Feed them once a day?, or Once every other day?

[JamesMJ2]

I have a tank full of green water, and I am trying to get rid of the microalgae. One of the ways is to starve it of course, so I was wondering if I switch from feeding once a day, to once every other day will my fish suffer? I generally feed them Tetra Flake and some Blood Worms together. I have 12 fish, the breeds are in my sig.

[e-cat]

feeding them every other will be no problem for your fish.

I actually feed my fish every other day, and sometimes I skip a few days if they look bloated. [My Gouramis bloat when they eat algae wafers].

I also only give bloodworms once a week. I always thought they were a "treat".

[Allivymar]

High levels of nutrients are definitely one of the causes of algae blooms. High light levels are as well; whats the lighting on the tank? Does it get any sort of sunlight as well?

Diatomic filters are really the best to clear the tank if you are looking for a mechanical means.

What are your water parameters? Are your nitrates really high? Generally its high phosphates which encourage algae blooms; might be something to look into.

And no, your fish won't starve. If they're healthy, they can go for around a week without feedings. I'd also go with Daisy's suggestion and cut down on the frozen bloodworm feedings unless you are conditioning your angels for breeding.

[JamesMJ2]

Well what most likely caused the outbreak was the Lamp I have. The bulb that came with the lamp was a 50/50 half 10,000k and half actinic. My timer gives the tank 8hrs of "sunlight". I havn't done a test in a few days but at last check my stats for the water were... [acronym:91560a1e88="Measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions"]ph[/acronym:91560a1e88] 6.8 Nitrites 0ppm Ammonia 0ppm [acronym:91560a1e88="General Hardness"]GH[/acronym:91560a1e88] 71.6ppm [acronym:91560a1e88="Carbonate Hardness"]KH[/acronym:91560a1e88] 35.8ppm. Will do on the bloodworms, I have tendancy to spoil my fish. I wanted to vary their diet though. Oh and I have been changing 25% of my water weekly to keep nitrates down.

[TankGirl]

It sounds like you have quite a bit of fish in there, for a 20-[acronym:8e31fab299="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:8e31fab299], and you may be overstocked. There may be excess nutrients in the water purely from the fish waste, and the best solution might be to remove some of the fish. I think 2 angels would be plenty for this tank, unless they are wee babies, just for starters. The clown loaches potentially reach 9 or 10 inches (but I hear they are slow growers) so you will need to be thinking about moving them, as well. If this is a common pleco it will get huge, as well, and produce a great deal of waste. They sell these very small, so yours might be a tiny one right now, but I just see a potential problem here.

[JamesMJ2]

Actually it's funny you mention this.. I am working on getting a 46 gallon bow front. It's actually what I am doing right this moment. On topic though two of the angels are small the other two are large. Pleco is medium size at the moment. I am familiar with how big they get, but this one is a slow grower. Should have the big tank before he's too big for his territory. I would like to get rid of the Platy,Red Velvet, and the Gold molly. Any takers in the Orange County area PM me.

[TankGirl]

Well I think that is the source of your problem, and it sounds like you are well aware of it! Once you get your big tank set up I believe your troubles will resolve. Until then, frequent water changes, maybe bumping up to every 3 days, should help any overload of nutrients. I resolved a nasty algae problem in a 10gal with this regimen and gradually was able to cut back to once a week.

[JamesMJ2]

Cool. I appreciate the help, everyone included. Now off to make a post about the 46gal.