Getting Rid Of Algae

[fishgirl1]

getting rid of algae

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my fully cycled 10gl Planted tank my 2 Otos are MIA or Dead no bodies found for the past week.
Water is pH 7.3, Ammo 0, nitrIte 0, nitrAte <5.
PWC every 7/10 days

My Platies and Gourami ALL seem to have constipation, I have cut down feedings to once a day. And every 2 or 3 days giving peas, zucchini/cucumber.
bio-load is fine. I have 1 ghost shrimp, and it is not able to keep up with the algae.
I have BOTH HOB AND UNDERGRAVEL FILTERS so I have not been vacuuming as I dont want to remove the good stuff from the gravel.


Will blacking out the tank for 3 days be ok will it hurt the shrimp?
After the 3 days should I do vucuuming of the gravel? how can I do that with out disturbing to good stuff and having the tank go in to mini cycle?

Susan
__________________
Platies are now known as Finny Pigs

 

[millym]

hi
what sort of algae have you got??? ie: is it black stuff, green, stringy stuff??? will help us help you sort it out. algae is usually due to excess phosphates in the water ( caused by too much nutrients - food & waste), lights being left on too long & not enough natural plants to compete with the algae for the nutrients. you should really be vacuuming to keep the gravel clean & the build up of waste in there could well be contributing to your algae probs.
ive found that reducing food ( i was guilty of overfeeding our fish), introducing a lighting break ie: our lights come on at 8am go off at 12pm for 2 hrs then remain on till 7pm ( electronic timers) & also putting a phosphate remover (like rowaphos) in our filter all helped us get rid of the nasty black algae problem we had a couple of years ago.
but if you can give us more info it will help.

 

[fishgirl1]

The algae is green, the stuff my MIA/or dead Otos were eating and keeping in check. Now that the Otos are gone the green algae is JUST starting to get out of control.