Huge Algae Problem

[haddock]

Hi All,

My tank (running for 2 years now) has slowley been accumulating algae and over the last few months it has been overtaken. My plants are covered in hairy algae, the hairy algae is covered in slimey algae! The glass is covered in bright green patchy algae. I was wondering if there were any wonder products which would help?

ps have already tried algae eaters which have helped to some extent and I can't find any ottos.

Cheers.

 

[xJake]

The problem is probably your lighting. Algae only grows when excessive light is used in the tank. 2 watts per gallon is the standard that I and most of my friends use. There are chemicals which kill algae but in my experience they cause a lot of stress with the fish in the tank and most aren't very effective. Your best bet is to change your lighting then get a clean algae cleaner/brush/sponge/cloth, go through and wipe down your tank and then do a water change. Also, I wouldn't suggest using those magnetic algae cleaners that a lot of stores sell. They work correctly for a couple months and eventually end up putting huge scratches in your glass. (At least in my experience) Good luck getting your tank looking the way you want!

Edit: Also, algae eaters (I assume you mean plecos) are ineffective past a certain age and eventually get too big to reach algae in some areas. Also, a lot of plecos don't eat much algae and will generally scavenge for extra food that your other fish didn't eat.

 

[millym]

hi
not only excessive lighting can make algae go mad but also over feeding so there is excess nutrients in the tank will also encourage algae growth. excess phosphate in your tank is often a major cause of algae going mad. we had a problem with black beard & hairy algae about a year ago & after doing a search & a post on this forum i used a combination of all suggestions to combat the problem. if you do a search in the forum you'll find several threads that will help you but basically this is what we did
1. i cut down on the amount i fed our fish (i know i was guilty of overfeeding
2. i removed all rocks & plants that were infested with algae & threw the plants away (or the leaves that were covered) & scrubbed the rocks to get rid of the stuff.
3. we bought phosphate remover (like rowaphos you put it in your filter & it absorbs phosphate to lower levels in your tank)
4. i added a lighting break during the day ie: lights come on 0800 go off at 1200 till 1430 then come back on till 1900 when our moonlights come on for a couple of hrs. obviously i have our lights on timer switches which makes this easy.
i found that within a couple of weeks things definitely had improved but it does take perseverance. we haven t had much algae for a long time now so it has worked, im not sure which has worked or the combination of all of them but i stick with these now.

you dont say if you have real plants - having more real plants in the tank will allow your plants to basically outcompete the algae for nutrients in the tank & this will also help.
also if your tank gets any direct sunlight this will also encourage algae to grow - something else to look at.

i dont have rowaphos in our filter all the time now but i invested in a phosphate test kit & i keep an eye on the levels if they start to rise i will add rowaphos again. rowaphos appears expensive but a small tub actually treats a large vol of water for a long time so is worth it & im sure using this when i first tackled our algae probs is what helped kick start getting rid of the algae. ( there is other brands that make the same sort of stuff)
good luck
ps: i know there are chemicals you can buy to remove algae but as i found that you cant use a lot of them with crustaceans(like amano shrimps) in a tank i couldnt use them and i really think that you need to tackle all the causes of the algae as it will be liable to come back when the effects of the chemicals wear off esp if you haven t got rid of the causes of the stuff in the first place.

 

[iamwhoiam]

rowaphos also removes silicates.... = bye bye brown algae