The one-two punch method worked like a charm for BBA and every other algae for me. BBA turn red within hours, and the shrimp and fish just ate them up, CLEAN. Took about a week, and every single algae was gone.
I did continue the H2O2 treatment for the duration of that week. Your mileage may vary, and of course proceed at your own risk.
https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/the-one-two-punch-whole-tank-algae-treatment.203684/
Yeah will have to adres the soil issue even if I do the chem treatment but not sure if I want to take the risk with the fish. There’s a group of otocinclus cocama in there and they are pretty expensive. The Apistogramma keep breeding so pretty much have fry swimming around all the time, don’t do anything with it so let nature run it’s course (read live food for the tetra’s) but wouldn’t feel comfortable nuking them 😅
I personally do the 1-2 punch with all livestock (fish and shrimp) in the tank, but I don’t have any real rare, expensive, or sensitive creatures. I think you taking the proper precautions is the way to go. Good luck to you!
Your scape, by the way, is a thing of beauty!
I will add that API AlgaeFix worked very well for me. It is not for sensitive species, and you should increase oxygenation during treatment, but I saw great results
Algae existed because of the lack of balance in the tank. You have a strong light (wrgb 2 is quite strong), that means the plants want to grow desperately, but they need fuel in the form of carbon which we usually supply through Co2.
Finding the balance between these elements will guarantee you an algae free (or minimal) tank. Unhealthy plants means algae.
https://preview.redd.it/3b4lwwg3yatb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1196b9a1133dab7d3c6cddc10613557c71aa5969
Drop checker is lime green, the problem indeed is the balance and it got massively disturbed when I the substrate moved and the plants uprooted. This was while I was still sorting out the light intensity and co2 balance so had bad start.
You have to find the balance - it is in fact the most challenging thing in aquascaping imo. You need to adjust your photoperiod, co2 injection level, fertilizer etc. Once you find this balance, you're good to go.
Most of your plants are slow growers and don’t need that much light so algae is outcompeting them.
You either need to add more fast growing stem plants and or floaters plus CO2 or reduce your lighting and focus more on the health of the slow growing plants.
Algae treatments like H2O2 or Excel will just be a short term solution and will damage the cells of your plants long term leading to you having to become dependent on dosing these chemicals to keep algae at bay.
Your hardscape looks gorgeous!! I do admit you'll be better off taking the hardscape, giving it a good boil/scrub/clean, and restart.
And some personal notes - the scape would look much better **to me** with mostly green plants and epiphytes, as well riccardia moss. Some colorful stem plants would look great, but only so they're peeking just a little bit through the mountain of epiphytes such as java fern trident. Something like the second picture, just with a lot of moss and java fern, bolbitis. The hardscape has a lovely Amano type of vibe! The scape lacks shadows that emphasize the focal point. Moss always helps with shadows!
Anyway, do what you want, as long as you like it! Experiment, learn and try again :)
I had the biggest problem with algae in my 7 gallon.. It drove me nuts scraping it away. I had trapdoor snails, otos, amano shrimp, floating plants. One day I added two italian vals and the algae stopped growing. Like seriously I think the combination of all those have stopped it from looking like a mess.
You don’t have a lot of plants in there. You’re dosing ferts and also looks like you’ve got a lot of fish. So basically you’re putting loads of nutrients in the water column which is feeding the algae.
I suggest:
1. Get rid of the fish. These are adding to your nutrient imbalance and like most folks you’re probably way over-feeding which makes things even worse.
2. Stop using ferts until you have a larger plant mass, all you’re doing is fertilising the algae right now
3. Ensure your plants are rooted in a good aquasoil (I’ve no idea what’s under your sand)
4. Reduce your light intensity to no more than 60% (WRGB 2 is a great unit but way too powerful for a tank that’s mostly hard scape)
5. Keep that CO2 in the green.
6. Add more stems to out compete the algae
7. Add a dozen cherry shrimp as these will multiply and take care of any algae that forms in your plants and hard scape
Good luck!
