What am I doing wrong?

[firteen888]

Hi all,

I have a horrible green hair algea problem in my freshwater tank. I've had my fully cycled tank for about 5 months now and about 1 and a half months ago, the tank started growing green hair algea. It got to the point where the tank was pretty much covered in the stuff. About 2 weeks ago I spent hours taking the majority of it out (by hand) to the point where you couldn't even notice it anymore. There was still some in but it would be impossible to get every last bit by hand. over the past 2 weeks it all started growing back and is now and the point where alot of the tank is covered again. Any idea what I could do to get rid of this stuff for good?

29 Gallon freshwater tank
-6 glofish/6 neons/ 5 cory's/ 3 oto's/ 1 dwarf gourami/ lots of snails

Fully cycled: 0 ammonia 0 nitrites < 10ppm nitrates

I do weekly 40% PWC's

I have a T5 lighting system. I turn it on at 7am (before work) and turn it off at 8pm everyday

I don't overfeed as far as I know. A few flakes a day, plus about 3 shrimp pellets for the catfish

I have no idea what to do and it's making my tank look horrible. Any advice would be great!

Thanks!

 

[mfdrookie516]

Do you have plants? 13 hours of light is way too much. If you have plants, 7-8 hours is plenty. If you don't have plants, then there's absolutely no reason to turn them on unless you want to see the fish. I'd say that's the biggest factor.

 

[firteen888]

I have 2 anubias plants.

Don't I have to have the light on for the fish? Don't they need a normal day/night cycle?

 

[mfdrookie516]

Nah, none of my non planted tanks are ever lit... unless I toss a shop light on there to see them. What wattage is your light and how many bulbs? Anubias requires less light than just about any plant out there... I've got some growing in a tank with no light on it, just ambient light from the planted tanks around it. It's sprouting new leaves, so it's not just surviving. I'm confident that your issue is lighting, especially with 13 hours. First, I'd cut that down to 6 or so... and if you're running more than one bulb, either take one out or replace it with an actinic. That should help tremendously. Also, are you dosing ferts? If so, stop.

 

[firteen888]

The fixture has 2 bulbs one is a 24 watt 10,000K daylight lamp and the other is an actinic lamp. Would it be ok to leave only the actinic lamp on for 13 hours a day?

 

[mfdrookie516]

yeah, actinic won't do much so it wont hurt to leave it on at all. I would only run the daylight bulb for 6 hours max.

 

[firteen888]

OK I'll try to leave the daylight lamp off fully for the next week or so and just use the actinic bulb. Do you think this will eliminate the green hair algea?

 

[mfdrookie516]

manually remove what you can... i don't know for sure that will solve your problem, but I guarantee that helps...but i'd say that's where your issue is

 

[firteen888]

OK great, I'll give it a try. Thanks for your help!