I got lazy with my tank

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stevenht

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jul 26, 2016
Messages
676
Now I have BBA.......everywhere :nono::nono::nono:

I got back to dosing excel everyday, my weekly water changes, etc.

I even went as far as to spot treating Hydrogen Peroxide. It did help and some of the algae is turning gray in color. I just don't want to OD on accident and kill off my live stock.

I do have room for SAE in my tank but worried because I don't have a reputable dealer locally anymore, just chain stores like Petco. I don't want to end up with a group of CAE instead.

My tank has been running for over a year now so it's established but I guess some of the plants I bought, brought it in because I've never had this problem. It's pretty low tech but I'm concerned with my lighting. I have a Marineland something Plus so it's pretty good lighting and reaches the bottom of the tank very well for it being so deep (46 bowfront).

Any suggestions? I'm more of a diy person than buying chemicals and treating it that way. If fish will do the job, which ones? If a safe alternative does the job, then what is it? Or if it's just user error, then tell me what I'm doing wrong. :oops:

I want my tank back and with new plants arriving in the next few weeks, I don't want to add them and they get it too.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the novel
 
Hello steve...

Some algae is good for the tank. It's generally a sign you're keeping a healthy tank. You won't find a better water filter and livebearing fish generally like most kinds of algae. Platys and Swordtails are larger, hardy fish and will work on the algae.

Weekly maintenance is the best means of controlling algae. Large, weekly water changes will remove added nutrients that sustains algae. Fish foods high in phosphate can contribute to algae growth too.

Algae gives the tank a natural look, so I'd suggest keeping up on your water changes. Remove and replace most of the tank water every week, no slacking. Reduce the amount you feed the fish. They don't need much.

B
 
I like having the algae for my pleco and ottos to graze on. But it makes my plants look like crap And there is a lot of it.

I thought about swordtails and platys and have had really good luck in the past with them.

Thank you for that article coral!
 
BBA may be caused by excessive inorganic waste plus light. Yes, water changes will help. I run a high light tank and BBA often rears its ugly head.
I never bought into the low flow theory because I would see tufts of it on the output of my filters. I have spot treated with H2O2 with some success. Have not tried the 1-2 punch yet.
 
I'm continuing to spot treat every 24 hours with H2O2. I just don't have any high GPH powerheads or anything to get that insane flow through the tank.

Then I started to think, I have it worse on the right side of my tank than the left and was wondering if that's a sort of "dead spot" in my tank. I have reduced feeding and it looks like I have made a very small dent in the BBA but I have noticed it, so that's a start.

Maybe I do need some kind of powerhead to get even flow throughout the tank. I tried dropping food down the stream of my filter to see where it's the heaviest and it definitely wraps around the left side faster than the right side. It is of course off centered because of the 46 bowfront having the divider running right through the middle of the tank on top.

It's just puzzling to me. The light is centered perfectly in the tank so one side isn't getting more or less light than the other. I have been doing more frequent but small water changes ever 3 days, now I'm going back to weekly. I know it's not going away over night but I can't find out where the problem lies.
 
So I got the vacuum out today and got in between the crypt and I was sucking up huge chunks of algae. Idk if this mean it's dying off or it's getting even more out of control and growing on the substrate around the base of the plant.
 
I have multi colored gravel[natural like yours ] in my 180 and found the BBA prefers the black/darkest pieces of gravel if it chooses to grow there.
If it came up with out the gravel it was dead IMO.
When it grows on the sub it will attach just like it does on plant leaves and wood...
 
Yeah this looking like free floating that had settled in those spots
 
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