# Getting Frustrated with Algae!



## t-bore (Apr 21, 2010)

My 50G tank i have been battling this algae for a while. This pic is of the algae on the front of the tank mixed with the hair grass.









This pic is of the water outflow tube covered in the algae









This is a whole tank shot I took Last night









This tank has been running since March 5 this year with 2 angels that spawn all the time, cardinals, rummynose, rasboras, amano shrimp, ottos

I run 96watts of 6700k light on for 7 hours a day
CO2 injected through an inline reactor 30 min before the lights go on and off 45 min before the lights shut off. My drop checker reads yellow with a slight tint of light green and the plants all pearl in the evening
I EI dose 
CSM+B 1/8 tsp tue thurs sat
KNO3 1/2 tsp mon wed fri
K2SO4 1/8 tsp mon wed fri
KH2PO4 1/8 tsp mon wed fri
On sunday I dose nothing and do a 50% water change
I also run an air stone each night from 10pm to 8 am

Any ideas what I can do to get rid of it?
I am debating on switching the reactor out to a ceramic diffuser instead because when i do my filter maintenance it is a pain in the but to get the water flowing through the filter and reactor again. Also thinking of getting a 65w t5ho light instead to try and see if it helps instead of my 96 watt one i use now.


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## Acipenser (Apr 21, 2010)

Maybe you can spray the leaves with metricide when you drain water during changes ? or keep the co2 on at night ?


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

That looks like BBA caysed by low Co2 and high lighting.
try cranking your co2 up as high as the fish can stand and changing down to 65w T5Ho light.
also may need to manualy remove some.


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## couch (Apr 22, 2010)

I have had great luck with American Flag fish for removing algae. SAE's, ottos not so much and Amanos. The problem with any of them is if you feed them too much regular food they will not eat the algae.

I have found that any planted tank that I have had that has no algae problems is at least 2 years old.


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## lednail (Apr 22, 2010)

pick out as much you can, bleech you water outflow tube, and cut back the # of hours of light to 4 hours


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## MadgicBug (Apr 22, 2010)

It looks like BBA. Maybe too much phospate\nitrate from the fish poo\food on top of your dosing.

Quickway is metricide or Excel and do target cleaning over the span of a couple of weeks as this will help out with Carbon concentration in the tank. Not many livestock will touch that as I take it there will be left over food from feeding.


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## t-bore (Apr 21, 2010)

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, i cleaned a lot of it out today and rescaped the tank. I bumped up the co2 a bit and am looking for a lower wattage light.


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## Acipenser (Apr 21, 2010)

I just got my first BBA outbreak, I think you could keep the light you have just lessen the photo period.


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

I have found that it helps to break the daylight period in two, with an off time of 3 or 4 hours between the on periods. I read somewhere that the algae has a hard time adjusting to this. Not sure if this is true, but it seems to work for me in my non co2 tank.


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## Bien Lim (Apr 21, 2010)

just increase ur co2 a bit more, its best to do this when ur off work so that u can watch the tank just incase. even if u get the right ppm it will take some time before the BBA starve to death, so if u want a quick fix for now just bleach the heavily infected hardware and spot dose with excel while trying to get the right ppm(co2)

thanks


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