Help Hard time getting rid of gda, diatoms

[Ernesto]

Filtration: tetra ex 1500, oase biomaster 750 thermo

Hi, which media is in the filters, and in which condition are they?

 

[Jarno]

Hi, which media is in the filters, and in which condition are they?

Oase has standard oase filters in it and 1 basket of bio material.
This one is for debri filtering
The tetra has bioballs and 1 baskets of bio material. And 2 baskets of filters for more bio filtering
They both get maintenance often

 

[Dennis Wong]

Thought I'd join this thread, as I've had similar issues with diatoms never seeming to go away. However, a lot of this was probably because I attempted to do DIY fertz and a DIY horizontal reactor on my very first planted aquarium. As someone who had reasonably good success with reef aquariums, I wayyy overestimated my abilities with planted tanks. That resulted in 10 months of hell trying to diagnose the issues and nearly quitting the hobby several times.

Long story short, I'm fairly certain that the most likely causes were #1 Unstable CO2 from my crappy DIY reactor #2 Unstable Nutrients #3 Generally being a noob #4 Not changing my DI resin on time because I thought it wasn't as crucial for freshwater.

I took a break from the hobby by running my tank in "dark start" mode for about 2 months, and I let my plants grow out emersed in some plastic bins to get a larger plant mass without combating algae.

I changed to off the shelf products for CO2 Injection (In-line diffuser) and fertilization (APT 3) so that I could start fresh with less variables to track (just as Dennis suggested in a recent podcast).

A little over a week ago I replanted the tank, performed ~50% water changes daily and things were looking SO much better than before. I thought I'd finally figured things out. But around day 8, the diatoms started to be much more noticable despite my best efforts to manually remove algae with daily water changes in the first week.

Of course I've read Dennis' algae control articles dozens of times but have some trouble with the implementation.

Where I struggle with this, is that by following the advice to trim off the tops and replant, the plant mass in the tank is reduced and the algae seems to gain the advantage.

With the carpeting plants, removing algae manually is pretty much impossible with a brush or by hand without ripping the plant up entirely. I trim away stuff that is clearly dead/melting, but algae seems to cover leaves about the same rate that new ones grow. I'd have to use way too much H2O2 to treat everything.

Either way, I fear that I'm re-living the same cycle where algae isn't on the very newest growth, but takes over anything more than a few days old.

I'm hoping that because my CO2 and nutrients will be more stable using off-the-shelf products that I'll be able to get past this diatom phase this time. I'd expect that if parameters are held stable, new growth won't be taken over by algae within a few days and therefore break the cycle?

I'd love the experts here to take a look at the current tank parameters and tell me if anything looks off or what I should do differently.

Tank: ADA60P
Light: Twinstar S | 95 PAR @ Substrate for 6 hours/day
CO2: UNS In-line Diffuser | 35-40ppm (Tested Hanna CO2 Test Kit) | On 2.5hrs prior to lights, off 30 mins before lights off
Filter: Oase 350 with 30ppi Sponge Only
Soil: Amazonia II Aquasoil (almost 10 months old, no root tabs used but also hasn't ever seen a heavy plant load)
Fertz: APT 3 —> 1 ml/day first week, bumped up to 2ml/day once plants filled out a bit... probably shouldn't have increased this quickly... I used the APT calculator but wasn't sure whether to use the "lightly planted" dose or default dose.
Water: RODI remineralized with 30ppm Ca and 6ppm Mg.
50% water changes daily for first week
Plants: Rotala blood red, crypto wendtii, hydrocotyle tripartita, pearlweed, javafern, hygrophila pinnatifida

Tank is in farm mode so that I can learn to grow plants before introducing wood, stone, etc.

My questions for the experts:

• Is it a problem that plant mass is reduced when you trim off the good parts of the plant to replant and discard the algae covered stuff?
• How do you deal with this with carpeting plants that are much harder to clean off manually and separate new growth from old?
• APT3 is a zero-bound system, which I understand to be used with nutrient rich soil. Is it potentially problematic that I'm using old soil despite it never having seen a full plant load?

View attachment 18438View attachment 18436View attachment 18437

The tank could use some more plant mass.
If you are have no other source for N (no livestock for example), and your soil is relatively depleted, and your tank aims to be fully planted, APTe will likely be more suitable than APT3. If you add livestock, or enrich soil, then staying with APT3 will work.

For diatoms - accelerating tank maturity helps a lot, introducing mulm/media from matured aquariums will help.
If the diatom issues are slight, I wouldn't do anything drastic. Just vaccum them off during water changes and let the tank grow in.
The tipping point can take weeks to reach for some tanks.
An example from a tank I had. No algicide usage - just siphoning, and replanting new growth. The maturity point only came after 3-4 weeks.
I think your plants are in better shape than this example.

 

[ScaperHaynes]

The tank could use some more plant mass.

