HELP PLEASE ALGAE ASAP

[fishaddict]

OK im sick and tired of this algae crap, although i think i now the cause of it this time. I stated before that my tank was being over run but that was nothing compared to this. It seems mostly to be spot algae covering all four sides that i can see and maybe even the bottom. I even have that bright green stringy one attached to my powerhead and the filters spray bar. Also i have like dark brown and black algae on the powerhead and a little on the plants.

I used to leave lights on for about 9 hours with live plants and give them two ml fluorish twice a week. I didnt have a problem then with 64 watts on a 55. A feeding once a day also. Hardly anything visible.

Now i leave for a eleven day vacation and everything gets all screwy. I think my first mistake was and im sure people will back me up on it was putting in an automatic feeder and then also dumping in two of those slow release ones. I put in two 14 day ones and one 7 day one just because it had tubifex worms. My guess is that it fed them to much. There was no fluorish added to the tank during this time. The lights however were on for 12 hours or so. Maybe a little less my timer is accurate to the halfhour id say. Everything else stayed the same.

Im happy to say that all my fish survived and seemed to have gotten bigger. Maybe im wrong. While on vacation i realised i couldve dumped ammonia and nitrites into the tank by adding all that extra food. Nothing tested though but im going to change water on sunday.

Does anyone have any ideas on adding anything. I have those algae be gone tablets or something like that. I also have snail b gone if that might help. Anything short of scrubbing the whole thing over. That might tke awhile. I also have live plants so im not sure if i could black out the tank. Im also not really overfeeding them. Oh and more fish really arent an option. I suppose more plants might be though if that could help.

Thanks for any help


CRAPPY ALGAE ILL GET YA ONE DAY

 

[fishboy]

lol, well with most algae problems are caused by three components, too much or two little light, too many nutrients and not enough plants to absorb them, and overfeeding. So lets start with the light, so you say you have 64 watts over 55, so that come to 1.2(rounded). Not like that is a whole lot of light and this can be the cause of you brown algae you see in the back. Try to add a little more lighting and then the brown algae will disappear. To take care of some of the other algae you can also cut back on lighting to say 6-7 hours a day, or if it is really bad do a black out.

You most likely do not have any fast growing bunch plants in there right? I would suggest that you get some Hygrophila Polysperma, some water wisteria, and/or other fast growing stem plants. Why? because these fast growing plants are like sponges and will absorb the necessary nutrients needed for algae to grow, which will slowly kill it. I would also cut back on the nutrients you introduce to the tank, maybe once a week.

Overfeeding kinda goes with the above. When you overfeed nitrates and other components algae needs to grow, so just try to siphon all the leftover debri and do some water changes.

If none of the above work you can also get some fish and invertabrates that will eat algae. Fish such as Ottocinclus, Amano shrimp, American flag fish, and just regular ole' plecos will get the job done. The shrimp and flag fish will take care of the hairy algae you see on your plants, the ottocinclus love to eat brown algae, and plecos, well plecos will basically eat any algae with the exception of the beard and string algae you seem to have right now. However, I advise not to ever use any chemical such as Algone or any of the such because they can harm your fish and plants.

Anyway Good luck with the ever going battle against the evil green( or brown in this case) algae,
Daniel

 

[fishaddict]

Thanks I actually do have one bunch of hygrophilia growing and indeed it jumped up in the week i was gone but slowly seems to be losing the battle against algae. Im going to scrub it off tomrrow and buy more bunches because they actually look pretty good in my tank. One other plant moneywort or some other wort kind of plant, very nice green, small lleaves on it also seems to be losing but i will cut down on the light and will try and scrub both them and the tank. Im due for a water change its been about two weeks and there is some nasty lookin crap on the bottom of the tank.

Thanlks again hopefully in the next few weeks i can get my tank looking kind of normal again.