Algea

[Rodders]

Heres some pics of my algea.
As much as I clean it just keeps coming back in a week or so. Its slimy and horrible and covers everything. Just wondering wether its BGA or not cause I want to treat and get rid of it.

I cleaned a bit of the rock on this one.

Green on sand.

A bit closer

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I can't really see any algae, but the stuff on the sand will happen if the sand does not have much movement on it- MTS (malaysian trumpet snails), amano shrimp or albino corys will sort out the algae problem on the sand .

 

[Rodders]

You see the light grey bit on the rock, thats the bit I cleaned. Trust me the rest is covered in green slimy stuff. If I turn the rock over its clean. And you can see it on the leaves.

Ill have to invest in some shrimps.

 

[Callum]

on your plants it looks like brown algae but the rest it doesnt

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

You see the light grey bit on the rock, thats the bit I cleaned. Trust me the rest is covered in green slimy stuff. If I turn the rock over its clean. And you can see it on the leaves.

Ill have to invest in some shrimps.

Amano shrimps are great for removing algae off rough surfaces- for example, once i had some silk plants that i removed form my goldfish tank which were covered in brown algae so i took them out and put the plants in my fry tank where my amano shrimp reside and practically overnight they had cleaned all the algae off the plants.
They are also spend a lot of time picking at the sand looking for tiny bits of foods, and over the months i have had them in my fry tank the sand is always clean with them and the trumpet snails. They are great for mature tanks with peaceful communities .

 

[my fat fish]

get a couple of plecs lol mine ate all my alge there soo greedy lol but i oove them as they keep my tank clean

 

[Rodders]

I've got plecs and ottos. They do nothing

 

[BrassMan]

I've got plecs and ottos. They do nothing

I'm not suprised at the plecs as not all plecs are algae eaters but I am surprised your Ottos are'nt doing anything, I had a big algae outbreak hot long ago, came back from holiday and the tank was covered in the stuff, got 5 ottos now and all they do is eat algae and poo , it's amazing the amount 5 tiny fish can eat in a couple of days.

Thinking about it perhaps you have got BGA, as I understand it BGA is bacterial which could by why your Ottos are'nt interested.

Paul.

 

[Rodders]

Its all slimey and horrible, no surprise fish dont eat it.

I want to try and confirm its BGA, cause treating it with antibiotics can be bad for the tank but does work. So I dont wanna do it unless it is BGA.

 

[robjack]

If it really is "slimy stuff" it probably is BGA - you can test it by taking some out and smelling it: does it pong? IF yes, BGA.

In terms of treatment, you don't have to go down the antibiotic route, I've had much success with a 3 day blackout. Perform a water change (~30%), sucking up as much of it as you can, then completely cover the tank for 72 hours, not letting ANY light in. The fish will be fine during this period without food, and once the 72 hours is over, perform another water change, and your BGA should be gone.

Hope this helps,

Rob.

 

[Rodders]

I did a 4 day black out and it did nothing, lol.

Ill have to have a smell!!!

 

[Liam]

It doesn’t look like BGA, You can usually tell bga because it comes off rocks really easily and sort of sticks together. There is some green spot on the plants I don’t know what the brown stuff is maybe diatoms, is the tank set up long, they often appear in tanks less than six months old usually in low light tanks. Ottos should be happy to eat it if its diatoms snails; ramshorns and mts and shrimp are good at eating it too. Those grassy plants are more marsh plants than true aquatics, they might get a couple of new leaves under water but they don’t really grow at least in my experience and are very algae prone. I would get some fast greedy growers in there like hornwort, Egeria densa hygrophila or ambulia. The HC seems pretty healthy if its there more than a couple of months its doing good. With the sand I would just turn it over and deprive the algae of light.

 

[MtbGirl]

Here's a silly question about algae... we never seem to see any in our tank. Is Herbie doing that good of a job, or is it because we do weekly water changes??

We feed Herbie bits of algae wafers every day, thinking he must not be getting a lot to eat because we never see any algae in the tank...

 

[TigerIssey]

Just because you can't see algae does not mean it is not there, Herbie probably keeps it in check.

On the subject of blackouts for algae, give your tank at least a one hour break, with five hours either side, the plants can handle it, they still get ten hours but the algae does not like it. A timer can help with this.

 

[Rodders]

I've not got a planted tank anymore!
I've gone to fake plants as it looked horrible with real plants all covered in algea. Now I can take them out and clean them.

Tank if approaching 1 year old.

Dont have lights on too long, about 5-7 hours a day.


Even when I was planted, my plants grew very very fast, but still had algea.

It covers most things in 2 weeks, the glass needs cleaning weekly and if I leave it two weeks its awful. Cleaning 2 metres of glass is a right pain in the arse!

I do about 100-150 litre water change every two weeks.

Checked my levels the other day, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate all 0. Not checked phosphates yet.

Taken my plant growing tubes out and replaced them for norml ones.

Nothing seems to help, lol.