As in buy some more plants or let these grow out more? (Used up my emersed stock)

If you are have no other source for N (no livestock for example), and your soil is relatively depleted, and your tank aims to be fully planted, APTe will likely be more suitable than APT3. If you add livestock, or enrich soil, then staying with APT3 will work.

I am just farming out these plants to add hardscape later. Would APTe still be appropriate for a tank with medium plant density versus a dutch style?

For diatoms - accelerating tank maturity helps a lot, introducing mulm/media from matured aquariums will help.

The filter on this tank has been running for 10 months continuously. It was seeded with commercial bacteria as I don't have other tanks (yet...).

I would assume "tank maturity" from a microbial standpoint is not just a factor of letting your filter run long enough to build beneficial bacteria? What factors are we working towards in tank maturity?

If the diatom issues are slight, I wouldn't do anything drastic. Just vaccum them off during water changes and let the tank grow in.
The tipping point can take weeks to reach for some tanks.

The diatoms I'm dealing with cover the surface of the leaves rather than stringy-like algae shown in your example tanks. My algae won't come off by siphoning, I have to rub the algae off with my fingers or a brush.

I think I was under the impression that I needed to keep the tank as spotless as possible the first few weeks in order to give the plants the ability to gain the advantage. It's been pretty exhausting to rub algae off an prune nightly.

I'm also not sure if doing daily water changes is necessary when using used aquasoil. However, this round of planting with an in-line diffuser and APT fertilizer has gone so much better than my past several attempts with DIY reactor and fertz.

 

[Dennis Wong]

As in buy some more plants or let these grow out more? (Used up my emersed stock)


I am just farming out these plants to add hardscape later. Would APTe still be appropriate for a tank with medium plant density versus a dutch style?


The filter on this tank has been running for 10 months continuously. It was seeded with commercial bacteria as I don't have other tanks (yet...).

I would assume "tank maturity" from a microbial standpoint is not just a factor of letting your filter run long enough to build beneficial bacteria? What factors are we working towards in tank maturity?



The diatoms I'm dealing with cover the surface of the leaves rather than stringy-like algae shown in your example tanks. My algae won't come off by siphoning, I have to rub the algae off with my fingers or a brush.

I think I was under the impression that I needed to keep the tank as spotless as possible the first few weeks in order to give the plants the ability to gain the advantage. It's been pretty exhausting to rub algae off an prune nightly.

I'm also not sure if doing daily water changes is necessary when using used aquasoil. However, this round of planting with an in-line diffuser and APT fertilizer has gone so much better than my past several attempts with DIY reactor and fertz.

I think you can get just let stuff grow out more.
APTe is fine for medium plant density tank that has no other N imputs.

Aquarium microbial balance is complicated. Well run planted ecosystem tends towards what we can only generally call a "positive" microbial balance - this usually means a few things:
Clear water, no odours, organic waste is easily decomposed, less algae, less negative type of algae such as BGA, less decomposer microbes activity means less plant melt in delicate species.

Aquariums with poor microbial balance tends to show the opposite problems:
cloudy water, smells, more prevalence of algae and issues with fish/plant health, more melting/deteriorating of delicate species/TC.

Actually quantifying what is happening in each case is hugely complex. Its lab work and not something even expensive test kits can see. Sudipta shaw did a bit of lab work on his aquarium (when he had access to commercial lab resources) to identify the different microbial types and how his tank microbial composition changed over time. In his experiment, microbial diversity dropped when there was problems, and algae spiked along side the drop in microbial diversity.

Things that we infer that moves the tank towards positive microbial balance - good oxygen levels, healthy substrate zones (not compacted or choked with organic waste), functioning filters (not choked with organic waste again), good flow/turnover in the aquarium, healthy plant growth.

There can be weird outliers to this issue as well. Due to the unique composition/mix of individual tank's substrate/water, what microbes are already present, some tanks seem to develop issues that are much harder to resolve compared to other folks. Generally, the factors that move the tank towards positive microbial balance still seem to work.

Its rare to see aquariums where there is high plant mass 80%+ planted, and healthy growing plants, have persistent microbial/algae issues. So it seems that growing out the plants works well to stabilize the majority of tanks out there.

For diatoms specifically, perhaps you can try having some shrimps or Otos

 

[ScaperHaynes]

Wanted to circle back to some of these questions with more specifics.

If I trim tops and replant my rotala & pearlweed, I'll be getting rid of a very large portion of my current plant mass. Is it more important to keep the plant mass going for a while before replanting, or to get rid of the older algae-covered growth as soon as possible?


Also, should I remove the leaves on the lower part of the stem when replanting as shown in the photo below? Only the top 1-1.5" is clean despite 2 weeks of growth.

Side Note: I want to get some otocinclus as recommended, but I live in an area that's difficult to get fish so it may be a few weeks.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Algae-covered plants aren't happy, so I'd recommend getting rid of them asap and replanting the tops. That section you're replanting looks great. Not many people remove the bottom leaves so meticulously, but I find that it really helps prevent too much DOC from melting bottom leaves.

