Help,Algea problem

[SAFFABOY]

I have an algea that has haunted me for the last year.I have tap water that i do my water changes with that has a ph of 7.5.

I dont know if this is a factor.I had this problem with 6 fluoro's in my tank lid and the same problem with 3.

Can anyone identify this algea and provide a solution.It has killed off most of my plants and i dont want to add more plants that will eventually also die.It seems to smother the older foliage.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/R ... 010122.jpg

[art_b]

It looks like black beard algae. Have a look around at this site http://aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/2006/ ... algae.html . It has lots of information on algae. I got rid of this algae by using fast growing plants and CO2. IMO, SAE does not help much unless you starve them.

[CrazDevil]

I had the exact same problem 2 weeks ago and I read somewhere in the forum SAE helped, bought two and it has been great since. Hope that helps.

[Tanksman]

It does look like black beard but the pic is not that clear. Is it slimy or furry? If it is black beard there are lots of people here who will agree that flourish excel is the best stuff to treat with. Usually double dosing is recommended but you might be able to trial it at normal rates as no one else seems to have trialled that.

[alanmin4304]

You need to get a balance between nutrient and light in order for the plant to grow well and starve the algae. Trial and error is the only way realy. Flourish encourages the plants and is expensive particularly when you need to do water changes to get rid of excess nitrate and phosphate. Cut back on food to a minimum and do regular water changes to strip nutrient. Cutting back on lights will starve the algae but the plants also. It can be a process, but good luck. Siamese algae eaters do help but you need the right ones and dont feed them. I got mine from Organisms.

[Plantman]

I second Alan suggestion. Balance is the key to a good plant growth.

another way of cutting down your usage of the excel is to take out a 1/4 or even 1/2 of the water from your tank. but made use there are still enough room for your fish to swim. becareful for discus as i heard that they do not like excel (someone correct me if i am wrong).

with 1/2 the water level, you can double dose at half the cost of excel.

this is only for 3 - 4 weeks and you can return back to normal when the algae is lowered.

[alanmin4304]

I double dosed with flourish and the discus had no problem. My guppies got suicidal though. Hard to put the blame as they tend to anyway.

[Warren]

Getting the balance right is pretty easy. It all comes down to measurement.

Read this very carefully:

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilize ... onlin.html

The principals these guys have come up with work very well. I've set up many planted tanks and used these guy's work as guidelines every time. I've found it to be a guaranteed way of making an almost algae free tank. What I mean by almost is - non-visible...

It's also very easy to make your own fertiliser at a very low price. 10 years ago I spent approx $70 on fertiliser chemicals and I've still got some left. I have had to spend another $40 over these years to get more trace-mix making a total of $110 to fertilise a 1200L heavily planted tank for 10 years. Works out at $11 a year compared to $20 a week to use LFS fertiliser (which didn't work as well).

Making your own also allows you to mix what best suits your plants. A little reseach into what each type of plant likes makes it easy to make the fine adjustments to the mix to maximise their growth.

Get an iron test kit. When the iron is sitting constant at 0.1ppm you've got it right (you'll need small daily or twice daily doses to acheive this).

CO2 is required if you want to give the plants the edge over the algae. You keep adding more CO2 until you have 20-25ppm of CO2 at the end of the day (another test kit).

It's certainly not rocket science and I guarantee if you follow the guidelines set down by Sears and Conlin you will have success.

[Warren]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, black beard algae does not like CO2... That's why Flourish Excel works so well...

Simply adding a CO2 system means you have a constant source of CO2 available.

[DubbieBoy]

Only problem with the Sears-Conlin report was that they pretty much concluded that algal blooms were caused by phosphates with the result that this very essential nutrient has been omitted from products and ferts ever since.

Current thinking is that phosphate is not the baddie it was made out to be (I'm talking about heavily planted tanks here, where different rules apply than to mainly 'fish' tanks; phosphates, or most other nutrients for that matter in less heavily planted tanks probably do promote algae) and should rather be appropriately dosed just like any other fert.

What the report did demonstrate was that adding plant ferts in ample supply could allow the higher order plants out outcompete algae and prevent its occurrence.

[Warren]

This is true, but it's not what I'm meaning. It simply shows what is required to maintain a planted aquarium and describes very clearly what nutrients are important. It's a very good education for anyone wanting to keep plants and have the knowledge of how to acheive the correct balance. I see the issue of phosphates as secondary and the need for the correct balance as the major focus of the article. Phosphate is a problem element for many tanks as they're either overfed, too dirty (filled with phosphate producing organics) or have too much phosphate in the water supply. What's most important is getting everything else correctly balanced to effectively use what phosphate is present and in many tanks in excess...