosed antibiotics, it went away.

Fast forward a few years, and a few more tanks. Got a new plant, BGA shows up in a single tank. Growing slowly this time. Being more advanced, I tried various ways of addressing it short of antibiotics, but they never fully cured it. So I treat with antibiotics, and it goes away - only to reappear a month later. Antibiotics again. A month later it reappears again - but this time I caught on to what was happening. It was reappearing in that one tank each time I swapped plants with my other tanks, despite them not having any visible BGA. I treated EVERY tank simultaneously whether it had visible BGA or not, plus cleaned and sterilized all my equipment and tools the antibiotic might not reach, and then it was gone for good. No wonder folks think antibiotics fail so often, I doubt many realize this possibility.

Today I have BGA on the outflow of some filters. It's been there for a year, maybe more. I don't know exactly when or how I got it. It doesn't spread beyond there in any of my five tanks. No one I give plants to has outbreaks. So I don't worry about eliminating it, I just wipe it off periodically.

So why isn't it spreading now, or transferring to other tanks? Why did it only grow slowly the second time I got it, instead of with the speed of the first time? I don't really know. There is no single factor I can positively identify and can be reproduced in someone else's tank. I only know that my skills in growing plants and maintaining stable conditions have improved overall. That takes time and experience; and any advice I or others, no matter how good, is only a partial substitute.

Try different things and see what does and doesn't work for you. Increased flow, oxygenation, more nitrates, blackouts, H2O2/Excel, manual removal, etc. If one of these works for you, great. If not, or your patience is exhausted, don't be afraid to use antibiotics. No one should deny themselves that option to the point of being as discouraged as you are now. To do so is to risk giving up, and then you have no chance of eventually achieving success.


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## thelub (Jan 4, 2013)

I'm just thinking out loud here, but could the BGA be coming in from your water supply? If your local water source is an open water supply like a lake, I believe it can travel in your tap water supply. If you're on a well, I'm out of ideas lol


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## AlyeskaGirl (Oct 6, 2011)

sorry you are having such a tough time.

I would dose the tank with an antibiotic like Erythromycin. You've pretty much tried everything else to get rid of it. 

Good luck


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

thelub said:


> I'm just thinking out loud here, but could the BGA be coming in from your water supply? If your local water source is an open water supply like a lake, I believe it can travel in your tap water supply. If you're on a well, I'm out of ideas lol


My tap water is sourced from a lake that does have cyano colonies. Now I was under the impression that the chlorination/UV treatment process would remove this... I sure hope I'm not drinking/cooking with cyano-water. :icon_surp



> Distinct from influxes of biologically-active pathogens from creeks and other runoff sources,
> the lake itself can act as the incubating site for another class of pathogen, a type of phytoplankton
> referred to as cyanobacteria or blue green algae. Many types of phytoplankton are found in Okanagan Lake.
> Phytoplankton are generally not toxic, and are not a health problem, although they may present aesthetic
> ...



I think I am going to look for some Erythromycin (Maracyn). It is very expensive here but I will check out Petsmart tomorrow. What is the dosage guidelines? Is it really safe to be low dosing antibiotics with my fish in there?


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## pirayaman (Mar 30, 2008)

maybe too many ferts. i got green water and loads of other stuff when i first started my tank and then as if a blessing from god everything stoped and i havent had a problem except small stuff. i contribute mine to not fully cycled tank.
i have more light now than i did then. co2 then and now. and i use a litttle less fert but also have a lot more plants. 
one more note i have 6 23 watt sprial cfls and still no probs.
if i had to guess i dont think u have that many plants to be using that much fert


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## bikinibottom (Nov 18, 2012)

What about phosphate levels?


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## thesawguy (Dec 26, 2011)

I had similar problems with my most recent hi tech tank, took out the slow growing plants and added fast growing stems, myrio mattogrossense especially. In another low light tank I was getting some algae and just put in some hornwort floating and it's no longer a problem.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

I have a bag that contains Ks2So4 (Potassium sulphate?) mixed with MgSo4 (Magnesium sulfate). I don't think I need to be dosing them since I'm using Seachem Potassium and my GH is already a bit high. Should I try dosing a small amount of phosphates? My nitrates are around 20-40 ppm. Should I be aiming for ~2-4 ppm of phosphates or is that too much for how little plants I have?


