Blue Green Algae

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Waterloo Kid

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Can anyopne advise me on the best way to remove this type of algae from my tank. I believe that it is actually bacterial in nature. If so, would using a phosphate remover be of any use? My Otos won't touch the stuff.

Ta,

WK
 
I believe that it is actually bacterial in nature
Yes, it's cyano-bacteria.

Vacuum algae away from your tank, change enough water 50%. Turn off lights, darken your tank putting some sheet on it. (5 days) you can change water about 1/3 every day. Don't feed fishes! After 5 days the algae should be gone, BUT it usually comes back when you turn lights on.

You can try to filter with peat, it prevents algae to grow alittle and try to add CO2. Blue-green-algae gets on better in basic water.

If anything won't help, keep your tank darken again (few times), then the last way is to destroy the algae with acriflavinum chloride. Buy it from your drugstore or you can buy fish medicine Tetra's General Tonic - it contains acriflavinium too. However try other things first, because it's always bad way to put any chemicals (medicines) in tank.

would using a phosphate remover be of any use?

Try it too, if you have phosphate problems..
 
I'd be tankful, if you like to tell us, what did you do and did it help...
 
Well, this is a work ongoing....
I have done something that I'm not happy with but I needed a quick fix while I sort it out. I added a chemical phosphate remover resin to the filter. I don't like using chemicals if it can be helped. I've reduced the lighting period by one and a half hours to only seven and a half hours also. The problem has reduced but by no means gone.
What I do intend to do is do a thorough cleaning of the gravel in all those places that I don't normally do (inbetween plants etc.) to get ride of any excess organic waste that will have built up there. I'm also trying to get hold of a phosphate test kit to check my tap water but haven't been able to find anything yet.

With what I've done to date the rate of algae growth has reduced by about 50% With a bit of knowledge, luck and patience I should be able to near enough erradicate this stuff from my system without resorting to more chemicals. I intend to remove the resin as soon as the algae is under control.


WK
 
Update....

The gravel cleaning is working as the algae growth has slowwed down a fair bit now. I got myself a phosphate test kit too. The tank level, just prior to a water change, is 0.5mg/l but my tapwater level is up at 2mg/l. Looks like I'll have to keep using the phos-zorb for the time being. :crazy:

WK
 
Hi wk,

I don't think using resins such as phoszorb nitrazorb should be frowned upon as adding chemicals to your tank. These are designed to remove substances from the water not add anything to it....as you have just found out you have levels of phosphate in your tap water....(nitrate out my tap is at 50-60 so I use a nitrazorb pouch).... - whereas the use of chemicals for treating something like algae is physically being added to the water and imho should be avoided...




:)
 
True!
Well things are improving marginally. My phosphates are now at unreadable levels and the algae is showing very limited growth rates. I hope it doesn't adversely affect my plants though. I don't mind if they stop growing but hope they don't die off.

WK
 

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