“Fixed” the nutrient problem, and now this…

[Kwyet]

My new tank is 8 weeks old now, and has been running relatively problem-free. This week, algae seemed to grow overnight and, after a large rearranging/replanting session, has spread even more.

I have cyano growing along the top edge of the moss:


I also have what I’ve been calling clado, but could be something else, infesting the moss wall:


These are things that happened beforehand:

1. I’ve been gradually raising the light power. It’s a Week Aqua P1200, now at 80% power. I’ve not seen any problems in previous weeks from raising it though.

2. I switched to a new regulator, had to find and fix a leak, and had to re-dial in the CO2. That was last week, and took a few days.

3. I found that I had forgotten to set the dosing time on the Chihiros autodoser, so dosing had only occurred on water change days when I did it manually. I fixed that 2 weeks ago.

4. Like I said, a long replanting session this week, trying to arrange the plants better, which stirred up the substrate considerably.

My questions are which one, or combo, do you think is most responsible, and should I change things back (lighting and ferts) or just leave it alone and hope for everything to adjust to the new settings? My feeling is that I should use hydrogen peroxide on the moss during this Monday’s water change, but leave everything else as-is and just give it time to adjust. What do you think?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Unexpected]

Is it all over or just a few areas?

 

[Kwyet]

The cyano is along the top edge of the moss, mostly on each end of the tank. The clado, if that’s what it is, is in patches mixed in throughout most of the moss walls. I could just remove the moss walls, but I don’t want to because they took a long time to grow out, and they looked great until this.

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Toothbrush with the moss to collect what you can of the stringy stuff, anything heavily infested that won’t come loose just cut away with scissors. Pilo is tough and will bounce back. I say just remove why you can, maybe do some extra WC the next couple days and maintain equilibrium with ferts and CO2 best you can. Disturbing the substrate significantly could for sure cause these problems with all the organics surfacing.

 

[Unexpected]

The cyano can easily be spot dosed. Same with the other, or pull the whole screen and do a hydrogen peroxide soak in a large bucket. 10 or 15ml per gallon at 10 to 15 minutes. Could try spot dosing it as well. May take some weeks.

 

[Kwyet]

Toothbrush with the moss to collect what you can of the stringy stuff, anything heavily infested that won’t come loose just cut away with scissors. Pilo is tough and will bounce back. I say just remove why you can, maybe do some extra WC the next couple days and maintain equilibrium with ferts and CO2 best you can. Disturbing the substrate significantly could for sure cause these problems with all the organics surfacing.

I’ll try that, thanks! I did try to remove some of it by hand, but it holds on to the moss really well so the moss tends to come off in patches with it. Another problem with stirring up the sand that I forgot to mention is that it raises the gH of the water, so there’s more instability. I did do a 50% water change after moving everything around.

 

[Kwyet]

The cyano can easily be spot dosed. Same with the other, or pull the whole screen and do a hydrogen peroxide soak in a large bucket. 10 or 15ml per gallon at 10 to 15 minutes. Could try spot dosing it as well. May take some weeks.

Thanks! I’ll try that too. I have a large tub I can use.