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

I got a pound of kh2po4 today. I am going to do a massive water change and vac up what visible cyano I can, and then start at maybe 0.5ppm and work up from there! I bought a 500ml bottle of Excel to start using as well (maybe only half dose).


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## Smitty06 (Mar 25, 2012)

You have a pretty light bioload so test the nitrates and if they are severely lacking, then you should dose the tank with some nitrate. IMO, bga comes from lack of nitrates, low flow, and low O2. For some reason, my mts ate the bga, it might just be mine, but they loved it lol.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

If you read up I am dosing KNO3, keeping nitrates around ~20 ppm. It hasn't helped... I am trying upping phosphates now.

I added the rest of the fish to my tank tonight, so now there are 4 guppies, 7 cardinals and 7 harlequin rasboras (one is looking rather bad though).


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## Bluek24a4 (Mar 16, 2010)

Jaguar said:


> I got a pound of kh2po4 today. I am going to do a massive water change and vac up what visible cyano I can, and then start at maybe 0.5ppm and work up from there! I bought a 500ml bottle of Excel to start using as well (maybe only half dose).


I would aim for 1 PPM for Phosphate.


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## dtang21 (Jan 22, 2008)

What's your water like? Have you tested it for gh, kh, etc?


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

My water's about 6-7 dkh. So kinda hard. And it comes out of the tap at like 8.2ph (but drops as it sits out). I think the kh is pretty low cause even DIY CO2 dropped my ph quite nicely. Other than that I don't really know what's in it... it's lake water so I would assume it has some ... stuff in it. I would like to invest in a RO filter one day but I'm still trying to recover from buying a regulator and co2 cylinder that I can't use!










FTS as of tonight, fish seem happy and much less skittish than they were in the BB tank already. Clip on the front was to hold the tube for drip acclimation!


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## Rockhoe14er (Jan 19, 2011)

Just to add some to what people are already saying. In my experience with Cyano it's really a nitrate problem. I don't think you are getting these problems because of too much fertalizer. I would load that tank up with nitrates, phosphates and micro nutrients. You really need to work on getting good plant growth. The fact that your plants aren't growing well tells you that you're missing something. 

Many of us have had the same story and it really takes a lot of time to get things right. If i were you I would try to lower my lighting a bit more dose with ferts and water change once a week or so. I have been able to grow an HC carpet very easily with low light. In fact anytime i tried high light it would die pretty quickly and look terrible. This was even with CO2. HC is a bit of a CO2 hog so to allow the plant to gather enough co2 you should limit the light so that this becomes the limiting factor. Excel does work great with HC in my experience it loves the stuff so i would keep dosing that to help stimulate growth. 

Lastly, Patients is a big issue too. Once you make a change you need to wait a while almost a month to see if it works. Your tank is reflecting conditions or about a month ago. So even if you have everything perfect today but things were screwed up a couple weeks ago it'll take time for you plants to get used to you new conditions. Algae is much better at adapting to new changes and plants are terrible at it. The only way plants can beat algae is if they have optimal condition's day in and day out. 

Again i just want to stress that it really takes time. I struggled for about 2 years before i got it right. And its still a battle. It is very rewarding once your plants are growing really well. 

I think your tank has the potential to look really amazing. I would not use the Abx and just try to fix the problem first. Good luck.


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

fertilizer does not cause it.. anyone that says that hasn't accidentally dosed too much before

i've had 15 ppm phosphates and 220 nitrates before and never had algae, or cyano problems because of it
cyano like most other algaes likes an unhealthy tank
ammonia makes it worse but isn't soo much an underlying cause of cyano

EDIT: excess nutrients in bodies of water will et handled largely by algae because there is not sufficient plant growth to reduce the nutrient levels.. nature will always balance itself. if plants wont, algae will... its simple

healthy bacterial colonies prevent cyano. keep the tank clean, the water changed and let bacteria establish itself, not just the nitrogen cycle bacterium. there are hundreds of species in our tanks that continually break down and change things.. keep oxygen levels rich, light levels low and perform frequent water changes over the next few weeks and it will eventually things will pan out

cyano is rich in protein and nutrients actualyl so drinking it isn't bad for you. many of the algae pills u can take to supplement food are strains of cyano.. loaded with energy they are.. they are the oldest surviving organism on this planet that scientists are aware of.... chlorination is not likely to do much harm in safe drinking level concentrations.. ur ap water is probably infested with other types of algae,, ur tank health will determine if it takes hold or not..


before u go the antibiotic route.. turning of filters and dosing peroxide is a lot safer, and will help preserve ur bacterium that ur realyl needing to grow


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## puopg (Sep 16, 2012)

Had a similar issue in my tank about 2 weeks ago. First of all, if you got low light, IMO you dont really need EI as fish waste and food can provide the nutrients. 

