blue green algae again...

[nitrous]

well i know that blackouts are good for getting rid of my blue green algae in my 20 gallon tank but i wnat to know what will get rid of it for good and having it not come back.. tomarrow i will get a nitrate, kh, and ph reading for you. what cna i do and what do i need to get readings at to get no more blue green algae. grr i hate this stuff but the love of my tank looks overtake it ...somewhat

 

[bman]

How bad is it?

Since you are no stranger to this site you probably already know that algae usually forms when there is an imbalance in the tank; either fertilizers, lighting, CO2.

When my otos died, I started to see the stuff creeping up on me. A quick trip to the lfs to restock them and I see it is diminishing now. I don't know if you can have otos in a tank with cichlids though.

 

[Purrbox]

Another cause for BGA is insufficient circulation. If you've only got GBA in certain spots of your tank, and they are where there is less water flow, you may want to try redirecting the current and/or increasing it.

 

[malkore]

bottomed out nitrates has been the cause of the BGA I have had in my 20gal. 0ppm of NO3 is not good at all.

 

[nitrous]

ya the filter i have now is not the best hob filter but i dont want too much bubbles because of my co2. ill get some new readings today and i havent updated my profile info. now there is tetras in the tank and maybe an otto or two will go in there too.

 

[nitrous]

its not the nitrates because i checked them just now and it was at or around 10 ppm so that is okay so what else will cause blue green algae besides lack of filtration and what fish will eat it?

 

[newfound77951]

What kind of test kit do you have for nitrates? I was using a Tetra kit and it said I had 12.5 ppm every time I used it and I probably had 0ppm most of the time....I added nitrate and poof! -all my algae went away, especially the small patches of BGA I had. AP test kit gave me a totally different number when used side by side with the Tetra kit.

I don't know if any fish eat it. It's nasty stuff. I have bristlenose plecos, SAE's, otos and corys and none of them would touch it.

 

[nitrous]

i have the ap test kit and i did it all correctly, shook all the times correctly and now im seeing hair algae. what definciancy is causing all this trouble?

 

[Zezmo]

Real BGA, Cyano bacteria, is generally caused by low nitrates. Raising the nitrates, will not make it go away though it may stop its spread. In addition to blackout, or just physically removing it. You can use Maracyn (arythromycin). A course of that will kill and get rid of the BGA. Of course, it will mess up your tanks biological filtration (maybe), or harm plants, fish, or inverts (again a very big maybe). Also, it will not prevent the immediate return of the BGA if you do not fix the nutient problems that caused its outbreak to begin with.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Do you have anacharis? I was reading that if you have a bunch of anacharis, it gives off some kind of chemical that kills blue-green algae. Does anyone know if this is true? I saw it on a couple sites. And it's only blue-green algae that is affected, no other algae is affected by anacharis, according to what I read.

 

[resiak]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~buddendo/aquarium/redfield_eng.htm

 

[jcarlilesiu]

you can increase water movement with out sacrificing CO2 outgasing by utlizing powerheads

 

[nitrous]

i actually have a lot of anacharis that grows very well and i think the powerheads may be a lot for a small tank like this