River tank woes...Help Needed

[chris1932]

The river tank that I set up in March is running well. Its inhabitants are seemingly happy. 3 Beaufortia, 3 Psudo Cheeni, 5 Tweedi, 2 Yunnanensis, 3 Ridens. They all actively food search and can be seen eating during feeding times. The tank is a 30 gallon 36" long. It is outfitted with two Aquaclear 70 hob, one Fluval 405, two aquaclear 30 powerheads. It is planted and its substrate is Seachem Onyx sand mixed with rounded river pebles of varied sizes, there is driftwood and hidey holes "so its hard to clean" and overall looks nice and provides lots of cover. It is lighted with a Coralife lunar aqualight. There are two 96w compact flourescent bulbs one 6700 one 10000. I have these set on a timer 7:45 am one 6700 turns on and stays on through 8:15 pm. The 10000k turns on at 1:45 and stays on through 3:15. Thought process was natural light, bright afternoon light, afternoon shade, night time. Looks cool, works nice. In the begining I could not grow algea and some of my first inhabitants had to be moved in and out while nature took a foothold. Now I grow green algea well, its consumed readily. some red algea. some brown. But only after i added uber light. I now have beard algea taking over the tank. Out of the tank it looks light blue to green, In the tank it looks ugly blackish strands. Its on every plant ever hard and soft surface. This stinks on ice. It looks awfull. I am frustrated. The temp in the tank is a constant 71ish f. never over 72.5 f

I was told by lfs good luck getting rid of it without tearing down the tank and bleaching everything.

There has got to be some way. Some thing. I look to the vast expertise of LOL members.

Christian

[Emma Turner]

Hi Christian,

Buy yourself a phosphate test kit and check what the level is on. I'm betting that it'll be quite high, and that can be a major cause of blackbeard algae. Even if you use RO water (like I do) which has no phosphates in it to start with, many commercial foods contain quite a high level and this can build up in the tank after a while. If the level does turn out to be high, you can add phosphate removing products to your filter, such as Rowaphos, which although quite expensive, I'd highly recommend. You should still be able to grow other types of algae in the tank, but it will help control the blackbeard stuff.

Emma

[chris1932]

Emma

I have to buffer my well water otherwise it will drift into the low 8s. I use Seachem neutral regulator and it is phospate based. I have tested phospate and it is always greater than 5ppm. If I just use acid regulator I have to add it every day to maintain a pH of 6.5. I have thought of using RO water but then wouldnt I have to add everything back into the water. I would love to not have to add the regulator. Do you think RO would help? I have access to one that makes 20k gallons per day. If i have to I can bring home water in totes. Will I have to tear everything out and trash my set up to keep it from coming back?
I have read your posts and respect your opinion and hoped that you and mabey Martin, Jim, And Graeme might see it. I am sort of new to this river thing. I enjoy the posts and information.

How are the little Sewellia doing? I guessed it early on and stated that almost all dogs look the same in first few days. Change happens fast after that.

[Emma Turner]

Hi again Christian,

It would be interesting to know what the phosphate level is of your well water. If this is also high, it will be definitely be worth you considering using RO water instead. Also, it'd be useful to know what the pH of the well water is - again if it's high, that's another good reason to use RO.

You say that your pH drifts up to 8 in the tank if you do not add the pH stabiliser. There must be a reason for these pH rises, either low kH or something in the tank (e.g. substrate, rocks etc) that is leaching alkaline substances into the water. One way of testing whether the rocks etc are inert (which you may well already know) is to take a piece out of the tank and pour a small amount of an acidic substance (e.g. vinegar) over the rock and if it fizzes/reacts violently, then it is alkaline. If this is the case, you will need to switch over to inert substrate/rocks/decor.

It's not just the Seachem buffer that contains phosphates, the API Proper pH range also contains phosphates, so switching to another brand may not necessarily help. However, if you decide to use RO water, you will need to remineralize it. API do a couple of good products for this purpose. Their Electro Right liquid will increase GH and KH whilst lowering the pH, depending on how much you add. It comes with a chart on the back of the bottle that shows 3 main dosage rates for whatever type of aquarium you are creating/keeping (softwater, general community, Malawi cichlids). It will, however, take your pH down to about 5.5, which is why it should be used in conjunction with a second product from API called pH Adjuster. This will stabilise the pH, and depending on how much you use, will determine the exact pH level. Without the products in front of me, I unfortunately couldn't tell you how much of each is needed. But you should only need to dose the water at the time of water changing, and not need to add any further doses to the tank. Once you've worked out the formulas of how much to add of each of the two products, it will then be nice and straightforward when doing future water changes.

