Alage -- brown to green

[Rick Lindsey]

Hi all! I seem to have gotten my brown algae problem under control (I haven't scrapped it all off the back yet, but it doesn't grow like mad on the front any more!), but now I'm getting splotches of green algae growing on my substrated. Normally I would just stir up the substrate and suck out the algae, but it's growing in the middle of my multifasciatus shell bed! They've dug the place out such that I'm afraid if I disturb anything, I'll start a landslide...

I've heard that if I'm having algae problems, it's probably because something is out of balance in my tank... what's a good way to go about figuring out what's out of whack?

I have 80watts of flourescent (one "plant/aquarium" pinkish bulb and one "daylight" bulb) over a 75gal 24" tall tank. There are 8 or 10 stalks of val which have finally started to grow -- one of them has a leaf that reaches the top of the tank, the others have at least one leaf that makes it half to 3/4 of the way up, and one struggling anubias (tends to get covered with algae in a hurry). I have 6 small fish and 7 medium ones (5 danios, 6 multis, and 2 leleupi) and feed them usually once a day with cichlid flakes, and occasionally cichlid mini-bits as well (both tetra brand food). There is no CO2 injection, and I leave the lights on for 12 hours a day with a timer. It's in my living room, so there is some indirect light, but it's well away from the window so I'm hoping that's not a significant factor. I am using power filters, but I keep the water level high enough so that there's no significant "drop" for the waterfall.

I'm still awaiting my order from Big Al's with my master test kit, so I'm not sure exactly what my water parameters are, except that i'm pretty sure it has a pH above 7 (close to 8, i think), and is quite hard.

 

[aspen]

try cuting the light back to 8-9 hours per day, till the kits arrive. then post all of your parms, including the parms of your aerated tap. (24 hours).

rick

 

[Rick Lindsey]

Water Parameters

Wheee! My test kit got here today (along with my Emperor 400)

My params are as follows :

gH : 29 degrees
kH : 8 degrees
pH : 8.2
nitrite/ammonia : 0 ppm
nitrate : 5 ppm


I haven't had a chance to do the tapwater yet. Do i actually have to aerate it, or can I simply leave it sitting out in a bucket for a few days? I don't have an air-pump, so aerating it isn't really an option.

I also added a handful of oto's to the mix (6 of the little guys) and installed the emperor to complement my AC300

 

[farm41]

Just overnight in the bucket is fine. Are you sure on the Gh? I'd check that one again.

 

[Rick Lindsey]

I've got tap water sitting to check tomorrow, and I re-checked the gH, it was 25 this time.