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Ever since I upped my lighting to 2.4 wpg and ordered new plantd and began dosing with excel and flourish I have had soooo many algae problems. I thought it would get better after I added lots of plants and started dosing ferts but it has gotten worse. I have BBA, thread, and hair algae. I have tried to fight it with 7 ottos which I recently added, and so far they are doing a pretty ok job but its not enough. I was planning on getting flag fish and some shrimp but I really dont want to include them in my stocking.

The tank is 55 gallons,2.4 wpg, and I dose with flourish every saturday and wednesday, and dose with excel every other day. I thought this was alot but thats what the bottle says to do.

If there is anything else you need to know let me know I will be happy to tell. Thanks in advance!

Do you understand that Flourish is only a micro fertilizer and you need to dose macros (po4,no3) as well. Add macros, dose excel everyday and don't run your lights more than eight hours and you should be good.

My Scapes

Yes, it is likely a nutrient imbalance...too much of some, not enough of the others. The plants can't use it all up so the algae does instead. Start dosing K. Test your nitrates, you probably should start dosing NO3 too. Be careful not to overfeed as that can put too much waste and phosphorus in the water. Your fertilizer regimine needs to be well balanced to keep the algae down, it might take you a little while to find the right amounts for your tank.

I don't think my otos eat any of the thread/hair algae so don't feel too bad!

Do a full water test and contact Seachem and they will be able to assist you I followed all their instructions then they did a re adjustment several months later and now every thing is perfect in my Betta tank.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

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On the excel it needs to be dosed every 24hours or I would think it would cause problems. It would at least cause a co2 deficiency. Seachem has stated in the past that excel is useless in a little less than 24hours. Kinda like your only turning on your co2 equipment for less than 24hours and then turning it off for a day. I would think it would interfere with plant growth and allow algae to get ahold during those off days. If your worried about doing a full dose then use a half dose but still add it daily.

tetratech-

Thanks for the reply, I will try to find the nirtogen and phosphorus. I was told by Matty that I would need them, but right before I went out and got them I was told by someone else on this site I would only need the excel and flourish . Anyway I will get them ASAP.



I will begin dosing the ecxel every day now.

***If your worried about doing a full dose then use a half dose but still add it daily.***
-I wasnt worried about that, it just said on the bottom everyday, to every other day, so I was just trying to save money.

Thank you all.

I was told by Matty that I would need them, but right before I went out and got them I was told by someone else on this site I would only need the excel and flourish

Well Ryan, that is why in the end it is all up to you on making your own decisions with regards to what to do about your tank.

I don't think it was me who gave you the advice on buying or not buying N and P, but I for sure could argue both ways.

As your tank is somewhere between high and medium (given 2.4wpg over 55G), you could go either lean or all out.

It appears to me that you were somewhere in the middle, and that for sure does not work, as seen by your algae problems.

All out: yes - you would need to add balanced nutrients, macros and micros, and carbon (for example Excel) in some form. BTW, I don't know why others don't mention K - Potassium - as it is one of the macros, and actually the only macro that would not be supplied to some degree by your fishies, maybe someone can elaborate.

Lean: This is what I do with my low tech tanks, but again, it may not work for all tanks (see fish, plants, settlement, and so forth). I perform at best water changes every other week, depending on fish load (one is a 20G QT, having had a 65w PC for quite a while) and/or filter capacity (the other is a 29G with a rather large cannister filter), dose my macros and Excel right after that, and the next day I dose a load of micros. And that is it until the next water change.

As you can see, even with the lean approach I dose "balanced" ferts, in particular I dose K. These tanks do not have any algae to speak off (anymore, as they did in the past), so the method works for me. I am once in a while thinking that I could even cut out that one-time dosing after the water change, maybe just adding a little K.

As you can read, I rambled a lot . The reason why I did that is to maybe try to bring my point across a little better. And that would be "no single rule fits all tanks", including things like light, ferts, right and wrong.

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo, thanks for the reply, you werent rambling, it was very helpful. And I know it seems like I am leeting others make my decisions for my tank, but being new to planted tanks, I was confused.

So basically here is a little update, REDPHANTOM and I were talking about my problem in chat when we came across the topic of my lighting hours, I obviously missed what tetratech wrote but I had my lights on for 16 hours a day!. Lol So I have been decreasing lighting a little each day to get down to 8 hours.

Thanks all.

Ryan , I understand your problem . I have some similar problems in my 60g . I'm currently trying to get the balance right because when I first increased my light I didn't understand much about ferts . Still don't claim to know much .

I think that just decreasing the light on its own may not work . If you read Ingo's and Tetras logs you will see them talk about balance a lot, thru the use of EI . Whilst that seems to work well for people who use C02 , I again am not using C02 and using Excel the same as you . I am trying to work out the balance thru experimenting with doesing of the different ferts.

Anyway my advice is to watch your test results and the plants for clues and be patient . Something Ingo has lately been preaching . Nothing worse than the converted

Good luck and keep us informed as there are probably plenty of us who can learn from each others experiences .

Enjoy
Garry