My Algae Playbook (After last years experimenting)

[jarrod0987]

DISCLAIMER:
This is info based on experiments I ran and documented over the past year. They were observation stage quick and dirty experiments. Not proper controlled scientific studies. A person could try it for them-self much cheaper then I can do those large, multiple tank experiments.

The following will be, I hope, a super short and right to the point strategy guide on dealing with FW algae. It is based on much testing and trying to cause various types of algae I grew then tried to defeat on purpose this year. It is just what worked and did not work for me. Others will have different experiences. Algae is a 2 part battle. Removing what is there is part of it. Keeping it gone is very much the same strategies as preventing it in the first place.

For Algae in General.

Light
No light = no algae. Too much light = green stain and fuzz algae no matter what. Try to find a balance.
8 hours is probably way too much for a fish only system. Try 4 or less IMO. Dim vs very bright is better.
4 days of darkness will usually not do much. It takes more like 30. WC is a must during this time or the water will get putrid.

WC
Water changes to mater by keeping the nutrients from getting sky high and causing a major outbreak but they are not a cure all. If you already have reasonable levels of Nitrate and Phosphate then WC will not likely help any more.

Now lets get specific

Brown Diatom

Comes on it's own to every new tank with light.
Comes after lights on weather tank cycled or not.
Dies off eventually but may take months.
Oto Cinclus loves this stuff and he is cheap and fast. Don't add to many because they will starve.
Oto needs green algae in his diet to stay fat and alive. Drift wood can help with this.
Rachel O' Leary says Oto does better in large groups. I keep 1 or 2 in small tanks so there will be enough food.
Once it is gone it stays gone.

Green Stain/Fuzz

With enough light this type comes and stays no mater normal amount of Nitrate and Phosphate you have.
Until I got them down into levels lower then 0.01 ppm ( I have tests for that) it did not die off.
If I had fish in the tank this is not possible to achieve. Just adjust light and use something like snails and SAE to keep it under control.

Green Hair
I tried everything to get this stuff to grow on purpose. The only thing that ever worked was adding Urea. That means fish pee. Rosy Barbs got rid of it very fast. There are other fish that will too. I found out just using the sand or gravel as your bio filter works for keeping the ammonia down to safe levels but traces of ammonia are still detectable. Say 0.04 ppm. So I suspect Urea would hang around too. Increasing the bio media got rid of the trace and making sure you have good aeration would help also. My current view is to keep that urea breaking down to nitrate as fast as you can with good bio filtration and aeration. Using the right algae eaters to get rid of it. 30 days of darkness wiped out 95% of it but some survived. 4 days did nothing. Rosy Barbs made a fair amount it go away in 24 hours. I was shocked.

Green Spot

If the light is too bright and. the phosphate is too low this hard spots appear.
I could find nothing that eats them.
They must be scraped off. I like a credit card.
Lowering the light intensity worked 90% but it still came back very slowly.
Boosting the phosphate level worked but I had to get it up to around 4 ppm.
I use Potassium MonoPhosphate which is available from planted tank places.

Black Beard/Brush Algae

This one only seems to happen when it hitch hikes in. Usually on plants.
Be very careful that you don;t add any plants that have this on them. Some people like 20 to 1 bleach dips for there plants but others do not. I never tried it. I think I might.

SAE are supposed to eat it but mine kept jumping out. Rachel O' Leary says they only eat it when under 3 inches.

Amano do eat it but it takes about 1 per gallon. They are very slow.

Excel does work very well but it takes a long time.
Dosing the daily does helps keep it from expanding but does not get rid of it fast.
Many people have advised they doubled the recommended dose without harm and this worked even better.
The manufacturer tells me the main concern with overdosing is oxygen depletion so make sure you have great aeration if you want to try this.
Adding the daily does right onto the BBA spot works well but is a slow process. It turns red after a a day which means it is dead.

WC amount seemed to effect very little. Some have told me when they fail to clean out there filter sponges is when it really goes nuts.

I recently figured out temperature might really boost this one but I have not had time to investigate. My tank went from 75F to 80 F and BBA went nuts.


