Wblaze
Members
So in my 55 the brown algae is one but now I have super growth of green algae. Is the best solution for it just to get a Pleco? Also, is a clown loach best fo uneaten food?
Leffler817
CCA Members
If you want to use a pleco, go with the Ancistrus or bristle nose types. You could also use Nerites which are very good at cleaning tanks. Rachel "Msjinkzd" has a bunch of varieties. The only complaint about them is they leave little white eggs throughout the tank. They will not hatch but aren't the prettiest thing.
Wblaze
Members
Can they survive with mbuna?
Leffler817
CCA Members
I think so. I keep them with Tangs and they are fine. Good thing about them is they aren't expensive, like $2-3 each.
mscichlid
Founder
reduce or raise your lights.
hotwingz
Members
Bristle nose! Those guys are amazing! They dont ever stop cleaning!!! I had a tank that hadnt had a cleaner fish in it for a while tons of aglea on the walls that wouldnt scrape off. Within tue first couple hours she had it all cleaned up!
Sent from my PG86100 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
Sent from my PG86100 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
T
tug
Guest
Reducing the amount of light makes good sense. Don't the aforementioned species prefer less light, where algae is less likely to grow.
What are you lighting your tank with? Any pictures?
What are you lighting your tank with? Any pictures?
Wblaze
Members
I will take some pics tonight. I have a Deep Blue HO T5 (1 10k ans 1 actinic)
Hawkman2000
Members
I've been wanting to get my hands on a male peppermint pleco. I have read on the internet that they eat more forms of algea than other types of plecos. They also get a little bigger so they would work better with larger american cichlids. Of course, they are from brasil so I don't think keeping tham with african would work. My ABN does well with my jewels so a bristle nose would prob do the trick. Wont eat the brown algea though.
As far as loaches go, my yoyos make sure that their isnt a scrape of food to be found anywhere
As far as loaches go, my yoyos make sure that their isnt a scrape of food to be found anywhere
londonloco
Members
+2 on this. I had a algae problem in my 125g for a few months after I first set it up. I kept after the algae, removing it after every weekly wc, added nerites and 3 bn's (from Rachel
) Which helped, but it wasn't until after I raised my lights above the tank did the algae subside almost completely. This tank has turned out to be my prettiest tank, 99% algae free.
mdlnewman
Members
If you have some old media in your filters you should look at replacing it also. Media will get compacted with phosphates and nitrates and give you hell.
My discus tank was this way originally, slime algae everywhere, used FX5 with old media. Slowly replaced media and now no problem to speak of. I have bright lights and plants also.
My discus tank was this way originally, slime algae everywhere, used FX5 with old media. Slowly replaced media and now no problem to speak of. I have bright lights and plants also.
Shane
Members
I do not think that adding algae-eating fish is ever a solution to algae problems. Algae problems are a sign of a light/nutrient imbalance that will never be rectified by adding more fish.
Algae need light and food to survive, so are best controlled by changing one, or both, of these factors.
Light: There are several ways to change the light. You can change the intensity (watts), duration (amount of time they are on in any 24 hours period), spectrum, and/or amount of ambient light the tank receives. Ambient light may also be seasonal, so is more likely to cause problems in the summer months.
Food: You can change how much goes in (by altering how much and/or how often you feed) and how much goes out (frequency and volume of water changes). Filtration and live plants can also help remove food to a smaller extent.
A "blackout" treatment (a common suggestion) may lessen the amount of algae for a time, but will not solve the root cause. Eventually the algae will just return.
Without knowing more about your lighting (intensity, duration, and ambient light) and your aquarium maintenance schedule (frequency/volume of water changes, filtration, and plants) it is hard to give specific advice.
Tanks without plants generally only need a few hours of artificial light a day and the wattage can be quite low (about 1 watt per gallon) since it is only for viewing purposes. So for a tank with no (or only very low light) plants it is often easier to change the lighting parameters.