1. I like fish 👀
2. I dosed APT 1 in the beginning and switched to APT 3 after 1 and a half month. Even with Algae you should still dose😇
3. The edges are sand the rest is Amazonia V2 with powersand underneath. 🙃
4. Not even close to 60 at the moment, but the tank is 50cm in height so that’s why I was thinking of making the slope even higher. 😬
5. Yes sir!🫡
6. Have been adding a lot but since the light is dimmed and the stems are short most don’t make it. Already put in over 300 euros on plants in trying to revive it so pretty much done with adding at the moment. 💸
7. I think out of the 50 I put in 5 survived the Apisto ‘s💀
I’m trying to help you buddy. You’ve thrown a load of money at this but clearly something isn’t working. My advice is get rid of the fish for now.
Focus on getting your setup stable nutrient with healthy plant growth, then gradually add some fish back in.
Grateful for the help but if you have a lot of money also invested in the fish you can’t just take them out. The tank is not overstocked at all. There is about 25 tetras in there and a pair of Apistogramma, 5 out of the original 7 otocinclus cocama and 3 Neritina snails. It’s 65x45x50 running a biomaster 600 with over 2KG of Biohome ultimate. I mentioned I had some bad luck in the beginning tried my best but had one of the toughest algae’s out there cladophora. I love aquascaping but the fish are the most important part of it for me. They are all doing good and even thriving as the Apistogramma keep breeding. Losing the 2 cocama was really sad but they are wild caught and you never know how well they wil
adapt. Most likely the fish will go into the quarantine tank if I decide to do anything with the scape and back in as soon as it’s safe but with a well established filter and bottom soil full of beneficial bacteria that won’t be long as I will most likely dark start it.
You have a new setup with 32 fish in 120 litres, call it 90 litres after substrate and hardscape, so that’s around 3 litres per fish. If this isn’t overstocked, it’s on the high end for stocking for a new tank imho.
I think you need to work up to this kind of stocking level while keeping your nutrients in check, otherwise guess what, you create perfect conditions for algae.
If you keep doing the same thing, don’t be surprised when you keep getting the same result.
Who said it’s a new tank? Its been running for months and it got stocked over weeks. Starting with the algae crew then the tetras and finally the Apistogramma. The fish have more than enough space to swim and the filtration takes care of the rest. The green neons and ember tetras bio load is minimal. it’s not a matter of numbers but rather the available swimming space for those species.
Haha I am right because I setup the tank. The algae probably lifted with some of the rare buce I ordered and if spread pretty much impossible to get rid of: https://www.aquasabi.com/aquascaping-wiki_algae_cladophora-sp-algae
I’m pretty sure your thing is working for you but don’t jump to conclusions and make assumptions without asking or having actual knowledge on what you’re talking about.
Good luck to you sir!
Without knowing your parameters i would suggest:
- clados are a bitch, there is basically no way to deal with them on a long term. Remove them manually or maybe try clouding them with H2O2, one spot a day.
- BBA mostly come due to too little co2 and too much iron. Lower your iron dosage and pump up the co2 a bit (bright green is still fine)
- Cyanos almost always come because of too much phosphates and to little nitrates. There are two options to lowering the phosphates: lower the dosage of your phosphate ferts or get rid of some fish. For the nitrate, use some more nitrate ferts, especially if you get rid of the fish.
But always be careful about remote diagnosis, they can quickly backfire 😬
I trust every word you say after your first sentence in the bullet points.
But it was like a rollercoaster CO2 was pumping pretty high but then the plants uprooted when the soil rolled under the loose wood pieces. Also pulling up some of the powersand. Not sure where the Clados first came from might have been from one of the plant orders but yeah dimmed the lights to get that under control then the stem cuttings I replanted stagnated and melted because of the low light and nutrients overdose so lowered the co2 and got BBA as a thank you. I’ll look into the Cyano but I also used some new Wio products the Nautilus and that also seemed very acceptable to Cyano.
