Could be algorithm... ive been watching a lot of aquascaping videos lately and this is the first time seeing him. Most I get is some kid from Australia and "MD"
Can you do a full video only on tip number 20? I’d love to learn as much as possible about different types of algae and what causes them and what kills them etc.
I used CO2 before and I always run into algae issues because I didn't do the right balance between co2, light and nutrients and did many other mistakes that you've mentioned here. Learned something from your video today and will try it again hopefully with better success! Thank you for the great tips MJ!
Thank you so much for the tips! Amazing lad! I’m going to build my second scape tomorrow! I learnt from the first ever aquarium I did. I bought such a nice mix of plants previously not used! Cannot wait to see them!
You did a commendable work to make such a detailed point by point collection of these useful tips.. I'm definitely guilty of not doing certain things correctly...This is a good reminder to be disciplined to achieve a balanced and good looking planted tank
It would years of experience to grasp all the points you have mentioned, brilliant video that sets out exactly all the important steps. Some years ago I started making sure my new tanks had at least 80% of the substrate covered with fast growing stem plants. That, coupled with regular water changes and attention to light has always worked well for me. Once established it is easy to remove some of the plants to get the desired look. Thanks for sharing.
My water is so hard GH is off the scale and nitrates are 15-20 ppm from the tap. Waterchanges with tap water are detremental for my planted aquarium in terms of algae, also it kills pearl weed and marsilea hirsuta. Thank you yorkshire water! I fill 3x 3L bottles at work where the water is very soft, I do small waterchanges and top up for evaporation with that for months now and everything is great. Long term i am thinking of collecting rainwater for waterchanges, or a RO system if rain water isnt a good idea, or living elsewhere as my tank has half the disolved solids compared to my tap water. It wouldnt surprise me if i would be better off boiling my tank water and drinking that.
I am very grateful for your kindness in sharing this knowledge that formed you as an aquarist. I have learned a lot from your videos. And it wasn't until this video that I noticed I wasn't subscribed to the channel, now I am (sorry about that). But beyond that, I hope you continue sharing your experience, your daily life, and more advice, because more than a teacher, even though we are like strangers (because we don't know each other), I feel you like an honest friend. Keep up the good work, thank you very much again.
I started this hobby a year back and I made several mistakes that you pointed out... I neglected the tank too much.... very less water changes (once a month...maybe more) Too much light Less plants Now I have started following some of the tips and some I still can't follow due to financial limitations Earlier I used to clean my filter media completely with tap water... now I rinse it lightly with aquarium water I do weekly 15-20% water change Earlier I used to keep light on for 8-10 hrs that too inconsistent(sometimes even upto 14 hrs when I forgot).. it used to ruin my plants with algae... now I reduced light timings strictly to 5hrs and will gradually increase it to 8hrs when algae starts reducing Also i raised the light a couple of inches higher I now also introduced floating plants and stem plants too... Earlier I used to have just a few very slow growing plants(anubias) I have a small 12 gallon aquarium... I don't think my aquasoil has enough nutrients but i cannot get new soil due to financial limiations😅... I don't have CO2 setup... I am using API leaf zone liquid fertilizer.. small amounts after water changes... I have cherry shrimps but they don't seem to eat algae at all... I am getting otocinclus... algae is already starting to reduce... I cannot follow some tips... if anyone can give me some tips based on my situation, I am happy to get suggestions
I went the DIY route using the large and heavy MakersLED heatsink with a selection of different LEDs. I have some 6500K Cree and 4200K Philips Rebels, with deep red, far red, cool blue, royal blue, some red, green, and blue Bridgelux as well as two near UV Bridgelux. These are controlled by a Coralux 16 channel Storm X controller and can be PWM dimmed with 4096 steps per channel. Each channel can be set with a timed delay where you can set how long before each individual channel begins to ramp up and how long before they reach the maximum setting programmed. This makes it good for setting up colorful sunrise and sunset periods. With 4096 being the maximum I've never used a setting higher than 1900. Any higher and I don't have an aquascape so much as an algae farm.