In heavily planted tanks the lighting is tougher to change as the plants need it. In these cases it is usually better to lessen the food (nutrients) available to algae through large and frequent water changes (about 40-50% weekly).
-Shane
Algae need light and food to survive, so are best controlled by changing one, or both, of these factors.
Light: There are several ways to change the light. You can change the intensity (watts), duration (amount of time they are on in any 24 hours period), spectrum, and/or amount of ambient light the tank receives. Ambient light may also be seasonal, so is more likely to cause problems in the summer months.
Food: You can change how much goes in (by altering how much and/or how often you feed) and how much goes out (frequency and volume of water changes). Filtration and live plants can also help remove food to a smaller extent.
A "blackout" treatment (a common suggestion) may lessen the amount of algae for a time, but will not solve the root cause. Eventually the algae will just return.
Without knowing more about your lighting (intensity, duration, and ambient light) and your aquarium maintenance schedule (frequency/volume of water changes, filtration, and plants) it is hard to give specific advice.
Tanks without plants generally only need a few hours of artificial light a day and the wattage can be quite low (about 1 watt per gallon) since it is only for viewing purposes. So for a tank with no (or only very low light) plants it is often easier to change the lighting parameters.
In heavily planted tanks the lighting is tougher to change as the plants need it. In these cases it is usually better to lessen the food (nutrients) available to algae through large and frequent water changes (about 40-50% weekly).
-Shane
T
tug
Guest
Any luck? Are you still staring at pea soup?
Shane makes some excellent points. Non-planted tanks are fairly strait forward in terms of algae control. Too much light, over feeding or over stocking, insufficient water flow/circulation, dirty filters, low O2 levels are possible culprits but without any information it would be hard to say what is really going to help. Dusko Bojic has one of the better articles I've read on algae, for both non-planted and planted tanks. http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/
Shane makes some excellent points. Non-planted tanks are fairly strait forward in terms of algae control. Too much light, over feeding or over stocking, insufficient water flow/circulation, dirty filters, low O2 levels are possible culprits but without any information it would be hard to say what is really going to help. Dusko Bojic has one of the better articles I've read on algae, for both non-planted and planted tanks. http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/
Avatar
Plenipotentiary-at-large
Say what?
I don't know about phosphates but how in blazes does a filter loaded with denitrifying bacteria get "compacted with nitrates"? Not buying it unless there's a cogent explanation....
I don't know about phosphates but how in blazes does a filter loaded with denitrifying bacteria get "compacted with nitrates"? Not buying it unless there's a cogent explanation....
mdlnewman
Members
Well since nitrates are eaten by anaerobic bacteria, not sure how these denitrifying(ie those that eat nitrites) matter one bit.
Avatar
Plenipotentiary-at-large
Well...
So you're assuming that the nitrates that are the breakdown/waste products of bacterial action remain in the filter, yes? Why would these nitrates be "compacted" in the filter as opposed to being vectored into the water column as dissolved substances? Some mechanism would have to bind them to the compacted/accumulated solid waste/particulates to keep them from being carried back into the tank. In my larger (field) experience, waste excreted into moving water does not stay there...
So you're assuming that the nitrates that are the breakdown/waste products of bacterial action remain in the filter, yes? Why would these nitrates be "compacted" in the filter as opposed to being vectored into the water column as dissolved substances? Some mechanism would have to bind them to the compacted/accumulated solid waste/particulates to keep them from being carried back into the tank. In my larger (field) experience, waste excreted into moving water does not stay there...
mdlnewman
Members
Ah I see change the subject. I may be wrong about the nitrates building up in the media. I only have the argument that when I took out old media my cyno went away. This could be completely phosphate build up and not nitrate build up. Since I didn't have anything tested.
Avatar
Plenipotentiary-at-large
No, same subject, thought the follow-up response made that clear. And I never said you were wrong, only that I didn't understand any reason why it should be so, and in the absence of such, was inclined to be skeptical.
