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Hi all, I am having a algae problem - definitely bba, plus some kind of hair and/or staghorn filaments. I’m afraid that the affected plants are going to slowly die off, so I am wondering if my tank is a good candidate for a ‘one -two punch’.

I will try to include as many details about the tank as I can think of.

84.5 g set up in Nov, 2022, intended to be low light, no c02.

2x Current Satellite Pro + LEDs set to red 75%, green 75%, blue 7%, white 50%. 8hr photoperiod with 15min ramp up and down on each end. The tank is 24” deep. There are a lot of tannins in the water from mopani wood.

2x Oase Biomaster Thermo 850. I replaced one of the sponges with a fully cycled sponge from my other tank’s canister to help jumpstart the cycle.

Plants include anubias, Echinodorus, various crypts, aponogeton, java fern, bolbitis, vallisnaria, weeping moss, and some other moss (can’t remember which).

I change water once a week @ 30% with tap water that has low chlorine (no chloramines, I use sodium thiosulphate to dechlorinate) and zero kh and gh. I adjust kH with baking soda to 4 dkh, and gH with calcium chloride and magnesium sulphate (2:1) to 5 dgH.

I am using the rotala butterfly low light/weekly recommendations for adding:

kn03 - 10ppm

k2s04 -10ppm

csm+b - 374 mg (which gives me a target of .1ppm fe)

I have shaken the dickens out of my stock of csm+b powder in the hope that it has mixed better. I have Seachem Iron as well, but have not used it as my Fluval iron test kit shows a consistent .5 ppm.

I have between 5-10ppm phosphate in my tap water.

Mistakes and possible problems:

- I started off with 6 mollies and the seeded media and showed no ammonia for a 3 weeks, so I slowly added more fish each week. I found some hard to find cories one week and got all 12 of them. Had an ammonia and nitrite spike and had to add SAFE and I also bumped up the calcium chloride to 8dgH to protect against nitrite. All fish survived. gH was reduced gradually over the next few water changes.
- In both of my tanks I only tested nitrate occasionally right before a water change and it consistently read zero. I assumed that my plants were using up all the nitrate during the week, so I kept bumping up the kn03 bit by bit, and still zero. About 2 weeks ago, I decided to calibrate my kit and mixed up a stock solution of 40ppm. Test kit showed zero! A defective kit! (Nutrafin - it was not expired). I ordered a new kit (Salifert) and it showed my tanks as being 100ppm+. I did 2 large water changes and got it down to around 20ppm. Shrimp were dying in my other tank, and bba is exploding in this tank.
- I don’t know why I started water changing only 30% weekly - did I figure that out on rotala butterfly? I don’t know! When I had a high tech tank with classic EI dosing I did 50% - do I need to go back to 50% for such a low, once a week dose?

So, I think my problems were/are stability in my water parameters combined with new tank syndrome. I have my ferts and salts stabilized now, ammonia and nitrite consistently at zero, and no more stocking increases. I only just added a second Biomaster filter last week, so I have better flow and distribution through the spraybars. There is a decent plant mass, and room for more but I don’t want to add any until the algae is in control.

I think I could reduce my lighting intensity and/or photoperiod. I have not tested PAR, but these lights seem pretty low powered to me.

I could also take out the wood and spray the bba with h202 or Excel, which has worked for me in the past on bare wood, but I am afraid of killing all the moss now, plus all the other plants have this thread like stuff on them.

I could try a blackout.

I could start injecting low amounts of c02 which was suggested to me as a compromise between low and high tech (but I prefer not to)

Or I could try the one-two punch and start with a clean slate. My only hesitation is harm to livestock. I don’t have anything particularly sensitive, I don’t think - angels, cories, bristlenosed plecos, gold gourami, mollies, danios, female bettas and apple snails (I can remove them to my other tank)

I guess I am just looking for some hand holding to get me through this. If anyone has an opinion on what I should try, or some insight into something I’ve missed as the cause, or that I could improve upon, please, please comment.

It would be much appreciated!