You should not need to strip your whole tank down. If you carry out regular partial water changes with buffered RO, your pH will gradually stabilise and your phosphate levels should drop. Adding a phosphate-removing resin to the filter (as I suggested earlier) will aid in reducing the amount of phosphate in the water that the blackbeard algae is feeding off of. This obviously won't all happen instantaneously, so a bit of patience will be needed, but the good news is that you will be able to beat the dreaded stuff.

It was only last week when we were chatting with Gary from this forum, and we were talking about the fact that it seems very difficult to get the pH in River Tanks to drop below 7 due to the very high levels of oxygen. Although, since adding Indian Almond Leaves to the filter, we have been able to get it down to about 6.8 without using any buffers. Another natural method that some people use is adding peat to their filters to help soften the water and lower the pH.

Hope that this helps,

Emma

p.s. The Sewellia fry are still doing great, thanks for asking!

Emma

[Gary Herring]

I'd definately agree with Emma that RO water is by far the best way to tackle the problems you are experiencing.

I had a blue-green algae bloom not long after my river tank was set up, which I think was brought in on decor from a tank which was already affected. I swiched to RO water and slowly but surely managed to beat it and it has'nt returned since.

All algae forms, 'good' or 'bad', need light of the right spectrum and an abundance of nutriants, ie phosphate. Not sure if this next bit is true to entirely the same extent with black-beard, but blue-green algae will thrive where the 1 or more of the following factors exist in addition to the two above:

* High organic load - which can be caused by over-stocking or over-feeding,
* High KH levels - which presumabily you do have,
* High CO2 / low O2 (ie stagnant) conditions - which is obviously highly unlikely in a river - tank!

Assuming your tank has the first two of these factors in addition to the (very) high phosphate and the lighting, it's almost inevitable that you will develop nuisance algae.

By using re-mineralised RO water you will eliminate most of these factors in one go - and although it might take time, once these causes are addressed you will evenually beat the nasty stuff!

Best of luck, I know how dis-heartening it can be to have your tank covered in gunge!

Gary

[chris1932]

I am now wondering if the high phospate is having an effect on the fish. I am in the process of getting a 150 gpd RO unit. Thank goodness i work for a water treatment equipment company Should the change out be done very slowly? Like 5 gallons per day or less? I do not want to shock the tanks inhabitants. I am probably going to end up doing the same thing in the four other tanks I have running.

37 column: 6 angles, 2 rams, 9 glo lites, 8 corys, 1 clown pleco,
1 ancistrus pleco, and 2 ottos

20 reg: 2 dojo, 2 Aborichthys sp, 2 Noemacheilus scaturigina, 2 Nemacheilus platiceps ??? mabey, 1 Cobitis taenia ??? mabey and 4 yellow tail rasboras

20 reg: 2 gold rams

10 reg: hospital tank no gravel sponge filter,aquaclear 20

75 gal empty for now may become rainbow or african tank

30 gal river tank

all use the same water from my well. I have to buffer the water in all of them. I have GH and KH issues in all of them despite my tap water having 0ppm hardness .0004 ppm phospate as ortho. I tested the water from the well today. I used a Lamotte colorimeter at my place of work. Looking like there is a RO in my future.

[Emma Turner]

There seems to be no evidence that states phosphates do any harm to fish in the aquarium. However, prolonged periods of very high levels are probably best avoided.

You should try and change about 10-15% every other day with the RO, so as not to shock the inhabitants of the tank.

Emma

[chris1932]

Emma

Once again you have been a huge help. Your advice is being taken and as a stop gap measure I have obtained some containers and I am going to the local market where there is an RO. I should get my home unit in 7 to ten days. Do you think the lighting on the tank is too much?

I am going to try and post some pictures on here.

Christain

[Emma Turner]

Hi again Christian.

I'm glad to have been of help. I don't think you have too many lights on the aquarium, because you obviously want to encourage some types of algae for the hillstream loaches. But I think you probably have the lights on for a bit too long each day though, so you might want to reduce the cycles slightly - no tropical regions receive more than 12 hours of light per day.

Looking forward to seeing your photographs!

Emma