Hello all,
I need some help here as I have tried everything to fight algae all over my aquarium. I have green spot algae, black beard algae and green hair algae. The GSA is all over the aquarium glass and substrate as well as the GHA. The BBA is all over the gravel. It almost looks like a carpet. I have a 75 gallon aquarium with only 51 fish all small guys. Neons, celestial danios, cherry barbs, harlequin rasboras etc.. Based on the one inch per gallon rule I'm under stocked at 62 gallons.
I also have cherry shrimp, obet's, CBS, CRS, Amano and bamboo shrimp.
I have a long finned Pleco and a clown Pleco who love munching on my driftwood. I also have about 4 - 5 otto's who are constantly munching on the algae.
My aquarium parameters are as follows:
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 15 - 20ppm
Phosphates - 0ppm
Ph - between 6.5 and 7.0 ppm
My tank is heavily planted and I have a 10lbs CO2 canister that pumps 2-3bps that immediately starts as soon as the lights come on and then turns off at 9pm. According to my drop checker my CO2 levels go from blue to green at roughly between 2 - 3pm and maintain that till the timer shuts off the CO2. My CO2 is diffused into the aquarium using a reactor that i built inline with my fluval 406 filter. I also have an aquatop 10watt uv sterilizer inline to my canister filter. I do 20 - 25% water changes every Friday religiously and I use RO water because my tap water has 2ppm chloramine.
I use 2 48" finnex ray 2 LED lights. One turns on at 10am and turns off at 9pm. The second light turns on at 1pm and turns off at 10pm. I used to have the lights on for only 7 hours a day but it just made the algae worse and the plants seemed to die off rather quickly.
I dose with flourish 2 times a week, flourish excel every other day, flourish trace 2 times a week. My substrate is seachems flourite capped with white gravel. There are 3 large pieces of driftwood in the aquarium.
My plants are about 15 - 20 different species. All ranging from greens to reds. I will name them all if I have too.
I have tried the double doses of excel, using H2O2, limiting light for only 5 hours for 2 weeks, I've tried black outs, this is making me insane with confusion. Honestly I've been fighting it so long that I want to give up. It's frustrating. I've never had an algae issue this bad before.
Any and all advice is welcome. Please help.
I need some help here as I have tried everything to fight algae all over my aquarium. I have green spot algae, black beard algae and green hair algae. The GSA is all over the aquarium glass and substrate as well as the GHA. The BBA is all over the gravel. It almost looks like a carpet. I have a 75 gallon aquarium with only 51 fish all small guys. Neons, celestial danios, cherry barbs, harlequin rasboras etc.. Based on the one inch per gallon rule I'm under stocked at 62 gallons.
I also have cherry shrimp, obet's, CBS, CRS, Amano and bamboo shrimp.
I have a long finned Pleco and a clown Pleco who love munching on my driftwood. I also have about 4 - 5 otto's who are constantly munching on the algae.
My aquarium parameters are as follows:
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 15 - 20ppm
Phosphates - 0ppm
Ph - between 6.5 and 7.0 ppm
My tank is heavily planted and I have a 10lbs CO2 canister that pumps 2-3bps that immediately starts as soon as the lights come on and then turns off at 9pm. According to my drop checker my CO2 levels go from blue to green at roughly between 2 - 3pm and maintain that till the timer shuts off the CO2. My CO2 is diffused into the aquarium using a reactor that i built inline with my fluval 406 filter. I also have an aquatop 10watt uv sterilizer inline to my canister filter. I do 20 - 25% water changes every Friday religiously and I use RO water because my tap water has 2ppm chloramine.
I use 2 48" finnex ray 2 LED lights. One turns on at 10am and turns off at 9pm. The second light turns on at 1pm and turns off at 10pm. I used to have the lights on for only 7 hours a day but it just made the algae worse and the plants seemed to die off rather quickly.
I dose with flourish 2 times a week, flourish excel every other day, flourish trace 2 times a week. My substrate is seachems flourite capped with white gravel. There are 3 large pieces of driftwood in the aquarium.
My plants are about 15 - 20 different species. All ranging from greens to reds. I will name them all if I have too.
I have tried the double doses of excel, using H2O2, limiting light for only 5 hours for 2 weeks, I've tried black outs, this is making me insane with confusion. Honestly I've been fighting it so long that I want to give up. It's frustrating. I've never had an algae issue this bad before.
Any and all advice is welcome. Please help.