Beautiful set ups, but time consuming for most aquarists. Algae is your friend in the latter circumstances. It helps reduce excess nutrients in your tank, usually caused by overfeeding or all those liquid ferts that are dumped in the tank. Usually you'd cut right back on the feed and ferts and add more plants to outcompete the algae that use up the excess nutrients to feed on to create a better balance. Small fish don't need a lot of food, a tiny pich 2 or 3 times a week would suffice. Better still, put some wet leaf litter from a healthy body of water in to bring in some natural microorganisms for them to feed on and don't worry about parasites. You're fighting a losing battle trying to keep fish in a sterile environment with expensive chemical products that are pushed onto us because of the unnatural order. I expect that's why most have to change their valuable water at an excessive rate too. Beautiful, but time consuming and costly for most. Check out Father Fish for a more natural way to keep fish... Very informative and relaxing way to sit back and enjoy your pets.
very informative and quality production. i would replace the drop checker with a pH pen/meter. drop checkers tell you what your co2 level was like 2-3 hours prior; readings from pH pen/monitor give real-time assessment of co2 levels.
about floating plants two things to add 1. you can have houseplants in the tank ( just the roots) works also well and maybe even better 2. floating / housplants have the roots in the water, so the roots absorb from the water, fast growning normal plants have the roots in the soil and drain from the soil, less from the water so having some plants that have their roots in the water, is the way to go
Very useful video ! Both a nice summary and addition to the previous « alguae issues » videos. Thanks to your tips, I could tackle the alguae in my tank within 48h !
Salut mark, vidéo très très très intéressante. Tu as vraiment énumérer les situations de problèmes d'algues. Vidéo pas assez long 29 minutes sont trop vite passé. Quand on es passionné on ne voit pas le temps passé. Merci a toi pour ton travail. A très bientôt. 😉👍😉
the method I've learned and have had great success with is put light at 50% to start and only have light on for 6 hours then over time slowly increase light brightness and photoperiod also at the beginning add fast growers and floating plants and over time you can eventually remove the fast growers once your tank is well matured. these are the things my local fish stores owner told me and my tank went from getting tons of algae at the start to having absolutely zero and doing 10x better and its worked with all my tanks and I highly recommend it.
Depending on how patient you are you can always just only use tissue culture plants and sterilize everything before it goes in your tank which prevents any aquarium specialized algae from getting into your tank in the first place, you will still get algae spores from the air but it is super easy to clean especially with a good clean up crew.
I still cant believe how you dont run into problems without any p04 and n03. i tried this method and my hole tank was covered in blue green algea, and also my plants growth stunted completly even with good light and c02 and fresh aquasoil. i now use a all in one fertiliser and keep my levels in check and i got lush growth without any blue green or algea.
Thank you very much for such an extensive and useful guide. I have a question. In one of your videos, you mentioned that after planting the plants in the aquarium, during startup, some of them may start to melt. Especially if they go from a greenhouse form to an underwater form. Do these leaves from the above-water form, that are melting, need to be trimmed or left as is? Which of these can cause algae?
You should have a whole bunch more followers. I have a question tho I’ve just bought a new 200 litre tank and a c02 kit after seeing your videos. Do you recommend using c02 right from the beginning of the set up?
Excellent, very excellent video. Have my congratulations. Thank You so much. As often, there is no one reason>one solution to biological problems in our tank. I appreciate how you explain and show the solutions
I enjoyed the tips and I think you have actually come up with a buisness idea you could develop that is to sell filter media or substrate that is established which it seems to me no one does at the moment.
my friend, the green dust problem in the glasses is due to the lack of nitrate, for your information, nitrate and phosphate should always be balanced, for example, nitrate and phosphate should be 10/1, if the balance is continuous, no algae will form.
Tip 17: I used apt zero for a few months alongside aquario neo aqua soil, but my nitrates and phosphates eventually bottomed out and the plants suffered because of it. Around the same time algae started appearing. So I'm not entirely sure not dosing these elements solves algae issues. In my experience at least.
If I understand right, at some point your plants had consumed all the nitrates and phosphates. At that point it was time either (1) to increase the amount of fish ( to get more amonia>nitrit>nitrate) (2) and/ or to resume giving some complete fertilizer, (3) and/or reduce the number of plants. Any of these could have contributed to balancing the production vs consumption of nutrients. Then, as the plants start to deteriorate everything gets even more off balance... hence the algae increased. So I think, tip 17 should be interpreted as " If (and only if) there is too much nitrate, use APT, but if at some point the level of nitrate gets normal do either of the 3 points above".
