# High Tech Setup Algae Help



## superbass311 (Apr 20, 2015)

My Tank:
- 40 Gallon Breeder
- Eco Complete Substrate
- Cascade 1000 Canister Filter
- Ehiem Bio Media
- Seachem Denitrate 
- Seachem Purigen
- AquaClear 50 HOB
- Fluval Surface skimmer
- Filter Floss
- Seachem Phosguard (for easy removal) 
- 2 Finnex FugeRayy Planted+ 36 inch LED strips 
- I believe this makes my tank very high light?
- 10LB pressurized Co2 Bottle
- AquaTek regulator w/ solenoid
- Aqua Medic CO2 Reactor 1000
- Hydor ETH 200 In-Line External Heater 200w
- Fluval Drop Checker
- Ehiem Automatic Fish Feeder
- Night LED Strip


Daily Schedule:
- Co2 turns on at 7:00am
- Lights on at 8:00am
- Fish Feeder at 9:00am
- Seachem Excel - 4ml Daily around 9:30am
- Seachem Flourish - 4ml after water change once a week
- Co2 turns off at 5:00pm
- Lights off at 5:30pm 




Fish:
- 10-15 Cherry Shrimp
- 9 Female guppies
- 20 neon tetra
- 2 pleco
- 5 Assassin Snails
- 3 SAE
- 1 Yellow Rabbit Snail


High Tech Tank Help.


I have been in the hobby for a while now and over the time I have been
building my tank. When I moved about a month go I did a make over on my tank. Over time I finally collected the above fish. Perfect for a planted tank in my head. My main goal is to aquascape my tank with baby dwarf tears and micro swords on the other side and have the join in the middle. (see pictures) All my plants seem to be doing fine. All plants are pearling. over the last week I noticed an algae bloom and my Ehiem 2236 Canister filter has lost a lot of its outflow power. A replacement propeller and shaft is almost $50. So for $88 I upgraded to the Cascade 1000. I used all the same media out the trays. I see way more water movement. The reason I think the algae is caused because of filtration and not lights is because its was not growing where my canister weak outflow path was previously. Most algae is around corner of tank where no flow was. 


Now my question is how should I get rid of the hair algae all on my plants
and micro sword. I will clip away what I can but that's not going to solve my
problem. The algae seems to be healthy still. I cant use Algaefix because I have cherry shrimp. I turned up my co2 and now my PH is at 6.8-6.7 is that ok? No one is at the top of the tank gasping for air yet. How can i tell when My drop checker now yellow green for fear if i turn it up any higher it will be all yellow and I will have no way of controlling it. I have flourish and excel if i should dose more then 4ml a day to kill hair algae? any help would be awesome. 

Pictures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t5u0f5luqp394zt/AACTdw4lztVTD83_0x8NsOiya?dl=0


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## jayq16 (Jul 10, 2008)

I think flourish is only micros, I may be wrong I'm also new to high tech. I use the EI method with dry ferts. You may be lacking macro ferts in your routine. 

Algae shows up when you have an imbalance somewhere - my guess is you have too much light and not enough ferts for the plants to handle it, allowing the algae to prosper. I'd say reduce the lighting schedule, get on a macro fert routine, and keep the C02 where it is and see if that stops new growth.

You can start on a light schedule of 7 hours and increase from there after you have stopped the algae growth. Manually remove as much old algae as you can and monitor it.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Working on clearing up black beard algae in my tanks - from what I have read, over dosing Excel helps get rid of the BBA. As hayq16 mentioned, most algae shows up when there is an imbalance. For me, I am still working on getting rid of my training wheels.


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## Jn5mulac (Apr 21, 2015)

With that lighting and co2 you need to be dosing macros. I made the same mistake with my tank.

120g
5lb pressurized co2 (going to upgrade to a 10lb)
Air stone at night
Fluval drop checker
Fluval 406 and a 106 canister filters
Aquatek regulator with solenoid and glass bubble counter
1 48inch finnex planted led plus
1 48 inch finnex daylight led fixture (higher par than planted led plus)
1 48 inch satellite led plus (gives a wide controllable spectrum).

Everything is on timers, initially only doesed excel and flourish. Then realized I we missing macro nutrients and started dosing NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) with the seachem line of products.

Target levels where

Nitrates 35-40ppm
Phosphates 1.5-2ppm
Potassium (can't check, don't have a kit for that. just does the same ml amount as I do for phosphates)
Co2 (drop checker always goes yellow) so probably at 35 ish ppm
Ammonium (0-5ppm)
Nitrites 0ppm

I could never get nitrates in my tank, was always zero. Tank is 2.5 months old; dosing got my nitrate levels up. I did screw up my nitrate test and ended up double dosing once. Nitrates went through the roof to 80ppm. Brown diatoms took off within days.

I have always had a problem with green algae and brown diatoms (especially in the sand). Always cleaning stuff on a weekly basis. Then this past week-end I had a major green algae bloom. Water went from being really cloudy to a tank that looked to be full of pea soup. Couldn't even see fish. When doing my macro dosing I was tracking my water parameters and dosing amounts daily. I think I am going to cut back on my target numbers and slowly increase until I reach a proper balance. I think I started out too aggressively (with a lot of things).

I spent a good chunk of today cleaning the tank and doing a 75% water change (did a 50% the day before). Cleaned filter media (was full of brown diatoms), replaced carbon media with bio media, and added Perigen to the top tray of my biomedia.

Tank looks much better now, hoping it doesn't go back to where it was just a couple days ago.

Good luck, this is harder and more work than I thought, but it is also more rewarding than I thought it would be.


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