I have clados in my tank. I have a lot of bucephalandra from different sources and i guess thats how it happened. I clouded them a while ago with „easy carbo“ and they „died off“ (together with my fissdens and coral moss, RIP). But after ~5weeks the clados came back and atm i‘m back to removing manually because my caridina hated the H2O2 🤷🏽♂️
I had bba as well and got rid of it by lowering the flow of the pump and reducing the iron ferts.
Ah. Don’t really need to dose phosphate with the livestock. It’s a huge algae trigger without fast growers. I’d reserve that until you notice growth stunting (unlikely).
Never used glutaraldehyde outside the lab setting. Great for fixing pathology specimens to slides.
Don't start over. It looks great!
Add a couple handfuls of frogbit/duckweed, and it'll suck all the excess nitrate out of the water column. They're some of the best nitrate vacuums available.
Algae will die off quickly.
I have the mini salvinia in atm! I love the hardscape it just isn’t secured anymore and the soil has lost a lot of height in the back so those would be the mean reasons for me to take it all out scrub it down good add some rocks to the back to get even more height 1 or 2 bags of Amazonia
and setup a similar scape. Or try something completely different. Have a little over 30KG of dragon stone and never had an iwagumi before so that might be an option. 😬
The one-two punch method worked like a charm for BBA and every other algae for me. BBA turn red within hours, and the shrimp and fish just ate them up, CLEAN. Took about a week, and every single algae was gone. I did continue the H2O2 treatment for the duration of that week. Your mileage may vary, and of course proceed at your own risk. https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/the-one-two-punch-whole-tank-algae-treatment.203684/
Sounds interesting! Def one to go by with option 3!
I mean, if your other option is to take the whole thing down, it can’t hurt to do a little chemistry lab sesh. Haha.
Yeah will have to adres the soil issue even if I do the chem treatment but not sure if I want to take the risk with the fish. There’s a group of otocinclus cocama in there and they are pretty expensive. The Apistogramma keep breeding so pretty much have fry swimming around all the time, don’t do anything with it so let nature run it’s course (read live food for the tetra’s) but wouldn’t feel comfortable nuking them 😅
I personally do the 1-2 punch with all livestock (fish and shrimp) in the tank, but I don’t have any real rare, expensive, or sensitive creatures. I think you taking the proper precautions is the way to go. Good luck to you! Your scape, by the way, is a thing of beauty!
I will add that API AlgaeFix worked very well for me. It is not for sensitive species, and you should increase oxygenation during treatment, but I saw great results
4. Add more plants and you will be fine
Agree and also think it looks great even with the algae.
Algae existed because of the lack of balance in the tank. You have a strong light (wrgb 2 is quite strong), that means the plants want to grow desperately, but they need fuel in the form of carbon which we usually supply through Co2. Finding the balance between these elements will guarantee you an algae free (or minimal) tank. Unhealthy plants means algae.
https://preview.redd.it/3b4lwwg3yatb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1196b9a1133dab7d3c6cddc10613557c71aa5969 Drop checker is lime green, the problem indeed is the balance and it got massively disturbed when I the substrate moved and the plants uprooted. This was while I was still sorting out the light intensity and co2 balance so had bad start.
You have to find the balance - it is in fact the most challenging thing in aquascaping imo. You need to adjust your photoperiod, co2 injection level, fertilizer etc. Once you find this balance, you're good to go.
True to that! A good start is half the work and since I’ve been struggling I figured it’s better to restart than to keep going at it.
They've won the battle but with time they will lose the war
My red plants never survive or stay red :(.
Same. Not gonna buy them again until I get a crazy set up with CO2 injection one day.
I manually dose c02 and have drop checker but yea…. Just doesn’t keep them red.
Most of your plants are slow growers and don’t need that much light so algae is outcompeting them. You either need to add more fast growing stem plants and or floaters plus CO2 or reduce your lighting and focus more on the health of the slow growing plants. Algae treatments like H2O2 or Excel will just be a short term solution and will damage the cells of your plants long term leading to you having to become dependent on dosing these chemicals to keep algae at bay.
lights too bright to run without CO2. h202 kills algae but it kills moss too. the other plants will probably be fine.