I have a question: I'm starting an aquarium with only remineralized RO water (Kh 3, Gh 6) and only root tabs instead of aquasoil. Plants I will use are Cryptocoryne wendtii "green", Pogostemum erectus, Ludwigia super red, Lobelia cardinalis and Staurogyne repens. Do you recommend adding liquid fertilizer right away to get at least some nutrients in the water column or should I wait till the tank becomes somewhat established?
Lean dosing fertiliser: www.2hraquarist.com/products/apt1
Use code: MJAQUA for 10% off
Equipment I like to use (affiliate links)
Tank
US: bit.ly/3EbkdxH
EU: bit.ly/3S3y9ht
Light
US: bit.ly/3S2WxjC
EU: bit.ly/3z6R16F
Filter
US: bit.ly/3yxFttR
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Clear Filter Pipes
US: bit.ly/3RsFJkT
EU: bit.ly/3AL5oyv
Substrate
US: bit.ly/3bux8yR
EU: bit.ly/3qhHDt4
Wood (similar)
US: bit.ly/3VmDUJ0
EU: bit.ly/3MwgKfm
Rocks (similar)
US: bit.ly/3yAO7Yk
EU: bit.ly/3Tn0tLX
Dwarf Hairgrass (Eleocharis parvula)
US: bit.ly/3VsJIR5
Umbrella Hair Grass (Eleocharis Vivipara)
US: bit.ly/3MpO9br
Riccardia moss
US: bit.ly/3SR3Zy9
Juncus repens
US: bit.ly/3yyJjmo
Crypt parva
US: bit.ly/3Cs0APn
Crypt lutea
US: bit.ly/3yBGDo7
Crypt walkeri
US: bit.ly/3rSxBzu
🚨Watch this next!🚨
Inspiration playlist! ua-cam.com/play/PLrlvf56gZy-ipL3105SdfKsUBrMUSttoh.html
CO2 buying guide! ua-cam.com/video/dIVrr1yS3sU/v-deo.html
How to SETUP your CO2! ua-cam.com/video/qSHZ4F2PI2o/v-deo.html
Simple fertilizer dosing! ua-cam.com/video/I_KBOUM1RXM/v-deo.html
👉🏻Cool Aquascaping T-shirts: mosscotton.com/ Code: mjaqua10
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👉🏻 Use Code ''MJAMSTERDAM'' for 10% off Fzone products
Don’t you have problems growing plants like Monte Carlo as an epiphyte when using lean dosing?
This is EASILY the best video I have ever seen on how to prevent algae. Great work.
I’m surprised you don’t have a million subscribers yet, you are literally the best aquascaper I can find :))
I agree! This is the greatest algae video of all time 🐐
Probabilistically there isn't a million people who's actively pursuing planted aquarium hobby using UA-cam worldwide.
@@arun.sekher sadly, I know there is more than a million people who enjoy aquariums and aquascaping but I guess they haven’t found this channel
Could be algorithm... ive been watching a lot of aquascaping videos lately and this is the first time seeing him. Most I get is some kid from Australia and "MD"
@@nunyabizz4373 i Watch the same people and MJ pops up more often but guess that’s just my algorithm
Thanks!
Thank you!
This is easily one of the most helpful videos on UA-cam for planted tanks!
Can you do a full video only on tip number 20? I’d love to learn as much as possible about different types of algae and what causes them and what kills them etc.
I used CO2 before and I always run into algae issues because I didn't do the right balance between co2, light and nutrients and did many other mistakes that you've mentioned here. Learned something from your video today and will try it again hopefully with better success! Thank you for the great tips MJ!
This is the best algae video in the history of UA-cam! Your tanks are looking amazing! Well done, Mark 👏
Getting ready to setup a new tank. These tips are good to reference. Thanks
The best article about algae that I have seen! Congrats man! Keep it up! I learned a lot from you! Respect!
One of the best aquarium sites in the net. Keep going!
Thank you so much for the tips! Amazing lad! I’m going to build my second scape tomorrow! I learnt from the first ever aquarium I did. I bought such a nice mix of plants previously not used! Cannot wait to see them!
What kind of fuzzy moss is that at 2:31?? Looks amazing!
