Rampant BB algae and cyano, help!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

MaggstAa

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
Messages
84
Location
Haarlem, Netherlands
For a couple months I’ve had issues with black brush algae and cyano, and it’s growing rampant and thickly all over the tank no matter how thoroughly I clean it. Green algae is also growing quicker, but the BB algae is out of control. The last two times I cleaned the tank I pressure washed the decor and replaced almost all of the water and still it comes back immediately and covers everything in thick layers, and it’s nearly impossible to scrub off. I have lived in the same place for 2.5 years so the water source hasn’t changed (to my knowledge); when I check the water levels, the chlorine levels are a tiny bit high when I put in fresh water after cleaning but nothing crazy, but even when the rest of the water levels are in the appropriate ranges, it doesn’t make a difference. Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening and any solutions to get rid of it or at least slow/cut down the growth?

FYI: 48 gallon cold water tank, goldfish (no recent new additions), average temperature 72 F (its been that way for years and we can’t get it any lower in the summertime so we keep it constant year round to avoid fluctuation; they’re used to it and this has been the case before the algae epidemic).
 
1) Reduce light to ma 6 hours a day, and dim the light down if you can.
2) Ensure no sunlight is reaching the tank.
3) Remove all organics from the tank (mulm/crud in the gravel/sand plus clean the filters out every other week).
4) Increase water change size + frequency.
5) Load up the tank with floating plants.
6) Increase flow in the tank
7) Don't slack on the elbow grease, manual maintenance is a great tool.

Practice these and it should get easier.

also try:

1) Blackout the tank for a week.
2) Chemiclean for the cyano.
3) Nuke the tank with the algae "one - two punch"
4) Ensure you are properly treating the water, ANY chlorine is BAD
 
Lights shouldn't be on for more than 2 hours at a time. I'm guessing your lights are on for about 12 hours straight every day.
 
Thanks for the tips! The lights are on for 7-8 hours a day and there is no sunlight directly reaching the tank, but I’ll try blacking it out after the next clean/change and see if that helps and stock up on some floating plants. The 1-2 punch treatment looks intense but may be what is necessary, I’ll do some more research. Regarding the chlorine, are there any additives I can put in to bring it down? With water changes I put water conditioner in but nothing else.
 
If you have no live plants, start by turning your lights off entirely, except when you want to look at your fish. Restricting your lights on time to a couple hours at a time will help prevent it in the future. A $5 outlet timer makes this approach very simple.

Would recommend treating for it, light control only takes months for it to die.
 
Seachem Prime is a good product for helping with Chlorine/Chloramines in tap water but also does a lot more
Seachem - Prime

I just did a Cyano scrub and lights out for 3 days on my nano SW reef and so far I am impressed. Light feeding and skipped one day and fed very late on the last.

You have likely high organics because GF are such heavy, and sloppy eaters.

Purigen is also a useful addition
https://seachem.com/purigen.php

Both of these products are top things I recommend because they work really well. I use/have them for all my tanks. There are other similar products but I have not tried them.
 
Back
Top Bottom