# Need help with major algae outbreak!



## waynestractor (Nov 9, 2011)

I'm having some serious issues with BBA and hair algae! I have lots of fast growing plants, dosing with Flourish comprehensive supplements, trace elements and Tailored Aquatics amazon elements once per week. Also using 48" Marineland reef capable led. This tank was great for the first year or so until my Milwaukee co2 regulator started randomly dumping, and the solenoid stuck so the ph controller couldn't do it's job! I had a new reg. built by Greenleaf, set it up with the controller and started over with new plants. co2 is kept stable and water parameters are ok, I think. Lights are on 9hrs/day and circulation/water movement is good with the Fluval 305 filter. Water parameters...

Nitrate 0
Phosphate .25-.5
KH 60
GH 80
Iron 0
PH 6.5
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0

Thanks for any help/advice.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

Your water parameters are not ok if your nitrate is 0. The tank is bottoming out on nutrients hence the plants have stopped growing and algae is taking over. Unfortunately, if you had in incident with CO2 earlier your plants lacked nutrients in that manner and that could've jump started the algae process already.


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## nigerian prince (Mar 8, 2013)

Reckon said:


> Your water parameters are not ok if your nitrate is 0. The tank is bottoming out on nutrients hence the plants have stopped growing and algae is taking over. Unfortunately, if you had in incident with CO2 earlier your plants lacked nutrients in that manner and that could've jump started the algae process already.


whats the solution? excel? increase feeding/fish in the tank?


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## waynestractor (Nov 9, 2011)

Thanks. I will increase my feeding to twice a week, which is what I used to do. I had stopped for awhile when I removed all my plants and changed substrate, then bought new plants. I guess now that I have lots of plants again I need more nutrients. What's an ideal Nitrate level?


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## mikebike (Sep 8, 2010)

when I had serious algea problems I cut back on my lighting from 12 hours on/off to 
6 hours on 2 hours off on for another 6 hours then off for 12 hours.

It was also recomended to me to blackout the tahk for 48 hours to kill back the algea.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

My bad. I identified the problem but didn't give you help with a solution. 
It's tough to dial in how much you want to dose with a comprehensive fertilizer. The easiest solution is to just dose more or feed your fish more. Otherwise to more accurately manage how much nutrients you are dosing you can purchase the specific nutrient types (kno3, k2po4, etc)  from a source like Canadian aquatics. It requires you to dose more stuff. But then you get better control not to mention it is cheaper. 
As for running short on co2 a good temporary supplement is like what Nigerian price suggested, excel. Though it is important to remember they are not the same thing. In other words you will not get the same plant response using excel as a replacement for co2 in the long run.


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## waynestractor (Nov 9, 2011)

I failed to mention that I had put some root tabs in the new substrate (filter sand) not long after putting it in as some of the plants did not seem to being doing well. Most of the plants are growing but still have hair algae. I don't have a problem with the co2 anymore, I have a 20lb tank and a good regulator and ph controller.


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