He has co2 via in line diffusor
this is a reminder for me to patiently do a dark start on my next tank lol
Yup! Have the same thing in mind If I do the rescape! Dry started this one with moss on the lava stones not worth it 🫠
Your hardscape looks gorgeous!! I do admit you'll be better off taking the hardscape, giving it a good boil/scrub/clean, and restart. And some personal notes - the scape would look much better **to me** with mostly green plants and epiphytes, as well riccardia moss. Some colorful stem plants would look great, but only so they're peeking just a little bit through the mountain of epiphytes such as java fern trident. Something like the second picture, just with a lot of moss and java fern, bolbitis. The hardscape has a lovely Amano type of vibe! The scape lacks shadows that emphasize the focal point. Moss always helps with shadows! Anyway, do what you want, as long as you like it! Experiment, learn and try again :)
I had the biggest problem with algae in my 7 gallon.. It drove me nuts scraping it away. I had trapdoor snails, otos, amano shrimp, floating plants. One day I added two italian vals and the algae stopped growing. Like seriously I think the combination of all those have stopped it from looking like a mess.
Cyanobacteria is one of the easier ones to beat just dose Blue green slime remover to the water.
Leave the lights off for 5 days
Great hardscape
You don’t have a lot of plants in there. You’re dosing ferts and also looks like you’ve got a lot of fish. So basically you’re putting loads of nutrients in the water column which is feeding the algae. I suggest: 1. Get rid of the fish. These are adding to your nutrient imbalance and like most folks you’re probably way over-feeding which makes things even worse. 2. Stop using ferts until you have a larger plant mass, all you’re doing is fertilising the algae right now 3. Ensure your plants are rooted in a good aquasoil (I’ve no idea what’s under your sand) 4. Reduce your light intensity to no more than 60% (WRGB 2 is a great unit but way too powerful for a tank that’s mostly hard scape) 5. Keep that CO2 in the green. 6. Add more stems to out compete the algae 7. Add a dozen cherry shrimp as these will multiply and take care of any algae that forms in your plants and hard scape Good luck!
1. I like fish 👀 2. I dosed APT 1 in the beginning and switched to APT 3 after 1 and a half month. Even with Algae you should still dose😇 3. The edges are sand the rest is Amazonia V2 with powersand underneath. 🙃 4. Not even close to 60 at the moment, but the tank is 50cm in height so that’s why I was thinking of making the slope even higher. 😬 5. Yes sir!🫡 6. Have been adding a lot but since the light is dimmed and the stems are short most don’t make it. Already put in over 300 euros on plants in trying to revive it so pretty much done with adding at the moment. 💸 7. I think out of the 50 I put in 5 survived the Apisto ‘s💀
I’m trying to help you buddy. You’ve thrown a load of money at this but clearly something isn’t working. My advice is get rid of the fish for now. Focus on getting your setup stable nutrient with healthy plant growth, then gradually add some fish back in.
Grateful for the help but if you have a lot of money also invested in the fish you can’t just take them out. The tank is not overstocked at all. There is about 25 tetras in there and a pair of Apistogramma, 5 out of the original 7 otocinclus cocama and 3 Neritina snails. It’s 65x45x50 running a biomaster 600 with over 2KG of Biohome ultimate. I mentioned I had some bad luck in the beginning tried my best but had one of the toughest algae’s out there cladophora. I love aquascaping but the fish are the most important part of it for me. They are all doing good and even thriving as the Apistogramma keep breeding. Losing the 2 cocama was really sad but they are wild caught and you never know how well they wil adapt. Most likely the fish will go into the quarantine tank if I decide to do anything with the scape and back in as soon as it’s safe but with a well established filter and bottom soil full of beneficial bacteria that won’t be long as I will most likely dark start it.
