155 Gallon adventure.
 

This thread is going to be an on going thread about a 155g tank i've setup. The ups and downs of it's life and a tale of my achievements in reaching a solid look for this tank.

Tank Specs

155 Gallon (30% water changes every week)
20 Gallon sump (Eheim 2217 on the way)
8 t5 54watt 6500k bulbs (Light runs for 11 hours)
c02 Injected at 4bbs right now
DIY Defuser
eco complete substrate
driftwood
some plants
some fish
Seachem flourish and suppliments being added once a week, after water change.

It's been up and running for 4 months now. I had it cycling with danios for about a month, then I bought some substrate for it, along with wood. Water logged the wood inside the tank and did frequent water changes to remove the tannins which left after about a month. Then I bought a few plants and transfered some other ones from another tank. I had two flouresent lights going on this that were just to light the tank up till I bought the 8 light t5 fixture. Which now I currently have and the problems begin.

There was a small buildup of brown algae that I started to notice. After I installed the new light fixture which I've had now for about 2 weeks or so and keeping the light on for 11 hours and have co2 running. The brown algae is exploding it seems. It wasn't so bad before, when I had a few flag fish in there. However I took them out because they seemed to be beating up a few corys I had, so I put them in timeout. Now though, the brown algae is going rampant and I put the flag fish back in. This is where we stand.

This seems to happen to new tanks and I never really had a problem with it, but now that Its happening to my new big tank, it's very noticeable and getting on my nerves. Especially since I just spent money on new plants which are now being covered in brown algae.

I'll post some pictures today.

Scott

is it brown alage? most newly set-up tanks experience "brown algae" known as diatoms. does it look like (and excuse the comparison) cinnamon? are you able to rub it off your leaves on your plants and easily wipe it off the walls of your tank??

also, what are you current parameters?

i think i have something like that but they are greyish.byron said it's normal algae. but it looks ugly on the leaves

wow ... it's really nice.like the twig like wood a lot

I don't have every test kit in the world however. PH is 7.65 (digital meter reading), Amnonia is 0, Nitrates are 0. That's all I have tests for, also I know my water his hard.

Thanks! it's manzanita wood.

hmm.. we don't have that here. lucky you ^.^

Here's just 48 hours photos. I put this in on wednesday night. Now look.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...m/IMG_0180.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...s/IMG_0009.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...m/IMG_0188.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...hesis/sflk.jpg

wait why did it die =(