Severe Orange Algae Problem

[Fishkeeper4567]

Hi guys. I have really bad orange algae at the moment and have posted a number of topics on it including good algae eaters and oto catfish in a biube. The algae is now all over my sculpture, all over my pebbles on the top of the bubble tube and is now starting to get on the plants. I think the cause is the LED light which is pretty bright. The evidence to support it, is that the LED light sits above the pebble sculpture on which it started on and is by far the worse affected object in the biube. Any advice would be a real help as it is getting unsightly and I do not want the fish to get stressed. Check out the other topics on it and please comment on what you think. Thank you.

 

[Newbie_87]

Do you have any live plants in there? How many hours a day is the tank lit? Also, it could be that you have an over abundance of nutrients in the water - how often do you perform water changes & maintenance?

 

[Fishkeeper4567]

To answer all your questions I have no live plants in my tank and the tank is lit 24 7. However, it is meant to be. It is the intelligent LED light and it has a timer which goes through white light, dawn, dusk and moonlight. I carry out maintenance every 3 weeks. Every 3 weeks I clean my sculpture and a 1/3 water change is done. Every six weeks I do a water change and change the filter. It is a easy maintenance tank so it says. Thanks for helping.

 

[Newbie_87]

I'm pretty new to this myself but I'm guessing your water is pretty full of nutrients and the light is causing perfect conditions for algae to grow (there's also no competition for these nutrients or light with live plants). I don't really know what to suggest apart from stepping up the maintenance a little or possibly investing in an algae cleaner. There are chemical products available but it's up to you whether you want to introduce such things to your aquarium. Finding some algae eaters suitable for the aquarium is also a possible solution (I see you've already started a topic on this). Sure someone with some more experience will chip in soon

 

[Fishkeeper4567]

Thanks for the info. I am going to try to get a group of oto catfish.

 

[Newbie_87]

No problem, we were thinking the same when we get to it.