Algae Bloom!!!! Opinions?

[Ozzie Boss]

Hello. I am having a problem with an algae bloom in my 50 gallon tank. I started having this problem when I switched to a more powerful LED light. It’s growing plants better then my old light but it doesn’t matter since the algae covers the plant and the leaf dies. The most prevalent algae I have is green hair algae. This algae is the most annoying because it is all over my plants covering them and turning the leafs black. I also have green spot algae on the glass and hard scrape i.e. wood and rocks. I first tried to increase both light and fert. But that made it worse for the hair algae. Right now I’m reducing the light to 6-7 hours and normal dosage of ferts. If that doesn’t work I’ll add or reduce ferts. Am I doing something wrong? Any opinions? I’ll also be adding an algae clean up crew consisting of 4 nerites 6 otos and 1 super red bristlenose; he may not do much, but I like the way they look. I also am going to double dose seachem excel to get rid of the hair algae if I can. But if it does work it will probably be a short fix. This why I am trying the balance the light and nutrients in the tank. Thank you.


Tank Light LED Beamswork 6500k 36 inch, 0.50x100 Watts.
On for 6-7 hours.


Fertilizer: Easy Green
Normal Dosage: 1 pump per 10 gallons.

 

[Byron]

You've actually answered your own question. The algae is caused by an imbalance of light and nutrients, and increasing the light intensity threw off the existing balance, and algae is always able to take advantage.

I have no experience with LED so I cannot advise if this light is or isn't going to work long term.

Duration is sometimes as factor, but if the intensity is too high to begin with, lessening the duration will have little if any effect. And increasing nutrients by means of fertilizers usually does not help because there are other nutrients such as CO2 that will not be balanced now. The plant species and numbers, and the fish load, also factor in to the balance of light/nutrients.

Adding fish to deal with this is only likely to make things worse. "Problem" algae will not be eaten by most of the so-called algae eaters (like otos, Bristlenose, Farlowella, etc). It would help to ID the algae. I am suspecting it is a type of brush or beard algae (often called hair) from your description, but can you post a photo?

 

[Ozzie Boss]

Hey Bryon. I do not think the light itself is too intense. I was running it on the same schedule the older light was on. It was growing some algae on the glass. So I did the opposite to popular belief and increased lighting while increasing ferts a bit causing the algae to explode. (I know that may be my fault for being dumb) So now I am going to experiment with the light and ferts to determine what causes the LEAST amount of algae possible. I know that those fish will not eat hair algae, but it thought they would at least dent the algae on the glass. specifically I thought the Nerite snails and otos would have at least cleaned the glass. As for the algae ID I will try to take photos of it when I get home. I tried last time, but the picture was ¨too large¨. However just by looking at the algae the algae on the plants has a green ¨hairlike¨ structure to it. It hangs on the plant while the thread like part is flowing in the water. The algae on the anubias is also ¨hairlike¨ but is more of a blackish-gray color, which I assume is ¨blackbeard algae¨, and the algae on the glass is a green film covering the glass and hardscape. However the algae specifically on the white rocks looks like a very dark green almost looking black. I have heard people say they were able to kill blackbeard algae by double dosing seachem excel, so I will be trying that while messing with the light and ferts. If that does not help I will upload those pictures later. Thank you so much.

 

[Byron]

When slow-growing plants like Anubias and Java Fern develop black brush algae, it is due to the light. Floating plants will help as they shade the lower plants. But this is only part of the problem. You initially (post 1) said the problem algae began when you increased the light, and as I explained this upset the balance of light/nutrients. The only way to fix this is to bring light/nutrients back into balance. Increasing the light intensity and the nutrients may achieve a higher balance, or it may not because of the plants species requirements. Increasing light/nutrients for example will not help slow-growing plants at all, but cause algae guaranteed.

Do not resort to chemicals like Excel. For one thing, these do harm fish. For another, unless you restore the balance the algae will simply come back.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Black brush algae is normally a sign of a CO2 deficiency. So, you increased light, increased the nutrients, but missed the 3 major component for the plants/algae - CO2.


Options are:
floating plants - these can draw CO2 directly from the air - this lowers the light and nutrients available at lower levels... keeping the balance there...

high tech CO2 - this can be pricey... and you need to be careful how much CO2 you add, so that you don't poison the fish by overdosing the CO2... also need to make sure that you have the CO2 dissolved before it reaches the surface when added.

low tech CO2 - this is a challenging, but fun experiment. There's a thread in the planted section where one of our members laid out a multiple soda bottle method to keep a more level CO2 output...


The low tech version uses yeast and sugars.. and as the yeast eat the sugar, they produce CO2... but, they produce CO2 slowly at first, faster later, and then slow down again... so, he uses 3 bottles (IIRC) and has one bottle in each phase of the process... then rotates one bottle out and replaces it as the yeast uses up the sugar and starts to die off.