# How to remove blue green algae (Cyanobacteria) of your aquarium



## king_acuarios (May 27, 2015)

Hi! I was recommended to using glutaraldehyde for algae and this has gone very well in one of my aquariums. The treatment consists of using 5 ml of glutaraldehyde per 10 gallons of aquarium water at night for a period of two weeks. The glutaraldehyde that can be used is the medicinal one, or also come products specifically for freshwater aquariums that containing it, as is Seachem Flourish Excel and Api CO2 Booster, this last is the one I'm using. I've been one weeks already using it and the difference was really amazing. The glutaral, in addition to eliminate any type of algae including those you have in your aquarium, also provides CO2 to your plants. Please note, that there is one product of glutaral used as an industrial disinfectant, this can not be used for aquariums because that would kill the fish. This type comes mixed with other chemicals and detergents that affect to much the fish. Please don't use that kind of glutaral. If you want, you can find out more info about the glutaraldehyde on the internet but I really told you everything you need to know. Thanks for your attention guys, have a nice day! I forgot something! If you buy in a pharmacy, it has to be glutaraldehyde of 2%, no more please. There is one that came from 50% for example, that would kill the fish because it is too much amount, so it's better to buy the Seachem flourish excel or Api Co2 booster to secure that it safe to fish and invertebrates for freshwater aquariums. Thanks for read my post. Here I upload two videos of my tank, in this videos I want to show you it before and after the treatment. Regards.

Before use the treatment with glutaraldehyde:





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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Thanks for posting about your experiences.


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## Philip (Nov 28, 2013)

Just add some cories. They eat that kind ò algae super fast


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## wreckinball (Dec 3, 2010)

I also recently had a blue/green algae breakout. I tried scooping and syphoning it out for a few weeks and it would just come back with a vengeance. My solution was to do one last scoop and syphon of the main patches of algae, and then blacked-out my tank for 3 days. I have to say that it was incredibly effective! My plants (just some vallisneria) showed no visible damage or stress, and the algae was totally eradicated. My discus did act a little stressed out when the lights came on the last day (next time I will let them come on in the morning like usual instead of turning them back on in the middle of the day) but only for a few hours. I liked this so much that I'm considering doing a maintenance black-out every couple of months. I do have to stress though, that at the end of the black-out my water did have a noticeable smell and required a 50% water change. As I usually do a 30% change weekly this was not an issue for me. I also forgot to mention that prior to the black-out I did clean my filter and replaced the floss. 
As far as cories eating blue/green, that was not my experience. Even my SAE wouldn't touch it. In fact they would only eat the brown algae in the patches where the blue/green hadn't taken over yet.
Also forgot to mention that I removed a filter bag full of phosguard that I had forgotten about in my filter for too long. I'm hoping that it leaching phosphates back into the water was the source of my outbreak…. if not I'll have to figure out what else led to the outbreak to avoid it again.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

Philip said:


> Just add some cories. They eat that kind ò algae super fast


Oh? I've never seen my cories eat BGA whenever I get a break out. I just pipe a little H2O2 at the area and leave the filters off for 10 minutes or so.

In the past when I had a wide spread bloom I used tank wide dosing of H2O2 and Excel to kill BGA. Ensuring you don't bottom out on nitrates will also minimize BGA blooms.


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