A very comprehensive guide. Very good!
Best video for algae issue so far I have seen… really very nice and well explained video
You did a commendable work to make such a detailed point by point collection of these useful tips..
I'm definitely guilty of not doing certain things correctly...This is a good reminder to be disciplined to achieve a balanced and good looking planted tank
Definitely one of the best videos ive found in awhile. Very nice job and thank you so much for sharring your knowledge.
12:00 what are these plants? Wow
It would years of experience to grasp all the points you have mentioned, brilliant video that sets out exactly all the important steps. Some years ago I started making sure my new tanks had at least 80% of the substrate covered with fast growing stem plants. That, coupled with regular water changes and attention to light has always worked well for me. Once established it is easy to remove some of the plants to get the desired look. Thanks for sharing.
My water is so hard GH is off the scale and nitrates are 15-20 ppm from the tap. Waterchanges with tap water are detremental for my planted aquarium in terms of algae, also it kills pearl weed and marsilea hirsuta. Thank you yorkshire water!
I fill 3x 3L bottles at work where the water is very soft, I do small waterchanges and top up for evaporation with that for months now and everything is great.
Long term i am thinking of collecting rainwater for waterchanges, or a RO system if rain water isnt a good idea, or living elsewhere as my tank has half the disolved solids compared to my tap water. It wouldnt surprise me if i would be better off boiling my tank water and drinking that.
Do you remember were to buy this shelf behind you? It looks very sturdy!
Brilliant deep dive on how to handle algae, easily the best out there! Thank you!!!
I am very grateful for your kindness in sharing this knowledge that formed you as an aquarist.
I have learned a lot from your videos. And it wasn't until this video that I noticed I wasn't subscribed to the channel, now I am (sorry about that). But beyond that, I hope you continue sharing your experience, your daily life, and more advice, because more than a teacher, even though we are like strangers (because we don't know each other), I feel you like an honest friend.
Keep up the good work, thank you very much again.
❤️
MJ, greatest basketball player of all time and now the greatest aquascaper of all time.
😊
😎😎
I've visited several times and this is an awesome bunch of tanks. Just subscribed. You know so much about this subject , as well as others. thank you.
That was a great video loved how you broke it down I will refer to it all the time
I started this hobby a year back and I made several mistakes that you pointed out...
I neglected the tank too much.... very less water changes (once a month...maybe more)
Too much light
Less plants
Now I have started following some of the tips and some I still can't follow due to financial limitations
Earlier I used to clean my filter media completely with tap water... now I rinse it lightly with aquarium water
I do weekly 15-20% water change
Earlier I used to keep light on for 8-10 hrs that too inconsistent(sometimes even upto 14 hrs when I forgot).. it used to ruin my plants with algae... now I reduced light timings strictly to 5hrs and will gradually increase it to 8hrs when algae starts reducing
Also i raised the light a couple of inches higher
I now also introduced floating plants and stem plants too... Earlier I used to have just a few very slow growing plants(anubias)
I have a small 12 gallon aquarium... I don't think my aquasoil has enough nutrients but i cannot get new soil due to financial limiations😅... I don't have CO2 setup... I am using API leaf zone liquid fertilizer.. small amounts after water changes... I have cherry shrimps but they don't seem to eat algae at all... I am getting otocinclus... algae is already starting to reduce...
I cannot follow some tips... if anyone can give me some tips based on my situation, I am happy to get suggestions
The video we needed. Thank you as always :)
Wealth of knowledge! Thank you ❤
I have to say, MJ, i always enjoy and learn things from your videos. I love your work, brother. Take care
What size tanks are the small square ones behind you? Are they 10 gallon equivalent?
More close to 5 gallons :)
Tip #12 it's something I definitely needed to hear, nice video mj
Hello m8 from the U. K.
Another great video, some brilliant tips there, they make lots of sense. Cheers.
I went the DIY route using the large and heavy MakersLED heatsink with a selection of different LEDs. I have some 6500K Cree and 4200K Philips Rebels, with deep red, far red, cool blue, royal blue, some red, green, and blue Bridgelux as well as two near UV Bridgelux. These are controlled by a Coralux 16 channel Storm X controller and can be PWM dimmed with 4096 steps per channel. Each channel can be set with a timed delay where you can set how long before each individual channel begins to ramp up and how long before they reach the maximum setting programmed. This makes it good for setting up colorful sunrise and sunset periods.