I think you could more fast growing plants to help outcompete the algae and then once things have settled back into it, you can slowly remove them. 

What i did which worked great against the algae was a blackout. 3 days, 0 light. 50% WC before and after no dosing or CO2. Probably a good idea to drop an airstone in. Dosing excel before you cover can really help as well. But bear in mind not all plants handle it well (like hornwort or moss). You really need to cover everything. I used towels and jackets to cover mine. since i also had a diatom outbreak, the first thing i noticed when i unveiled my tank was, "oh fuk this plant is green, i totally forgot...". Plants took a hit, but they are recovering fine. 

I think that if an algae outbreak happens, it can be real difficult to get things into order if your plants aren't healthy. I struggled for a month trying to get my plants to do well. Injected a ton of CO2, followed EI, but the diatoms didnt give a fuk. They coated the leaves of my rotalas and basically choked those plants out of light. Literally, i would drop in a new plant and within 12 hours i would see brown appearing on the edges of the leaves. I had plants doing better in no light than in my tank. After the blackout, so far the diatoms are still there, but significantly reduced. To give you an idea of how much reduced, since last friday i dropped in the same plant as before, only a few leaves have some brown on them, the rest are all good. Still, i hope they finish their cycle soon since this was an established tank before I induced the bloom.


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## JeffHerr (Mar 12, 2010)

This may not be your issue, but my green water and BBA went away in days once I started EI properly with Excel carbon supplementation and proper temp in the aquarium.


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## abc (May 18, 2004)

I think you need more easy-plants in your tank. My algae problems went away when I put in more plants and then the fertilizer routine really worked as the plants out-competed the algae (and in your case, the cyano-bacteria too)


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

> before u go the antibiotic route.. turning of filters and dosing peroxide is a lot safer, and will help preserve ur bacterium that ur realyl needing to grow


Thank you for all the advice. I did try peroxide - all it did was kill my HC!

I know I need more plants. But local selection is TERRIBLE and I honestly can't afford to buy plants online, at least this time of year (it's REALLY cold here). The Canadian SnS is pathetic and I can't buy plants from the USA. Shame really. I had to stalk one store for almost 6 months trying to get HC ... I finally got it (all 2 pots of it lol) and I haven't seen it anywhere since! I was really hoping this rotala would take off, but it doesn't want to grow. It grew just fine in my betta's spec, that's the strange thing.

As far as ferts go... I am only doing EI low light weekly. It is fairly modest amounts IMO. I don't know if it's still too much with how few plants I have.


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## puopg (Sep 16, 2012)

Jaguar said:


> But local selection is TERRIBLE and I honestly can't afford to buy plants online, at least this time of year (it's REALLY cold here).


Who said you have to leave them in forever? Point is to get the tank stable first. I mean would you rather have like a ton of floating anarchis or the algae ridden tank? Also, how terrible are we talking here? Like algae infested leaves? Most pet stores carry anarchis.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

puopg said:


> Who said you have to leave them in forever? Point is to get the tank stable first. I mean would you rather have like a ton of floating anarchis or the algae ridden tank? Also, how terrible are we talking here? Like algae infested leaves? Most pet stores carry anarchis.


Yes... Like half rotted plants (if they have any) covered in algae for $7-9. Petsmart has it sometimes, but they have cyano and pond snails in their plant tanks x _x; If any store had *stable* stock it wouldn't be so bad, but it's a guessing game every time. I've made an hour and a half each way trip just to find out all they had was java ferns and java moss. I haven't been in a while though, next time I am out that way I will look. I don't have a car so it's not easy to just hop to 3 stores and browse. Next week I should be able to go


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## Canuck (Apr 30, 2009)

Just looking on line I see listings for an EDIT Aquarium club and BC aquarium club. If you are looking for plants locally, this would be among the first places to check. Generally most fish clubs have members with good quality clippings available.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

disbanded many many years ago - I was told the woman who organized/hosted all of the events passed away. I am a member on the BC Aquaria forums. People will ship plants in the spring/summer, heck someone sent me a really awesome free plant package last year. But right now, rush shipping with heat packs and insulation makes it really expensive.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

Today... been better, been worse:










I went to 2 LFS the other day looking for plants... first one has the biggest selection, but they had just moved so had very little stock... everything I have already unfortunately.

