# Plants



## piranhaluva (Nov 6, 2005)

I have 29 plants that where bulbs when I started. I started to get brown algae, with more of the plants maturing, an water changes, and some start right water chemical, the majority is gone, some still lingers around in spots i cant get to!

Will these plants help?


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## joey'd (Oct 26, 2005)

the brown algea is a bloom of your nitRITES turning into nitRATES, it is a good thing, but more plants equals more algea


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## rbp75 (May 2, 2004)

piranhaluva said:


> I have 29 plants that where bulbs when I started. I started to get brown algae, with more of the plants maturing, an water changes, and some start right water chemical, the majority is gone, some still lingers around in spots i cant get to!
> 
> Will these plants help?


This would be better off in the planted section.

Ill start off by saying that you will always get some algae in a planted tank, the trick is keeping it under control so it does not grow out of control. With that said algae control in a planted tank is all about water balance, even with a heavly planted tank you can still get algae blooms, the thing with more plants is that they can better out compete the algae of nutrients than with less plants.

Several things come into play when trying to get a balance in the water, lighting, nutrients, nitrates, phosphates, co2, etc. For example if you have lots of lighting, nutrients and co2 but no phosphates the plants will not grow well because they need phosphates to grow, therefore they wil not absorb the nutrients or nitrates in the water leaving them for the algae which always finds a way to grow regardless of what is missing from the water. This can be the same for all factors in the mix such as no nitrates, but alot of phosphates. despite what you may read even having too little light can cause algae because if you have a good balance of all the other things and the lighting is too low the plants will not photosynthisize as much as they would with high lighting therefore not absorbing enough nutrients to outcompete the algae.

For the basics to start off with you should test for nitrates and phosphates, you want to keep the nitrates around 10-20ppm, any higher or lower you can get algae, the phosphates should be 1-2 ppm.

Now you will need to find out if your plants are low light, med light, or high light plants, that will determain what kind of lighting you will need. List your plants if you know what they are and also your tank size to determain how much wattage you need. If all of this seems complicated it is at first but once you understand the idea of a good balance in a planted tank you will have much less algae problems.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

^^what he said.. don't let those nitrates bottom out either


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## piranhaluva (Nov 6, 2005)

The tank is 48L 12W 16H 32 plants,11 of them bloomed 6 days ago.

I don't remember the name of the plant, but if you go to wal mart, they have two type, lily bulbs and something else, well that what it is"something else. Sorry i will try an get more on that!

the blooms are only on the glass at the very bottom of the tank, after the water change and scrubbing the algae of a couple times, it remains at the bottom an never grows out of control.


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

Aquatic Plant forum


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## Oheye8one2 (Nov 8, 2005)

piranhaluva said:


> The tank is 48L 12W 16H 32 plants,11 of them bloomed 6 days ago.
> 
> I don't remember the name of the plant, but if you go to wal mart, they have two type, lily bulbs and something else, well that what it is"something else. Sorry i will try an get more on that!
> 
> the blooms are only on the glass at the very bottom of the tank, after the water change and scrubbing the algae of a couple times, it remains at the bottom an never grows out of control.


 Hybrid Aponogeton bulbs... i got 2 packs myself


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