Blue/Green (Cyano Bacteria)

Nothing eats this that I know of.
It is sometimes not attached strong at all and just swishing the water makes it come off sometimes.
Green slime remover or other cyano products are great to kill this off fast.
I feel that no other way is really effective.
Using GFO or Poly Filter to keep your Phosphate undetectable made a huge huge difference.
Some folks have said that it appears more in tanks that have low nitrates.
I have read it can use atmospheric nitrogen if nitrate is gone so that approach may not work well.
WC defiantly did not work for this type with me at all.
It hates strong flow so get that water moving.

There have recently been people saying that vinegar dosing in FW cures this too but I have not tested it. It is a just breaking idea.

That's it folks. May the Schwartz be with you!!

 

[Delapool]

Love these experiments

 

[jarrod0987]

I forgot to mention something I heard over at Scapefu

There have recently been people saying that vinegar dosing in FW cures this too but I have not tested it. It is a just breaking idea.

 

[Delapool]

Any links? I mean, not planning to rush and dose vinegar ( ) but always curious.

 

[jarrod0987]

Any links? I mean, not planning to rush and dose vinegar ( ) but always curious.

I believe I heard it on a scapefu podcast regarding cyano bacteria or maybe it was algae in general. Sorry, I don't remember exactly which once. Was a month ago. Also, they were referencing some German persons site I think?

 

[Tropical Aquarist]

Awesome write up! Bookmarked this!

Although I'm not sure about the BBA, I had a healthy tank that was running on Excel and as soon as I stopped dosing after a week I had a huge spread of it....

Almost everything spreads faster in Warmer water, like fungus, and bacterial infections. Fish grow faster, Didn't think about it but makes sense about algae!

 

[jarrod0987]

Awesome write up! Bookmarked this!

Although I'm not sure about the BBA, I had a healthy tank that was running on Excel and as soon as I stopped dosing after a week I had a huge spread of it....

Almost everything spreads faster in Warmer water, like fungus, and bacterial infections. Fish grow faster, Didn't think about it but makes sense about algae!

I can't be 100% certain if it was the stopping of daily Excel 2 months back or the rise in temp from 75F to 80 F or both that made it go crazy. I am planning on shutting that tank down so I don't want to buy more Excel. The I also don't want to pay for the AC for that room this summer so ....not really the time to isolate that variable. I did test 1 Amano per 10 gal (2 in a 20 gal tank) and they do not eat fast enough. I have 10 more on the way in from Rachel O' Leary. Let us see if they can knock it back.

 

[jarrod0987]

I also forgot to mention that regarding BBA in a planted tank, cutting the infested leaves really helps get ahead of it because it can spread very slowly and localized.

 

[jarrod0987]

I also forgot to add Green Water

Green Water

Adding ammonia did cause this.
The really interesting thing I found is that it causes the water to get cloudy and white even with no light on the tank at all. I can see what looks like white cumulus clouds moving in the tank flow. Light/and or More Ammonia makes the green color come eventually. I did not do a large amount of work with this one. Do big water changes and increase bio filtration to fix it. It takes time for the new bio media to establish of course. Many people report that UV sterilizers work great against this type of algae. They were usually too big and expensive for small tanks but now smaller/cheaper ones are available. I think some use LED's instead of bulbs. I also have looked into what eats it. Daphnia can eat it but must be kept in a cage. Material on the Aquatic Gardening Association's library has articles written by someone who went to great lengths to find a material to make the cage out of that did not cause the daphnia to die over a period of weeks to months. Nylon killed them and other materials only had partial success. All synthetic fibers seemed to eventually go toxic and kill the daphnia. All natural fibers rotted away. I also have read FW clams will eat up all the green water but may introduce parasites. I did not try either of those ways.

 

[aqua_chem]

Good observations. I would like to note a few things.

