Wanna kill algae? Turn off the light.

[krazitrain]

Just leave the light off for a week. I had some nasty black algae all over my plants and deco. I flipped the lights off for a week. The algae died off. I sucked it out w/ a water change and problem was solved.

 

[Rose]

Unfortunatly that's only a quick solution it doesn't address WHY it happend in the first place. Until you find out why it happend it's going to keep comeing back.

Rose

 

[Cian McLiam]

Rose is right! If the underlying problem isnt tackled, the green algae will be replaced by brown tufty stuff that is really nasty

Ken

 

[GraemeK]

i got this annoying black hair alage on a plant i bought about two years ago! and i still have it. its a pain. i nearly got rid of it when i had a lot of plants and a decent phosphate remover but then things happend and the alage took hold. Covers everything and kills plants... if i did have a care for my plants i'd turn the lights off for a few weeks!

G

 

[krazitrain]

ok. so how do i figure out why it happened? i have no clue.

 

[njparton]

Plus not all your plants will survive!

 

[modernhamlet]

i got this annoying black hair alage on a plant i bought about two years ago! and i still have it. its a pain. i nearly got rid of it when i had a lot of plants and a decent phosphate remover but then things happend and the alage took hold. Covers everything and kills plants... if i did have a care for my plants i'd turn the lights off for a few weeks!

G

Problem: Beard Algae

Answer: Crossocheilus siamensis, the Siamese Algae Eater

 

[proteque]

hmmmm how would this be on the plants? I have a lot of algae in one of my tanks as the light was on 15hours a day for two weeks (something touched the timer). now I have it down to 11 hours. However it does not seen to go back. it is mostly green algae but it way more than the plants can handle.

I added three siemes algae eaters some weeks ago. Still no change. it eats and eats but it does not change. I have even tried to change water heavily to get some of the nutrition down.

 

[krazitrain]

Turning off the lights doesn't hurt the plants. If the plants are covered with algae, they are not getting the light to them anyway. The algae is soaking it in. When I saw the algae die, exposing the plants again, I flipped back on the light and sucked out the algae.

So Rose or Ken, how do I figure out WHY this happened? Just telling me I need to figure out WHY doesn't help me any.

 

[Bol]

The way to figure out why it happened is usually first, to pin down for sure what kind of algae it is. Then, often you can find that a certain kind of algae is mainly tied to an overabundance of one particular thing (e.g. thread algae usually shows up when you have an excess of iron in your water column). After you find out the "cause", then you can often find a "treatment".

Here is a good article about different types of algae, may be a start for you.

 

[De Plano]

Thanks for the link Bol.

 

[krazitrain]

Thanks. That will help.

 

[Red Baron]

I'm a relatively new aquarist....or at leas a newly informed one. I recently had my brand new 55 gal tank get covered w/ algae. I had never had algae problems in my old 29 gal. tank! Well, turns out it was a combination of two things. My old tank had light bulbs that were over 3 years old, so...the new efficient lights along
with nitrate levels that were off the chart, I got algae. Well, I only had to control one, obviously. I did a water change every other day until I got the nitrates down, cleaned the tank, and voila! No more algae!!

But yeah, don't cover up the problem. It's actually nice to know what's making your aquarium sick and being able to correct the problem the right way.

-Andy

 

[Pescado Guy]

Yeah I agree. You need to figure out the real problem and not just treat the symtoms. I have had a 29 gallon aquarium for several years and have never had any algea problems even with an abundance of nitrate up to 200ppm!! Since I got my 75 gallon aquarium algae has always been a problem. Not a huge problem but nonetheless a problem even with no detectable nitrate. It may be because of my Power Compact lighting. I am thinking that I have a phosphate surplus too. I ordered a phosphate test kit and some phosphate remover. It should be here in a few days and I am hoping it will solve my problems.

Kevin

 

[franky]

try the links that Moderhamlet posted, some good useful info