Happy to accept your own experience as evidentiary. Have a couple tanks with some serious/chronic algae issues, will do nitrate/phosphate tests when I get back, and try cleaning the media as well as doing water changes and see if I get a similar result.
Have a couple tanks that have begun to grow thin layers of surface algae - sort of like single giant layering of a macro-organism that can periodically mostly be removed by simply hooking one's fingers into it and pulling it out as a strand. Assume this is from too much NO3/PO4. Anyone else growing this stuff?
T
tug
Guest
Sorry if this train has run off it's tracks.
Do you mean cyanobacteria (BGA)?
Assuming it is, in planted tanks maintaining nitrates between 10-20ppm actually helps fix the problem. While in non-planted tanks it would be wiser to remove any NO3 with water changes. I do not dose KNO3 or PO4 much to non CO2 planted tanks, some folks do not at all, and they (I) do not get BGA in these tanks......but it does seem associated with it and poor plant growth in general.
What does seem to play a roll is high DOC levels and why IMHO, dirty filters are one of the causes. High DOC means the tank has high organic loading and higher oxygen demand, or BOD, biological oxygen demand.
With water changes, a good wet/dry filter, this issue usually goes away. The fix simply could mean more current, better nitrification of waste, more O2, less DOC/BOD in the water etc. This helps no matter what issues may or may not be present.
If cleaning the filter, improving water circulation, vacuuming the substrate and manually removing stuff doesn't fix the problem, it might be time to try a strong oxidizer like H2O2 or Potassium permanganate (KMnO4). This would reduce the underlying problem of high dissolved organic material. To be clear, in “clean” environments dosing H2O2 more than once every 4-hours may be problematic.
Assuming it is BGA, the only other thing I can suggest would be EM or a 3 day blackout. But that approach will not address the underlying cause. Some people with nice tanks have had small patches of BGA for years without it blooming or causing problems. I had it once in my substrate on the side of the tank facing the window. Better filtration and water flow seemed to help as well as a little tape along the glass to block the light. I could never get rid of it completely but it stopped it from spreading and reduced it mesurably. Dosing NO3 and PO4 for the plants did not seem to have an adverse effect.
Do you mean cyanobacteria (BGA)?
Assuming it is, in planted tanks maintaining nitrates between 10-20ppm actually helps fix the problem. While in non-planted tanks it would be wiser to remove any NO3 with water changes. I do not dose KNO3 or PO4 much to non CO2 planted tanks, some folks do not at all, and they (I) do not get BGA in these tanks......but it does seem associated with it and poor plant growth in general.
What does seem to play a roll is high DOC levels and why IMHO, dirty filters are one of the causes. High DOC means the tank has high organic loading and higher oxygen demand, or BOD, biological oxygen demand.
With water changes, a good wet/dry filter, this issue usually goes away. The fix simply could mean more current, better nitrification of waste, more O2, less DOC/BOD in the water etc. This helps no matter what issues may or may not be present.
If cleaning the filter, improving water circulation, vacuuming the substrate and manually removing stuff doesn't fix the problem, it might be time to try a strong oxidizer like H2O2 or Potassium permanganate (KMnO4). This would reduce the underlying problem of high dissolved organic material. To be clear, in “clean” environments dosing H2O2 more than once every 4-hours may be problematic.
Assuming it is BGA, the only other thing I can suggest would be EM or a 3 day blackout. But that approach will not address the underlying cause. Some people with nice tanks have had small patches of BGA for years without it blooming or causing problems. I had it once in my substrate on the side of the tank facing the window. Better filtration and water flow seemed to help as well as a little tape along the glass to block the light. I could never get rid of it completely but it stopped it from spreading and reduced it mesurably. Dosing NO3 and PO4 for the plants did not seem to have an adverse effect.
Scorp1us
Members
Back to plecos... I heard BNs require drift wood for rasping on. If my 3 are any evidence, they definitely like that I have drift wood in the tank. Not only is it completely algae free, but there is always one on it.