Green Hair
I tried everything to get this stuff to grow on purpose. The only thing that ever worked was adding Urea. That means fish pee. Rosy Barbs got rid of it very fast. There are other fish that will too. I found out just using the sand or gravel as your bio filter works for keeping the ammonia down to safe levels but traces of ammonia are still detectable. Say 0.04 ppm. So I suspect Urea would hang around too. Increasing the bio media got rid of the trace and making sure you have good aeration would help also. My current view is to keep that urea breaking down to nitrate as fast as you can with good bio filtration and aeration. Using the right algae eaters to get rid of it. 30 days of darkness wiped out 95% of it but some survived. 4 days did nothing. Rosy Barbs made a fair amount it go away in 24 hours. I was shocked.

Semantic point: fish actually excrete mostly ammonia, not urea. Urea is actually made by many non-aquatic animals (and most mammals, including humans) because you need less water to create and excrete it.


I would add that most algea has a linear relationship with light and an inverse relationship with CO2 (or Excel) levels. Tinkering with those, while not always practical should be first line. I am not a big fan of adding fish that eat algae in most circumstances as many breeds cause problems once they outlive their usefulness, or need special additional care that many people do not consider.


BGA definitely has strong correlation with low nitrates.You can intentionally trigger it by bottoming out on your nitrate supply in a tank. You can also super easily get rid of it with appropriate antibiotics (Erythromycin), which is might take some money but totally worth it in my opinion.

 

[jarrod0987]

Good observations. I would like to note a few things.



Semantic point: fish actually excrete mostly ammonia, not urea. Urea is actually made by many non-aquatic animals (and most mammals, including humans) because you need less water to create and excrete it.


I would add that most algae has a linear relationship with light and an inverse relationship with CO2 (or Excel) levels. Tinkering with those, while not always practical should be first line. I am not a big fan of adding fish that eat algae in most circumstances as many breeds cause problems once they outlive their usefulness, or need special additional care that many people do not consider.


BGA definitely has strong correlation with low nitrates.You can intentionally trigger it by bottoming out on your nitrate supply in a tank. You can also super easily get rid of it with appropriate antibiotics (Erythromycin), which is might take some money but totally worth it in my opinion.

I was always under the impression fish only excreted ammonia from there gills. Further reading seemed to imply that some species also excrete urea from a vent hole but I never was a species expert. I am also to understand inverts excrete urea as well (Tom Barr mentioned adding snails to add Urea which resulted in Staghorn). One of those things that it is kind of hard to verify. Meh...interesting observation none the less. Thanks for your feed back.

 

[jarrod0987]

BGA definitely has strong correlation with low nitrates.You can intentionally trigger it by bottoming out on your nitrate supply in a tank. You can also super easily get rid of it with appropriate antibiotics (Erythromycin), which is might take some money but totally worth it in my opinion.

I forgot to mention, in some of my experiments I removed all the fish and used wood chips under the sand to get nitrates all the way down to undetectable levels on a nice LaMotte Nitrate Nitrogen kit. No Cyano Appeared so of course the spores have to be present. I wonder if just adding in nitrate would be enough to make cyano decline/slow down?

I agree that it is a very good and probably necessary to use something to kill the existing cyano if you really want to win. I never tried Erythromycin. Lot's of people used to use that. Do you have any experience with it? I am wondering if it harms the bio filter. I can never remember which one is gram positive and negative etc.

Thanks.

 

[aqua_chem]

I forgot to mention, in some of my experiments I removed all the fish and used wood chips under the sand to get nitrates all the way down to undetectable levels on a nice LaMotte Nitrate Nitrogen kit. No Cyano Appeared so of course the spores have to be present. I wonder if just adding in nitrate would be enough to make cyano decline/slow down?

I agree that it is a very good and probably necessary to use something to kill the existing cyano if you really want to win. I never tried Erythromycin. Lot's of people used to use that. Do you have any experience with it? I am wondering if it harms the bio filter. I can never remember which one is gram positive and negative etc.

Thanks.

I'm not sure why wood chips would bring down nitrate. That's new to me. Other things are required than just low nitrogen, I'm sure. Low flow, high light, and high amounts of organics have been implemented in the past. BGA is quite ubiquitous in the world. It's probably already in all our tanks, but unable to thrive because reasons.

Regarding erythromycin, I've used it 3-4 times. It is mainly active against gram-positive bacteria, but it's spectrum extends well beyond gram-positives and hits many gram-negatives, including cynobacteria but notable not the gram negatives in your filter. I've never had any issue with using it and wouldn't hesitate to use it again at half the recommended therapeutic dose.

