Janoch Posted June 17, 2016 Report Share Posted June 17, 2016 Try using flourish tabs, keeping a nutrient rich substrate as opposed to dosing into the water column. I switched from dosing my planted tank flourish liquid ferts and using the tabs instead as well as Api co2 booster. Found significantly better growth as well as less algae Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sm1ke Posted June 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2016 I've heard of using tabs, and I'll keep that in my back pocket. I bought a phosphate testing kit and found out that I had way too much phosphate in my water, so I'm going to increase the frequency of water changes until it decreases. The nitrates are also higher today, so the zero reading is likely due to the water change I had done right before the first test. I also went back to 12 hours on and 12 off for my light. We'll see what happens. Been a great learning experience so far Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janoch Posted June 17, 2016 Report Share Posted June 17, 2016 Yeah man, best thing to do is try to find that perfect balance between c02 ferts and lighting. Everybody's setup is different so it's hard looking at advise on forums sometimes lots of contradictions, I've got wisteria, Java ferns, Java moss, bacopa caroliniania and jungle Val in a 3' tank.... I had all kinds of algae problems. Brown diatom was probably the worst. Took out a lot of my wisteria. I was running the tank with a single t8 6700k bulb and ran the lights for 12 hrs and dosed with flourish liquid... Didn't work well. (That's when I had a lot of brown growth) then I upped my lighting to 2 6700k t5HO bulbs for 12 hours a day still fertilizing with flourish but added co2 booster plants were growing but so was the green hair algae, I was pulling out like a handful of algae a day lol gross. Then lessened the photo period down to 2 hours in the am then a 2 hour break and another 8 hours in the evening continued dosing with co2 but quit using liquid ferts and began using tabs instead. Soon the tank was full of plants and now I spend less time worrying about algae and wilty plants and more about trimming and what to do with all the shoots of jungle Val that keep shooting up all over the damned tank lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elf_poop Posted August 12, 2016 Report Share Posted August 12, 2016 I'd gladly take some jungle val off your hands! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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