 

[CincyScaper]

You are doing the right thing. The bottom that have algae are just not adapted to your tank parameter (or whatever change you made - the rotala is quite fast going and what you have is about 1-2 weeks growth in a low nitrate setup - so if you made changes in that time frame the plant will adapt and the unadapted lower ones will start getting algae) so best to get ride of them. Of note if you are trying to make your Rotala BR bushy, trimming them when they are at the height of your plants and replanting them to make the bush denser helps. They take overcrowding well.

 

[ScaperHaynes]

The problem I've been having (and why I originally posted on this thread) is that I follow the steps to discard any old growth through pruning and/or trim & replant. However, any new growth more than a few days old seems to develop some algae.

Is that normal for a newer tank?

Or, Will it take a few cycles of trimming and replanting for everything to stay algae free?

The way I'm currently thinking about it is that any new growth should have adapted if parameters were stable, so any new growth should remain algae free. And, if any algae develops that means parameters weren't stable. But, I can also see how it may take a few cycles of replanting to stick.

As I mentioned before, I suspected a lot of my algae issues came from DIY fertz and DIY reactor in my previous attempts to plant this tank. But, I still seem to be experiencing this to some degree of algae covering fairly fresh growth even with off the shelf fertz and diffuser. I’m holding parameters pretty stable as far as I can tell.

My hydrocotyle tripartita seems to be getting less algae after I discarded old growth and only replanted new growth. I'll be interested to see what happens when I do this with the rotala and pearlweed this time around.

 

[CincyScaper]

The problem I've been having (and why I originally posted on this thread) is that I follow the steps to discard any old growth through pruning and/or trim & replant. However, any new growth more than a few days old seems to develop some algae.

Is that normal for a newer tank?

Or, Will it take a few cycles of trimming and replanting for everything to stay algae free?

The way I'm currently thinking about it is that any new growth should have adapted if parameters were stable, so any new growth should remain algae free. And, if any algae develops that means parameters weren't stable. But, I can also see how it may take a few cycles of replanting to stick.

As I mentioned before, I suspected a lot of my algae issues came from DIY fertz and DIY reactor in my previous attempts to plant this tank. But, I still seem to be experiencing this to some degree of algae covering fairly fresh growth even with off the shelf fertz and diffuser. I’m holding parameters pretty stable as far as I can tell.

My hydrocotyle tripartita seems to be getting less algae after I discarded old growth and only replanted new growth. I'll be interested to see what happens when I do this with the rotala and pearlweed this time around.

if new growth looks good for some time and then develops algae, it means that your system is not stable. How frequently are you doing water changes now that you are past your first week. What is the ammonia/nitrate level and PAR level at substrate? If you are confident that the co2 and nitrate levels are stable then i might recommend more water changes to help you reach some stability. Plants like pearl weed and H.tripartita might be good to let them grow out and reach significant mass which can help reach stability. Once you are stable you can replace them.

 

[ScaperHaynes]

if new growth looks good for some time and then develops algae, it means that your system is not stable. How frequently are you doing water changes now that you are past your first week. What is the ammonia/nitrate level and PAR level at substrate? If you are confident that the co2 and nitrate levels are stable then i might recommend more water changes to help you reach some stability. Plants like pearl weed and H.tripartita might be good to let them grow out and reach significant mass which can help reach stability. Once you are stable you can replace them.

I've been doing at least 50% water changes daily for the first two weeks, some 80%-100% over the weekends when I have more time. Nitrates are usually around 3-5ppm, and my PAR is about 95 at the substarate. I'm pretty confident that my CO2 levels are stable because my diffuser is new, the drop checker is consistently the same color each day and I check it periodically with the Hanna CO2 kit.

As a quick overall update - did two big water changes this weekend, trimmed and replanted my rotala and pearlweed. It seems I'm having the most difficulty with my H.tripartita, and I think it might be because there's so much open soil around it. The algae is pretty mild but still annoying (see image, sorry I don't have a macro lens). Everything else seems to be doing fairly well, and generally trending in the direction of less algae.

I've noticed that on the far right front side of the aquarium, a new patch of algae develops on the soil every day even when I turkey baste it daily (see final photo). Seems to be in a fairly high flow area... Can someone look at my lily pipe config and tell me if that might be contributing to my algage issues? Both inlet and outlet are mounted next to each other on front left of tank.

Also shout out to Dennis on this article! Didn't see this article until a day or two ago, really enjoyed it.

https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/algae-control/new-aquarium-algae-causes-fix

 

[CincyScaper]

If things are getting better, i might just wait it out for the plants to fill in. The Blood red seems to be doing well. 95 par might be on the higher side but if things are getting better it might be best to not rock the boat and wait it out.

The H.Tripartita will take over sooner or later, it can be a difficult to control plant; you can see its growth in my prior beginner journal.

Your lily pipe positioning looks good to me. It is typically recommended to keep your bubble counter on the same side of the lily pipe so that co2 does not directly blast on it.