 

[jarrod0987]

I'm not sure why wood chips would bring down nitrate. That's new to me. Other things are required than just low nitrogen, I'm sure. Low flow, high light, and high amounts of organics have been implemented in the past. BGA is quite ubiquitous in the world. It's probably already in all our tanks, but unable to thrive because reasons.

Regarding erythromycin, I've used it 3-4 times. It is mainly active against gram-positive bacteria, but it's spectrum extends well beyond gram-positives and hits many gram-negatives, including cynobacteria but notable not the gram negatives in your filter. I've never had any issue with using it and wouldn't hesitate to use it again at half the recommended therapeutic dose.

Thanks for the feedback on Erythromycin.

Regarding wood chips.

Basically like bio media. They are just a house for bacteria to live. Except that they soak up the water and bring it deep down inside where the conditions would be anoxic and allow denitrification. I bet it soaks up faster then ceramic or pumice would. It seems to be more powerful then that other way as well. I think we have tried those other products. I theorize it may provide a carbon source where Pumice or ceramic would not. Diana Walstad's book does show the reaction requiring carbon.

 

[Caliban07]

Good write up. Good work all round.

I concur with Aqua_chem re carbon and light as first port of call with algae. I would also argue keeping dissolved organics low. Having a soil substrate I have particular problems with BGA and BBA. I notice that they both proliferate in low flow areas at substrate level where plants obstruct flow. Also when plants grow too large and obstruct flow from my spraybar.

Perhaps good flow prevents spores from settling and blooming. My flow is well sub par so my next investment is a filter that will provide at least 8 x turnover and send flow to the lower parts of the tank. My nitrates are probably low too. I may just dose this on its own to see if there is any affect. I use purigen also which doesn't seem to do anything noticeable.

As for green water. I often wonder why everyone doing fishless cycles do not encounter this. Is it the biological processes of how ammonia is produced that is the key or is the recommended 4ppm dosing not enough to trigger a bloom. Also high ammonia is damaging to bacteria, perhaps algae take advantage of this. Especially in new setups with lots of light.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[jarrod0987]

As for green water. I often wonder why everyone doing fishless cycles do not encounter this. Is it the biological processes of how ammonia is produced that is the key or is the recommended 4ppm dosing not enough to trigger a bloom. Also high ammonia is damaging to bacteria, perhaps algae take advantage of this. Especially in new setups with lots of light.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

My experience with Purigen is similar. Great at taking the yellow from the soil out. Doesn't seem to help with algae. Nor did ROX. I didn't test CO2 for algae suppression because many people, including me, don't want to do that on non planted tanks.

Now this point you made about green water is one of the most fascinating things I ever heard. Your exactly right!! I Fish-less cycle every tank and never have green water. I do sometimes get cloudy water but not till later on. It must be the to get green water you need more then ammonia but perhaps also some compounds released by bacteria that are not established yet in the virgin tank? Any other ideas? Thanks for your input everyone.

 

[Caliban07]

My experience with Purigen is similar. Great at taking the yellow from the soil out. Doesn't seem to help with algae. Nor did ROX. I didn't test CO2 for algae suppression because many people, including me, don't want to do that on non planted tanks.



Now this point you made about green water is one of the most fascinating things I ever heard. Your exactly right!! I Fish-less cycle every tank and never have green water. I do sometimes get cloudy water but not till later on. It must be the to get green water you need more then ammonia but perhaps also some compounds released by bacteria that are not established yet in the virgin tank? Any other ideas? Thanks for your input everyone.

That's right. Maybe you need dissolved organics or there is some symbiotic relationship between algae spores and bacteria that induces spores to become flagellates either directly or indirectly. Who knows. ?


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[aqua_chem]

I was always under the impression fish only excreted ammonia from there gills. Further reading seemed to imply that some species also excrete urea from a vent hole but I never was a species expert. I am also to understand inverts excrete urea as well (Tom Barr mentioned adding snails to add Urea which resulted in Staghorn). One of those things that it is kind of hard to verify. Meh...interesting observation none the less. Thanks for your feed back.

