Asking for help with algae

[newaquariumguy]

Hi everybody.

My 55 has a Fluval 305, and an Aqua Clear 70, Fluval E300 heater,air stone (it is directly under the heater and just enough to keep the low flow warning off).  1 angelfish, 5 albino cory's, 5 neon tetra, 5 oto.s, 1 nerite snail, and 11 harlequin raspbora.  I have 2 struggling amazon swords, 1 Hygrophila (siamensis), several moneywort stems, and probably a dozen red ludwigia.  From all my research, I realize I shouldn't rate my lighting in watts/gallon, but I have no way of testing PAR and PUR.  I am using a twin T5HO, both tubes are 54 watt at 6500K.  Both tubes are about 3 months old. I change about 20 % water very religiously every Sunday.  My ammonia is always 0, Nitrite 0, and nitrates creep up to about 30.  Water is super clear.  I have ordinary aquarium gravel and use root tabs. I add 5 ml of Flourish twice a week, and because of the BBA, 5 ml of Excel at the same time.  For the most part, I thought I had the BBA under control as it is 90% better than it was 3 months ago.  I have the lights on a timer and currently have it down to 6 hours a day.  I feed once a day and about 1/6 as much as when I started this hobby.  I am getting BBA starting to cover leaves on the plants again, but am finding another type of "stuff".  It looks and acts identical to BBA, but it is definitely brown--not chocolate brown but brown.  Man can it grow!.  

I have a small 5 gallon tank that I set up 8 days ago.  I put a lot (probably 2 dozen) money wort into it.  I stole the wife's grow light from her greenhouse.  It is a T5HO, 24 watt tube, and leave it directly over the small tank.  It is turned on for 14 hours a day.  There are no fish in this tank, and it gets dosed with Flourish.  As I don't have of a way to measure that small amount, I add 10 drops of Flourish every day (my math tells me 1/10 of a ml, I guessed 10 drops).   I am trying to figure out if my problem, is it  too many hours lighting, or to many nutrients, or what combination will work. After 8 days, there is still no sign of BBA.  The plants are growing out of the water with no signs of algae.  What in hell am I overlooking?

I should add that I checked records and this tank was started January 10/18.

Any advice is greatly appreciated and thank you in advance.

[SomethingIsFishy]

Sometimes I wonder if it’s fish food that gives BBA a foot into the door (or in our cases - the tank)...

[nicr]

Likely need a bit more circulation and gaseous exchange at the surface of your tank. Bba algae seems to favour low Oxygen,  high CO2 tanks. Or add more fast growing stem plants that will out compete the algae.

 

[yyccichlid]

I have found this to be true. I got bba algae in a tank with lower surface agitation. I removed it by using hydrogen peroxide on the algae. I put back in a tank with higher surface agitation and it didn’t come back. I ended  throwing the plant away as it didn’t do well but this likely wasn’t from the hydrogen peroxide it was already going downhill before that

[Percilus]

If your not using pressurized co2 i would say that your lighting is just too high.  The algae has an easier time of using available nutrients and out competing the plants if the proper carbon ppm is not present for the plants to utilize them.  Things to try would be reducing your photo period to 0 for a time. Scrub and clean all algae as best as you can followed by a 50 % water change, and stop dosing the tank with anything.  I'm not sure about some of the plants but in a non-co2 system those swords will do very well with just low lighting.  I would consider a new lighting system, adding pressurized co2 or a cheaper fix would be using a floating plant such as hornwort or duckweed to shade the light you currently have and suck up any excess nutrients before the algae can.  Floating plants will not be limited by carbon and it will also not compete for nutrients in the substrate with rootfeeders.  

If it was me I would shade with hornwort.  Your fish will love it and your low light plants will love it.  If i had to guess I would say you may be over feeding your livestock creating excess nutrients in the problem tank and the algae is out competing your plants in that system for the reasons above. That's the only difference I can see.  I'm not a big believer in metricide/excel you may achieve .10-.16ppm with it but I've also seen it harm a lot of the plant's that do well in edmonton water anyways. If your not going to pressurize .30ppm+ I would personally just run a low tech to avoid the issues your having. The floating plant will help suck up those nutrients and buffer your errors if you don't want to get anal with feeding your livestock sparingly. I also saw very little cleanup crew.  Consider adding malaysian trumpet and ramshorn snails/shrimp among others to have a more stable ecosystem in either a low-tech or high-tech system.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Percilus