Aglea Bloom????

[Jen]

Ok. So yesterday I did a 30% water change and added 2 plants. now today when I got home from work, the tank is all cloudy, and there are these little white 'hairs' on my glass. Is this the dreaded hair algea that everyone talks about? does anyone know what I can do to get rid of it?

edit - here are my levels
PH - 7.8 (normal)
Ammonia - cant tell... very low
NitrIte... This one is hard to tell. On my test colour card it looks like a colour that could be .5 or 5. It's not dull enough to be .5, and its not bright enough to be 5, but its more purple than the colours in the middle
NirtAte - I lost the spoon to measure one of the chemicals, but considering it's always high I'm going to go with high. in the 25 - 50 range - but it's always like that

 

[kenneth_kpe]

did you also upgrade your lighting in any way ? recently ?

 

[Jen]

yeah. i went from a 24" 20 watt bulb to 2 36'' 30 watt bulbs. They have been running for 3 weeks now

 

[Aj86]

how long are they on for?

 

[Jen]

about 11 or 12 hours. im in the basement, so there is very little natural light coming in. think i should reduce it until the bloom goes away? maybe 8 hours?

 

[Silly me]

Its also normal to have some sort of algae bloom when you increase your lights. I once had my water turn into green soup just by replacing my tubes.. but any algae bloom in a healthy tank should not last more than a week.

I would recomend you reduce your light time to 6 hours a day and once the algae bloom goes away slowly increase the lights to 10 hour or where you think your at the most hours of light with the least amount of algae..

 

[kenneth_kpe]

a good thing to try would be to have breaks in between the hours or lighting kinda like 3 hours 1 hour break then 3 hours something like that

 

[Jen]

I have heard that a break in the middle of the day isn't the best thing to do as it simulates a solar eclips, which can throw the fish off (from what I don't know.) Has anyone heard anything like this?

 

[Aj86]

I have a big algae break out in my tank at the moment... Ill send you a link that i got from gf225 it might help you.. At the moment im having a break in the lights 2 on 4 off 4 on and ive added some fast growing floating plants...

Heres the link...
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=60010

 

[Yenko]

What I think is the best lighting option is window light. It provides plants with what they'd get in nature (A brief photoperiod with VERY intense light). Most species of fish live in fairly dark conditions like murky water or dense plants. When I finally get my 70 gallon tank set up, I'm going to use west window light, a two hour break then the timer goes on for 4-5 hours of 160W light.

About the intensity of sunlight: Even a setup with METAL HALIDE lights can't acheive the brightness of NORTH AMERICAN light levels.

 

[Jen]

Its wierd. just as quickly as it came on sunday, today its gone. There is still a few of the white things on the glass, but the water is crystal clear. I did a water change yesterday, which I guess cleared up whatever was in teh water. My nitrItes are going down, was a 5, today looking more like a 2, and my nitrAtes which looked like a 40+, now look better than they ever have... like a 15 or a 20.

The guy at the fish store thinks i over fertilized, and with the increased lights the algae just went 'yay!'. So I am going to hold off on the fert. until all the visible algea is gone