With 4096 being the maximum I've never used a setting higher than 1900. Any higher and I don't have an aquascape so much as an algae farm.
24:53 how can you keep the surface clean and have floating plants at the same time?
Very helpful! Thank you for sharing!
Awesome video MJ!
Very good and complete guide - Not only for beginners. Have to try this new fertilizer, heard about it several times now! Thanks for your work!
Your advice is profesional and seems you really understand the knowledge behind all of this
Thank you so much Mark.
Great great tips 🙏
Awesome video! Thanks for all the tips!
Beautiful set ups, but time consuming for most aquarists. Algae is your friend in the latter circumstances. It helps reduce excess nutrients in your tank, usually caused by overfeeding or all those liquid ferts that are dumped in the tank. Usually you'd cut right back on the feed and ferts and add more plants to outcompete the algae that use up the excess nutrients to feed on to create a better balance. Small fish don't need a lot of food, a tiny pich 2 or 3 times a week would suffice. Better still, put some wet leaf litter from a healthy body of water in to bring in some natural microorganisms for them to feed on and don't worry about parasites. You're fighting a losing battle trying to keep fish in a sterile environment with expensive chemical products that are pushed onto us because of the unnatural order. I expect that's why most have to change their valuable water at an excessive rate too. Beautiful, but time consuming and costly for most. Check out Father Fish for a more natural way to keep fish... Very informative and relaxing way to sit back and enjoy your pets.
very informative and quality production. i would replace the drop checker with a pH pen/meter. drop checkers tell you what your co2 level was like 2-3 hours prior; readings from pH pen/monitor give real-time assessment of co2 levels.
thank you so much MJ for this video, these help a lot especially to tackle algae in my high tech tank, its so frustrating!
Make sure that you have some hard workers on the clean up crew and most importantly no overfeeding and the lights are possibly?
Thank you for such an informative video! This was great. I can't tell you how many times I paused, just so I could write some notes down.
Bookmarking!!! I guess Twinstar doesn’t work??
Thanks for all the useful tips MJ.
about floating plants two things to add
1. you can have houseplants in the tank ( just the roots) works also well and maybe even better
2. floating / housplants have the roots in the water, so the roots absorb from the water, fast growning normal plants have the roots in the soil and drain from the soil, less from the water
so having some plants that have their roots in the water, is the way to go
Thank you Mark! That was very helpful.
Great info. Thanks for sharing
Very useful video ! Both a nice summary and addition to the previous « alguae issues » videos. Thanks to your tips, I could tackle the alguae in my tank within 48h !
You are the best sir !
Thanks for the video
Such a great video, and very helpful tips. Thank you!
Very useful tips mj thanks mate
Thanks for explaining what lean dosing means. I thought it was just don't dose as much. I'm going to have to try this.
Very informative video MJ. Great work.
Totally agree 👍. Thanks for this material.
Salut mark, vidéo très très très intéressante. Tu as vraiment énumérer les situations de problèmes d'algues. Vidéo pas assez long 29 minutes sont trop vite passé. Quand on es passionné on ne voit pas le temps passé. Merci a toi pour ton travail. A très bientôt. 😉👍😉
the method I've learned and have had great success with is put light at 50% to start and only have light on for 6 hours then over time slowly increase light brightness and photoperiod also at the beginning add fast growers and floating plants and over time you can eventually remove the fast growers once your tank is well matured. these are the things my local fish stores owner told me and my tank went from getting tons of algae at the start to having absolutely zero and doing 10x better and its worked with all my tanks and I highly recommend it.
Hello mate, what is that metal cylindrical '' thing '' at 3:25 ? Is it a filter ? where did you get it from ? Thanks Vita
Really good tips thank you 😊
You Are THE MAN!!! Thank you so much!!!
Depending on how patient you are you can always just only use tissue culture plants and sterilize everything before it goes in your tank which prevents any aquarium specialized algae from getting into your tank in the first place, you will still get algae spores from the air but it is super easy to clean especially with a good clean up crew.
