Algae growth

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Shabaam711

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Sep 1, 2014
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Hey everyone, looking for some help to determine what I'm fighting here. And additionally how I remedy the situation, be that algae eaters or chemicals. ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1409613918.827521.jpg.

It's a blackish coating on my rocks, it's not hindering fish life, it's just hideous.

Thanks for your help.


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It looks like you have several algae types occurring. The cause of most algae is too much light, too many nutrients, and not enough CO2. Try cleaning what you can of the algae off and then reduce your photo period to 6 hours. I should have asked if you have live plants. If you do than just cut the light down to 6 hours a day. If you do not have live plants than you can just leave the lights off for a week or more until the algae goes away. Keep cleaning what you can off of the decor and gravel. You can add some fast growing plants like hornwort or some floating plants to help use up the nutrients so algae has nothing to feed on.

You can spot kill some of the algae with a hydrogen peroxide solution. Get a medicine syringe and a bottle of peroxide from a store. Pull up three cc of peroxide and slowly squirt it over the algae. Turn your filter off for about 15 minutes to give the peroxide time to work. It will usually kill the algae in one treatment. You can do up to three treatments at a time every couple of days or so.

What type of light do you have? If you have high light than you need some CO2 or a supplement like Excel or Metricide 14.
 
I currently have led lighting on my aquarium. They are on a timer for 7 hours: however, natural light comes from the windows and that's where the majority of the algae is located.

I think I will get some live plants and reduce my hood lights to 6 hours as you said. I think this is good advice and a good starting point.

I was also thinking about looking into algae eating fish. But I didn't know if that would be entirely worth my time. Nor what types of algae eating fish would eat what I have going on.

Thank you for the advice.


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