riverpirate Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Well, Ive been coming down with an algae issue. I have brown algae that keeps forming on the glass in my tank. Im currently Ei dosing have co2 in the green and am running 2 36" t5ho's at a total of 78 watts @ 1000k. This kind of came on after removing my pleco and starting EI. Its heavily planted with swords, vals, annubias, rotala, ludwigia, java fern and java moss, and a couple in there I cant remember.. All of my plants are growing like wildfire now, You can see a steady stream of bubbles coming off a lot of them. From what Ive been reading Im starting to think that I have to increase my lighting or scale back on ferts Im definately leaning towards the addition of more lighting as I am waiting for some plants growing emmersed to try adding a carpet.. So with the addition of more light should I be able to beat the brown? Scale back ferts for now? Also, should I be mixing 6500k and 10000K ? Thanks guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jro Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Between 5000k and 7000k is optimal. But really, use whatever bulbs you think looks the best. 10000k is more of a white light whereas 6500k are a bit more yellow. How big is the tank and how established is it? Brown diatoms is common with newly established tanks, and/or a combination of low light, excess nitrogen & silicates. If your tank is fairly new, I would just wait it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jro Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Sorry, saw your tank is a 90 gallon on the subject. 78 watts is a little low, might want to bump it up a bit to over 1 watt per gallon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcgd Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 So what do watts have to do with making the plants grow? I have a 150 watt hair drier at my place. Will that grow plants? Watts are watts right? (Yes) Watts are energy usage, and have nothing to do with light output. 99.9% of the time you want to increase ferts, increase co2 and lower the lighting levels. If you have decent reflectors, and unless your tank is tall (over 20") or very wide (front to back) you should be able to grow just about anything with a single T5HO. Since you are EI dosing you don't need to worry about that. You can rule out the lighting with a par meter, but I will assume you don't have one or want to buy one ($$$). With two bulbs you need to be on top of the co2. Co2 is hard to get right. When I can have trouble with lots I light and I've been using it for years. I would start out with lots of water changes and a good tank cleaning gettin out any dying plants, leaves, mulm buildup, etc. reducing ferts would be a mistake unless something is out of wack like high phosphates and low nitrates. I have not found any ferts that cause algae. Usually it is a shortage of one that opens the door. EI dosing itself will not cause algae. It can however bring out co2 limiting issues and such that we're not apparent before. For example, a tank with co2 and high light but low ferts can run well until you switch to EI. All the sudden the po4 limitation that existed is lifted and the co2 demand jumps greatly and the plants all stunt out. It would appear that the EI caused the stunning when really it was the co2... You were just limiting growth before and got lucky. Co2 is by far the most important and unforgiving. It is the root of most issues in high light setups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayba Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Well put Justin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jro Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 (edited) I agree with all your points jcgd but I was assuming riverpirate has a standard 90 gallon tank which I think is about 24-25" in height. I don't own a PAR meter but would this not put him in the low light category and not a high light setup? With low light, the plants are unable to out compete the diatoms hence why they are there. I still think light to be the limiting factor and not the CO2. Assuming it's an established tank and there are weekly water changes following the EI method. Edited August 24, 2012 by Jro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcgd Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 I don't know what he has for a tank. I may be the lights, but I've done well witha 2xt5ho Glo fixture over a 90 gallon hung about 7" off the water. Grow low light plants no problem, but it definitely wasn't high light. I'm not saying it's the co2. It could be anything. But with t5ho it is very rare that there is too little light. Especially if the plants are pearling. Diatom algae I usually just manually remove and it fades after a few weeks. It usually shows up in newer tanks. How old is this setup? I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riverpirate Posted September 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2012 Been busy working out of town lately here. The tank is over a year old. I do 50% water changes weekly. I keep co2 around the 30 ppm according to the drop checker. The tank is around the 24" mark off the top of my head. So I really dont know what I can do here. Hope it balances itself out while Im out of town working here. I hate seeing algae in one and crystal clear in the other tank... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tbarabash Posted September 29, 2012 Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 Just diatoms? Probably just a bloom it always goes away. Buy a few more ottos or wait it out. You clean your filter lately? Haha I forgot to clean mine for a couple months and DAYAM it was pretty brutal I found the source of my algae problem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelsea Posted October 4, 2012 Report Share Posted October 4, 2012 how is your tank doing now riverpirate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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