And then I went to Petsmart... oh the horror of their plant tanks. Loads upon loads of cabomba, but every other plant was half dead, rotted, covered in snails, cyano, or holes from the goldfish they stupidly put in the plant tanks. I managed to find one salvageable aponogeton undulatus... we'll see how it does.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

Mid week update... Honestly looking pretty good at this point. Due for a WC and I can barely see any cyano. Maybe P limitation really was my problem. I dosed my fert mixes twice this week and I also raised the brightness of my lights about 10%. I'm surprised, really - I hope this continues. Nothing' really growing like crazy, but nothing's covered in cyano sludge any more, so... fingers crossed.


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## sarahspins (Sep 24, 2012)

Looking at that HC.. I'd pull out as much as you can and pick out and replant the green stems. Yes, it's tedious and time consuming, but all of that dead and decaying plant matter isn't helping anything in your tank.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

I am gonna do that next WC, I wasn't 100% sure if it was even gonna bounce back after all the cyano so I didn't want to mess with it. My aquasoil is really nasty, I had a bunch of emersed plants in there at one point and there is a lot of rotten root systems left behind... I may try and vac off the top inch or so of AS, and see if I can somehow separate my powder from normal type again, just to get it clean from all the dead plantstuff...


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

Did it! Pulled out a hand full of old rotten roots... what a mess. Looks much better now after a bit of rearranging.


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## 1aqumfish (Apr 19, 2009)

I know you are having a hard time acquiring healthy plants but that's what you need. Lots of them to get it going, then scape when you have all the plants you like. I forgot how hard it was to get things going a first. Now I throw away more plant clippings monthly than you have. Make slow adjustments and just fight it out you got the right idea.


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## sarahspins (Sep 24, 2012)

I think you would benefit from anything that is faster growing (like stem plants, possibly floating plants) and feeds heavily from the water column, then as the rest of your tank fills out and becomes (relatively) more demanding for nutrients you could eventually remove them... but for now you will continue to struggle to battle algae because most of your plants are slow growing and heavy root feeders.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

Read back through the thread - local selection is terrible and it's too cold to buy plants right now (and I can't use the American SnS due to cross border import laws). It sucks. I was looking for some hygro difformis (wisteria) but Petsmart didn't have any for some reason, just cabomba and dead crypts

I will check out another store next week. I wish my rotala would grow, and there's a couple stems of bacopa in there too, but all the leaves melted off and nothing's growing on the stems. Looks like the cyano melted my last little bit of l. repens too...

In other news I found pond snails in the tank, lots and lots of little ones, but i also found quite a few empty shells, so, I think they're dying before they can get any bigger, which is a good thing I guess.


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## wkndracer (Mar 14, 2009)

Jaguar said:


> In other news I found pond snails in the tank, ********** I think they're dying before they can get any bigger, *******


While it's a good thing to dodge having pond snails how they are dying should be a concern. Those things are the cockroach of the aquarium world! 
Makes me wonder if you have really old copper lines for the supply water. Reading this morning I would suspect something in the source water being whacked causing the problems.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

Dunno, could be, nothing in this rental suite has been updated from the '60's, including my windows, electric, maybe water pipes too... I have had pond snails in my tanks for a long time, got them with some RAOK plants probably 6 months ago, but I never saw them in my 60-P till now :/ Maybe I just wasn't looking...


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

Remember when I said I had no big snails? Look who I found today! 










Tank looks good, not much change, but NO CYANO!!! I am pretty happy. A step in the right direction for sure


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## m00se (Jan 8, 2011)

This might be worth a read:

http://buddendo.home.xs4all.nl/aquarium/redfield_eng.htm


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## shift (Jan 7, 2013)

Hows the tank coming? any updates?


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