Problem Alage

[Spink]

Have read the posts but need extra help!

I have 2 algae problems :evil: - one is the long dark green stringy type of algae; the other is more like a very dark puff ball alage.

I have tried doing the overdose on Flourish Excell, and seems to be having no effect yet...but it's only been a week. Can anyone tell me that they've had success with this and how long it actually takes?

Also, with the weird puff ball type stuff, how do I get rid of this? It seems to come out from a point on the glass or on rocks, pots etc, and its like a fluffy poof just stuck there. Tried scrubbing it off, but it is very stubborn and reappears after a while. Specs: 4 foot tank, 3 lights the length of the tank, 2 are standard daylight types bulbs, and the other I replaced with a Power Glo or special plant light. Lights on from approx 7:30am to maybe 10pm (they go on later at weekends if I sleep in!).

Any ideas.....

[Zev]

More questions for you:

What filtration/water flow do you have?

Do you use ferts, if so what and how much?

How often do you do water changes and what percentage are you swapping out?

Does the puffy stuff look like a dark green cotton ball?

How many of fish do you have in there and what sorts?

[StarFish]

Hey just thought I would add although not 100% but you may wanna look at not having your lights on so long, maybe reduce the time to 11 - 12 hours a day, we usually have our light running from 2.30pm to 12.30am.

As there is enough natural daylight coming through the windows but not bright enough to stimulate too much algae growth.

You also need to quarantine or atleast double check things like plants and wood when you add it to the tank, because you may have introduced a more obnoxious variety of algae to your tank.

I have heard of people dipping their plants and ornaments/wood etc in a soloution before adding them but I wouldnt do this without researching all the info first.

I hope this has been helpful somewhat.

P.s We use a cheap $5 timer for the lights, so that we dont have that problem of forgetting to turn then off or on etc

[smidey]

i used flourish excell to get rid of my BBA, did not double dose & it only took 3 days for the algae to turn white.

[Heir]

I had an algae problem on an ornament I got given from a friend.

The goldfish chewed that up quickly and now its maintained by my shrimps, snails and borneo suckers

Though your tank is tropical?

Do you have any fish in there that eat algae as part of their diet?

[Spink]

Ok, in general, I have no idea what the water flow rate is, is it what came with the unit - sorry :oops: . Haven't used fertilizers since the algae kicked in, but have a bottle of flourish which i used to dose once a week. Water changes, in my 250 litre tank I probably change 50 litres out every weekend, Tropical tank with guppies, danios, one giant golden barb (inherited) 1 odd killi fish, 1 Siamese female (R>I>P Fook Me ), 3 peppered cory's, 2 Bumblebee gobies, 6 Sparkling Gourami's, I skunk loach, and one GIANT sucky loach (CAE I think) which has been affectionately named Big Meany Munter by my daughter, and he is as useless as tits on a bull! He's over the whole i eat algae thing! :roll: Timer for the lights might be a great idea actually, don't know why I didn't think of the before as we use them in my daughters room for her night light. My tank is in a fairly dim part of the house that doesn't get any direct sunlight at all, and not much normal natural light. I did try not using the plant light, and I usually turn the 2 daylight bulbs off for a few hours before bed - thats how my fishies know it's dinner time and all come rushing up to the top of the tank waiting for their food! Puff ball stuff does kinda look like green cotton wool I guess....Short of striping all the plants from my tank, buying new ones, and boiling anything else with algae on it, what should i do?

[StarFish]

I definately think the amount of light could be part of the problem, Timers are excellent things I think you need to try reducing the amount of light your tank gets, esp as you say its not getting much natural light, maybe you should even try using one less bulb as well.

You can get some stuff to kill off algae, but this can be a bit harmful to your fish so you will have to read up about it before you go ahead with it.

Reduce the amount of time and the intensity of your light, give it another good clean, and get some loaches to keep on top of things.

In my opinion my plec is useless as an algae eater lol, even before we started feeding him cucumber.

I had one loach a few years back and he was awesome.

[Zev]

Hmmm... we seem to have an Austin Powers fan here! I am pleased to see your daughter didn't name the CAE after the large red headed character from the last two Austin Powers movies!

The reason I asked about the water flow is that I have found when this is too low (usually from not cleaning the intake or the filter regularly) then the algae starts to become noticeable.

It looks like you are a doing 20% water change per week, which is fine.

Your lighting calculates out to approx 90 watts if they are T8s and you have them all on at once for 14 1/2 hours per day. I do not think this is an excessive amount of light, we have a 28w light going 24hrs a day over a 10 litre fry tank, which has Riccia and Stargrass in it, and it does not have an algae problem.

We have two foot tank that periodically gets both of the types of algae you have, when it gets too bad I trim the most algae covered plants and pull as much of the cotton wool stuff off as I can and then do a 30 - 40% water change for a couple of weeks, it seems to fix itself after a while.

We keep away from the chemical solutions, whilst they may kill the algae, they are not solving the problem of why you have it getting out of hand in the first place, it's like brushing away an annoying spiders web on your car wing mirror, but not removing the spider - next day the web is back again.

Even the snails aren't immune to alage!

Could you post a pic? Would be good to see what sort of plants and stuff you have in there.