Algae

[steve5520]

I've had freshwater tanks in the past, and after several years of having just a reef tank, I decide to start them up again.

I currently have two 30 gals set up and running for maybe 5 or 6 months now. One has a Marineland Emperor 400 filter, the other a Whisper. I only have fish in one tank right now, but plants in both. I have a variey of species, all plants seem to be doing very well. The one with fish has some platys, 6 cory cats and a pleco.

I have been adding Excel and Flourish on a regular basis.

One has a Coralife light fixture with a 96 watt PC 6700k bulb. The other has a fixture with 2 30 watt Ultra Sun Trichromatic bulbs.

I am getting some type of algae that I've never seen before. It's hard to describe, stringy almost like a fiber. Sometimes it grows off a rock, other times it just get entwined in the plants. It's growing in both tanks.

I have been running the lights for around 11 hours a day.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. It's getting tiresome pulling this junk out of the tanks.

 

[Allivymar]

There's a good article on algae here: http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=9 . Great photos too. You should be able to ID your algae and find out what you'll need to do to rid the tank of it (I'm guessing staghorn). Good luck!

 

[steve5520]

Thanks for the reference to the article. From the pictures and descriptions, mine looks pretty much like Thread algae.

Maybe my first step should be to stop adding supplements until I figure out exactly how to control it. I'll have to read the label, but I'm thinking that Flourish adds IRON.

 

[Guest]

Flourish adds very little iron.