I believe it's a combination of both urea and ammonia, but fish are 80-90% ammonia excreters. Yes, fish do excrete ammonia from their gils, but I would need to brush up on my fish physiology to really peg specifics on this; I seem to remember their being a different in SW and FW fish physiology with how they handle this, but I don't remember it off the top of my head.

Snails may add urea, but as they do not represent very much metabolism, you wouldn't expect much excretion unless something's quite wrong. Seems like an odd suggestion for me. It doesn't really pass my sniff test.

Basically like bio media. They are just a house for bacteria to live. Except that they soak up the water and bring it deep down inside where the conditions would be anoxic and allow denitrification. I bet it soaks up faster then ceramic or pumice would. It seems to be more powerful then that other way as well. I think we have tried those other products. I theorize it may provide a carbon source where Pumice or ceramic would not. Diana Walstad's book does show the reaction requiring carbon.

I'm also pretty dubious of any real meaningful de-nitrification happening in freshwater tanks with out a very deliberate setup. If 2" of sand does't do it, I doubt a wood chip would either.

Regarding Walstad's book. I have some experience in this style of tank, but I remain dubious that natural decomposition would produce carbon anywhere near levels that you need to maintain plants. I will be the first to say, though, that I think there is some merit to the whole 'natural tank' thing, but a LOT gets lost in translation between true 'natural' ecosystems and her style of aquarium.

 

[jarrod0987]

I believe it's a combination of both urea and ammonia, but fish are 80-90% ammonia excreters. Yes, fish do excrete ammonia from their gils, but I would need to brush up on my fish physiology to really peg specifics on this; I seem to remember their being a different in SW and FW fish physiology with how they handle this, but I don't remember it off the top of my head.

Snails may add urea, but as they do not represent very much metabolism, you wouldn't expect much excretion unless something's quite wrong. Seems like an odd suggestion for me. It doesn't really pass my sniff test.



I'm also pretty dubious of any real meaningful de-nitrification happening in freshwater tanks with out a very deliberate setup. If 2" of sand does't do it, I doubt a wood chip would either.

Regarding Walstad's book. I have some experience in this style of tank, but I remain dubious that natural decomposition would produce carbon anywhere near levels that you need to maintain plants. I will be the first to say, though, that I think there is some merit to the whole 'natural tank' thing, but a LOT gets lost in translation between true 'natural' ecosystems and her style of aquarium.

I'm just going to put this out here because it seems that not everyone is aware of the things I have been doing this last year. I have been doing a LOT of research on denitrification in FW this last year. On one hand I have had tremendous success it bringing nitrates down to undetectable levels. Even on more expensive LaMotte test kits. On the other hand it was a huge failure because this seems to have made no difference with algae.

I started by building a 20 gal Walstad planted tank. I used 1 inch of organic potting soil under 1 inch of gravel. Lot's of plants. medium fish load. (To lazy to type it all). long story short no nitrate ever appeared in this tank from the fish. Even during and after the cycle. API always read 0 ppm. I was shocked. I had to dose this tank with nitrates every week to keep plants going. After a year it slowed down a lot but still consumes nitrates. There are occasional periods were the effect stops for a few weeks. Not sure why.

So my next idea was this. Either is it just the massive amount of plants or it is the soil. I never had this kind of reaction from plants before in other tanks. So I set up a 10 gal fish only. 1 inch of organic soil under 1 inch of sand. No plants. Light fish load. Same thing happened. I started discussing this with other dirted tank people and all of them told me that this does not happen for them. Some of them had over 40 tanks in there store and most had dirt. The effect was not present. So I said to myself there must be something special about Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Soil besides the fact it has low ferts in it.

I sifted through some and realize very quickly it is at least 65% wood chips by volume.

I ran 2 more experiments. Just in a 5 gal plastic jar with aeration. Without aeration even the tannins do not leach out. Clearly there is bacterial action involved.

The 3rd experiment was in this 5 gal jar and I sifted out as much wood as I could to have just soil. I wanted to see if it was the tradition sand bed type effect we have all hear about that usually does not work and if it does, fails over time. Nothing happened.