I still cant believe how you dont run into problems without any p04 and n03. i tried this method and my hole tank was covered in blue green algea, and also my plants growth stunted completly even with good light and c02 and fresh aquasoil.
i now use a all in one fertiliser and keep my levels in check and i got lush growth without any blue green or algea.
Happy Saturday, hope your water changes went swell!
Great video, thanks ❤
How often should you test the water everyday?
I usually only test the water when I have set up a new tank and i want to add fish.
I found your channel today... your tanks look awesome... kudos!!
Thank you very much for such an extensive and useful guide. I have a question. In one of your videos, you mentioned that after planting the plants in the aquarium, during startup, some of them may start to melt. Especially if they go from a greenhouse form to an underwater form. Do these leaves from the above-water form, that are melting, need to be trimmed or left as is? Which of these can cause algae?
If you see that they are melting you can definitely remove them.
@@MJAquascaping thanks a lot for your advice 👍
So informative! Love it. Thank you!
wow nice that i found your channel i like this. thx a lot for giving those tips.
it helps a lot with my fathers aquarium.
Very good , I am an aquarist from Brazil and I follow your work . 👍🏼
As usual, great video, saturated with info !!!
You should have a whole bunch more followers. I have a question tho I’ve just bought a new 200 litre tank and a c02 kit after seeing your videos. Do you recommend using c02 right from the beginning of the set up?
Excellent, very excellent video. Have my congratulations. Thank You so much. As often, there is no one reason>one solution to biological problems in our tank.
I appreciate how you explain and show the solutions
Great video!
IT IS A GREAT EXPLANATION VIDEO :)
THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND EXPERIENCE :)
THANK YOU FROM ISRAEL :)
I stop every episode of any series I'm watching, on any streaming service I'm subscribed to when you post a video.
When is the best time to dose fertilizer in the tank? Before lights turn on or thru out the day or after lights turn off?
I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but to me before the lights turn on makes the most sense
I enjoyed the tips and I think you have actually come up with a buisness idea you could develop that is to sell filter media or substrate that is established which it seems to me no one does at the moment.
Very very good
Tanks 🙏❤️
When you save old substrate, do you keep it in water or dry out and keep in bag?
Beautiful tanks. Your an aquascaping beast
Great tips 👌🏻
Beautiful scapes!
Great, useful video. Thanks!
i do it like this maybe 10 years and i never had any problems with my tanks!!
my friend, the green dust problem in the glasses is due to the lack of nitrate, for your information, nitrate and phosphate should always be balanced, for example, nitrate and phosphate should be 10/1, if the balance is continuous, no algae will form.
Muchas gracias por tus videos son de gran ayuda
What is that sterilizer that you showed? Where can we get it in USA?
Very helpful Thank you 😊
Tip 17: I used apt zero for a few months alongside aquario neo aqua soil, but my nitrates and phosphates eventually bottomed out and the plants suffered because of it. Around the same time algae started appearing. So I'm not entirely sure not dosing these elements solves algae issues. In my experience at least.
If I understand right, at some point your plants had consumed all the nitrates and phosphates. At that point it was time either (1) to increase the amount of fish ( to get more amonia>nitrit>nitrate) (2) and/ or to resume giving some complete fertilizer, (3) and/or reduce the number of plants. Any of these could have contributed to balancing the production vs consumption of nutrients.
Then, as the plants start to deteriorate everything gets even more off balance... hence the algae increased.
So I think, tip 17 should be interpreted as " If (and only if) there is too much nitrate, use APT, but if at some point the level of nitrate gets normal do either of the 3 points above".
I have a question: I'm starting an aquarium with only remineralized RO water (Kh 3, Gh 6) and only root tabs instead of aquasoil. Plants I will use are Cryptocoryne wendtii "green", Pogostemum erectus, Ludwigia super red, Lobelia cardinalis and Staurogyne repens. Do you recommend adding liquid fertilizer right away to get at least some nutrients in the water column or should I wait till the tank becomes somewhat established?
Hello MJ. Tell me more about tip #24 pls, i didn't understand the tools or process. Can you explain it a little bit more? (Links for the tools, etc)
Great simple tricks 👍🏻
What's the sterilizer?
Do you have any book recommendations for natural (no tech) aquascaping?
some times using an old substrate can brough some parasite from the old tank. like planaria or even algae itself
hello do you recommend siesta period?