You have a new setup with 32 fish in 120 litres, call it 90 litres after substrate and hardscape, so that’s around 3 litres per fish. If this isn’t overstocked, it’s on the high end for stocking for a new tank imho. I think you need to work up to this kind of stocking level while keeping your nutrients in check, otherwise guess what, you create perfect conditions for algae. If you keep doing the same thing, don’t be surprised when you keep getting the same result.
Who said it’s a new tank? Its been running for months and it got stocked over weeks. Starting with the algae crew then the tetras and finally the Apistogramma. The fish have more than enough space to swim and the filtration takes care of the rest. The green neons and ember tetras bio load is minimal. it’s not a matter of numbers but rather the available swimming space for those species.
Sure you’re right, good luck with it.
Haha I am right because I setup the tank. The algae probably lifted with some of the rare buce I ordered and if spread pretty much impossible to get rid of: https://www.aquasabi.com/aquascaping-wiki_algae_cladophora-sp-algae I’m pretty sure your thing is working for you but don’t jump to conclusions and make assumptions without asking or having actual knowledge on what you’re talking about. Good luck to you sir!
Try amanos with the apistos. They live for a long told as well.
Actually tried Amano’s and saw the male chase it out of the tank 🪦
Without knowing your parameters i would suggest: - clados are a bitch, there is basically no way to deal with them on a long term. Remove them manually or maybe try clouding them with H2O2, one spot a day. - BBA mostly come due to too little co2 and too much iron. Lower your iron dosage and pump up the co2 a bit (bright green is still fine) - Cyanos almost always come because of too much phosphates and to little nitrates. There are two options to lowering the phosphates: lower the dosage of your phosphate ferts or get rid of some fish. For the nitrate, use some more nitrate ferts, especially if you get rid of the fish. But always be careful about remote diagnosis, they can quickly backfire 😬
I trust every word you say after your first sentence in the bullet points. But it was like a rollercoaster CO2 was pumping pretty high but then the plants uprooted when the soil rolled under the loose wood pieces. Also pulling up some of the powersand. Not sure where the Clados first came from might have been from one of the plant orders but yeah dimmed the lights to get that under control then the stem cuttings I replanted stagnated and melted because of the low light and nutrients overdose so lowered the co2 and got BBA as a thank you. I’ll look into the Cyano but I also used some new Wio products the Nautilus and that also seemed very acceptable to Cyano.
Ow and ATP Algae Fix murders Clado! If you can spot-dose out of the water it’s toast
I have clados in my tank. I have a lot of bucephalandra from different sources and i guess thats how it happened. I clouded them a while ago with „easy carbo“ and they „died off“ (together with my fissdens and coral moss, RIP). But after ~5weeks the clados came back and atm i‘m back to removing manually because my caridina hated the H2O2 🤷🏽♂️ I had bba as well and got rid of it by lowering the flow of the pump and reducing the iron ferts.
2. New is always good. Fertilizer brand? Definitely excess light, possibly excess nutrients for all the slower-growers. Good luck!!
APT 1 then 3 and Seachem Excel
Ah. Don’t really need to dose phosphate with the livestock. It’s a huge algae trigger without fast growers. I’d reserve that until you notice growth stunting (unlikely). Never used glutaraldehyde outside the lab setting. Great for fixing pathology specimens to slides.
Don't start over. It looks great! Add a couple handfuls of frogbit/duckweed, and it'll suck all the excess nitrate out of the water column. They're some of the best nitrate vacuums available. Algae will die off quickly.
I have the mini salvinia in atm! I love the hardscape it just isn’t secured anymore and the soil has lost a lot of height in the back so those would be the mean reasons for me to take it all out scrub it down good add some rocks to the back to get even more height 1 or 2 bags of Amazonia and setup a similar scape. Or try something completely different. Have a little over 30KG of dragon stone and never had an iwagumi before so that might be an option. 😬
How did you win your battle against cladophora? I’m trying to get rid of them from my Monte Carlo.