The 4th experiment was the opposite. Mostly sifted wood pieces and very little soil under a layer of sand. Took about a week as I recall but nitrates dropped to 0 ppm on both API and LaMotte kits.

I am running the 5th and last experiment now. I am running it in a 10 gal. I loaded an up flow reactor with the same wood pieces. This means they will be surrounded by aerated water and not anoxic water. I want so see if the effect is mostly happening inside them even if the water is aerobic. Or if they must be under substrate. It has been about a week. So far no change in the nitrate levels in that tank but it is too soon to be sure. I do have all these experiments and many others documented. I can provide this info upon request.

I realize this will come as a shock to many and some people will say it is not true and does not work. All I can tell you is that I did it. I am as shocked as anyone. I am also heart broken it seems to have made no real difference in the tank. I can tell anyone exactly how to verify the same effect. I already described it above. For the few $ it costs just see for yourself.

 

[aqua_chem]

I started by building a 20 gal Walstad planted tank. I used 1 inch of organic potting soil under 1 inch of gravel. Lot's of plants. medium fish load. (To lazy to type it all). long story short no nitrate ever appeared in this tank from the fish. Even during and after the cycle. API always read 0 ppm. I was shocked. I had to dose this tank with nitrates every week to keep plants going. After a year it slowed down a lot but still consumes nitrates. There are occasional periods were the effect stops for a few weeks. Not sure why.

So my next idea was this. Either is it just the massive amount of plants...

That's my thought at this point in the story

...or it is the soil. I never had this kind of reaction from plants before in other tanks. So I set up a 10 gal fish only. 1 inch of organic soil under 1 inch of sand. No plants. Light fish load. Same thing happened. I started discussing this with other dirted tank people and all of them told me that this does not happen for them. Some of them had over 40 tanks in there store and most had dirt. The effect was not present. So I said to myself there must be something special about Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Soil besides the fact it has low ferts in it.

I sifted through some and realize very quickly it is at least 65% wood chips by volume.

I ran 2 more experiments. Just in a 5 gal plastic jar with aeration. Without aeration even the tannins do not leach out. Clearly there is bacterial action involved.

I'm not understanding what you're doing here. Can you go into a bit more detail?

The 3rd experiment was in this 5 gal jar and I sifted out as much wood as I could to have just soil. I wanted to see if it was the tradition sand bed type effect we have all hear about that usually does not work and if it does, fails over time. Nothing happened.

The 4th experiment was the opposite. Mostly sifted wood pieces and very little soil under a layer of sand. Took about a week as I recall but nitrates dropped to 0 ppm on both API and LaMotte kits.

I am running the 5th and last experiment now. I am running it in a 10 gal. I loaded an up flow reactor with the same wood pieces. This means they will be surrounded by aerated water and not anoxic water. I want so see if the effect is mostly happening inside them even if the water is aerobic. Or if they must be under substrate. It has been about a week. So far no change in the nitrate levels in that tank but it is too soon to be sure. I do have all these experiments and many others documented. I can provide this info upon request.

I would love the nitty-gritty on this actually.

I realize this will come as a shock to many and some people will say it is not true and does not work. All I can tell you is that I did it. I am as shocked as anyone. I am also heart broken it seems to have made no real difference in the tank. I can tell anyone exactly how to verify the same effect. I already described it above. For the few $ it costs just see for yourself.

I'm still not buying it, but I'm not going to dismiss your observations so easily. I would offer the following thoughts.

1) Wood chips are acting to somehow sequester nitrates rather than a medium for nitrification.

2) The wood is releasing 'something' that's interfering with your tests.

3) The wood is somehow essential for a secondary process that's fueling consumption of nitrogen products.

Lot of hand waving, I know.

But I also would throw out the following thought: If adding woodchips causes denitrification inside the woodchips (as you suggest), why wouldn't hunks of driftwood be nitrate sucking machines? Surely it's anoxic inside them. Also, if it were truly anoxic, wouldn't you have sulfurous reactions taking place instead. I've certainly had that happen accidentally before.