Cyanobacteria

[rdd1952]

I think this is what I am being over run with. It is bright green and when I try to manually pick it up, it just falls apart. I can vacuum it with water changes but I can't do those every day. I am only burning my lights about 6 hours a day, 2 in the morning and 4 in the evening. When the lights come on, you can almost see it start to cover the sand substrate. I have deduced that I am probably over feeding but cutting back to once a day feeding won't get rid of what I have. I have 3 corys and 2 otos but they aren't making a dent. It is on everything in the tank. Are products like Algone safe to use?

 

[charmd2]

72 hour black out works for most people. Turn off the lights cover tank for three days.
Leaves plants a little worse for wear, but mine have always recovered.

 

[rdd1952]

I assume that has no ill effects on the fish. I seem to also be having a slight ammonia problem, about .25ppm. Is it possible that this is related to the algae? Water was fine till this stuff showed up.

 

[rdd1952]

One other thing, I have a cory that seems to be suffering from swim bladder. I have isolated him and tried the pea treatment. that seemed to work last week and he was fine for a couple days. Now he is back to the point that he can't stay on the botome without floating up or over onto his side. Could his problems be related to eating this stuff?

 

[iggy01]

I assume that has no ill effects on the fish. I seem to also be having a slight ammonia problem, about .25ppm. Is it possible that this is related to the algae? Water was fine till this stuff showed up.

If you're going to do a blackout I would advise getting your ammonia down to 0mg/l first. When the cyanobacteria starts dying off you could get a rise in ammonia levels.

If you're going to do the blackout, clean as much of the cyano out first. Do a 50% water change and then another 50% water change immediately after uncovering.

Good luck!

 

[Nisha]

If the blackout doesn't work, you might try using Maracyn.
Maracyn is essentially erythromycin which will kill all the cynobacteria or blue green bacteria/algae.

1) Clean out all visible bacteria you can.
2) Treat for 5 days with 1 tablet per 10 gallons. Crush it first to help it dissolve.
3) Clean up all the dead algae that will float into the water everyday. This is very important because it will make your ammonia and nitrite levels rise as it decomposes.
4) Do a thorough gravel vac and water change at the end of the treatment.

Hope this helps.

~Nisha

 

[vidiots]

I have found that most chemical additives used to kill pests such as snails & algae will harm your plants reguardless of what the label says. I have read but never tried a treatment for green water by placing daphnia in a breeders net and allowing them to eat the green water and then let the fish eat the daphnia. But the kind of algae you discribe sounds like the green sluge like the crust layer on pudding that is left in open air for a while that grows at the bottom of my bottles for growing green water to feed brine shimp & daphnia. I've found that my platies love to eat this green slime.

I would recommend that you keep a variety of different species of algae eating fish in a tank with plants since not all algae eating species eat the same types of algae. Also keep the total fish stocking low and the plant stock high. And be careful not to overfeed.

However keep in mind that I still have my algae battles from time to time as does anyone with a planted tank reguardless of experience level. Changing some of some your enviornmental parameters may eliminate the type of algae you currently have only to create conditions favorable to another type of algae which may be easier or harder to deal with.

Of all the types I think I hate hair algae the worst, because I haven't nailed down a sure fire way to keep a bloom of it in check besides manually picking it out until the bloom fades.

 

[rdd1952]

This algae is just a thin coating and I guess it is about what you described. I guess it is heavy since it is hard to vacuum out. It just floats and swirls near the bottom of the vacuum and never goes up. I have tried to remove it by hand from the bottom but it just falls apart. It has about coated the leaves of my plants also. I plan on taking out the artificial stuff my wife has in there (this is actually her tank) and scrubbing it good. I don't want to do anything to hurt my bacteria although I think this stuff is worse that killing off some of the good bacteria on everything. It's amazing how fast it grows. You can almost see it appear once the lights come on. Here is a photo I found on line that looks exactly like what I have.

 

[gale]

Can you check your nitrates and phosphate level? I have very low levels of both and apparently that is one cause of cyanobacteria. Getting rid of it is one thing, but keeping it away is another-you need to fix the cause too. I'm going to try putting kno3 in my water (I have instructions, don't worry) and hope that it helps.

 

[rdd1952]

I have checked the nitrates and it is between 0 and 5. I don't have a test kit for phosphates but definitely need to get one. I have 4 small to medium plants in the tank but I probably need more.

 

[gale]

You may have the same predicament that I do. What really confuses me is this: plants use nitrates so if you have low nitrates and get more plants, your nitrates go lower. Yet it's suggested to get more plants so they take all the nutrients from the algae. Very confuzzling. I just wonder if that even applies to this type of "algae".