Losing algae battle

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Buckfins

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 1, 2013
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303
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New Braunfels Tx
Guys and gals...PLEASE give me some good advice on how to get rid of algae growing in my tank. It started with red hair on my driftwood and quickly spread. Got rid of the wood, drained and restarted my tank. It cycled for a long time, then added fish back. 20 neons, 5 juli cats, 4 powder blue dwarf gouramis and 2 flying foxes in a nicely planted tank with new driftwood. Water is good, not over feeding, great filtration with a UV sterilizer. Only lighting 5 to 7 hours a day. 55 gal. Algae is back! The green stuff now! Constantly scrapping glass, cleaning heater and scrubbing my AQ 110 to get the crap off. WHAT can I do?
Any good recommendations on algae eating tankmates? Good snail? Good pleco? ANY help would be appreciated.
 
If you don't have any plants, or just a couple, float some guppy grass in there. Should absorb all those extra nutrients and filter the light, which should (slowly) kill off the algae. Only thing I can think of.

If you have a decently planted tank, you may need to add co2 to help them absord the nutrients verses the algae.
 
Buckfins said:
I have a pretty good planted tank. I have never used C02 before. How would I go about it?
Click to expand...


Start with liquid carbon first. It will be less costly and if you see an improvement using it you can attribute the algae to lack of carbon which in most cases it is then you can decide which direction you want to go.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
Yeah, liquid first to see if it helps would be good, but be careful...some plants may not like liquid dosing. It melted my banana plant when I first used it, but once I added it to the filter outlet instead, that helped. Now, I'm using a DIY co2 with 2 liter bottles according to this:
https://youtu.be/1JzvfHO31Ug

It costs about $30 at start-up, and about $2/month to run. It's easy, cheap, rather reliable, and has done wonders for my plants! However, it does require weekly maintenance. If you find that it's helping enough to warrant buying an actual pressurized co2 kit, like I will be doing soon, you can find some decent ones on ebay for anywhere between $150-$500 depending on what you want to spend.

Good luck!
 
Jessi...I was thinking about to a C02 kit. I'm new at that concept so I don't wanna get a complicated set up. I'm trying liquid first just to see if it does help. Are the C02 kits hard to set up? Maintenance isn't an issue as my tank takes a good weekly maintaining to keep it healthy....minus the **** algae of course...lol
 
Lol I honestly don't know as I've never had one. I'll be ordering one soon though since it really seems to be helping my plants and reducing the hair algae that was growing in my tank. I'd recommend starting with liquid first, see if it helps, then maybe go for the diy in the video I linked or just get a kit. Once the kit is initially setup, all you have to do is get the co2 tank filled whenever it runs out (or have a backup tank on hand). As for initial setup, they usually have instructions to thoroughly explain and show how to do it. Plus, there's tons of videos available to explain it too.
 
What is your photo period like? I've found the best algae control is a split photo period. My lights are on for 8 hours a day- 7-9am, 12-3pm, and finally 6-9pm. The plants get lots of light, but only exposing them for a few hours at a time reduces the algae's ability to grow. Algae needs a longer time exposed to light before it can really grow. Plants undergo photosynthesis almost immediately when exposed to light, and plants grow at night as well.

Now I warn you- using a split photo period to eliminate algae takes a LOOONNNG time. It took 6 months for most of my BBA to go away, but I haven't had any problems with algae since. It cost me about $5 to get a mechanical timer from Wal-mart.
 
enrgizerbunny said:
What is your photo period like? I've found the best algae control is a split photo period. My lights are on for 8 hours a day- 7-9am, 12-3pm, and finally 6-9pm. The plants get lots of light, but only exposing them for a few hours at a time reduces the algae's ability to grow. Algae needs a longer time exposed to light before it can really grow. Plants undergo photosynthesis almost immediately when exposed to light, and plants grow at night as well.

Now I warn you- using a split photo period to eliminate algae takes a LOOONNNG time. It took 6 months for most of my BBA to go away, but I haven't had any problems with algae since. It cost me about $5 to get a mechanical timer from Wal-mart.
Click to expand...
I haven't thought about that...I do run my lights 6-7 hours straight. I will try splitting it with what I am doing. Thank you for the great insight!
 
Thanks everybody for the great advice! The liquid carbon is doing a great job already. Plants have perked up big time and I have seen growth in just over a week. The scrapping of the algae is becoming less and less. Thanks again.
 
Buckfins said:
Thanks everybody for the great advice! The liquid carbon is doing a great job already. Plants have perked up big time and I have seen growth in just over a week. The scrapping of the algae is becoming less and less. Thanks again.
Click to expand...


It's all about the carbon ?

Good luck.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
Glad to hear the nerites are doing a great job! Currently I have 6 or 7 assassin snails, but I love the look of the tiger nerites. I have a very small amount of algae I'm trying to get rid of sooner rather than later since I'm looking to get a co2 setup later rather than sooner. Does anyone know if the assassin snails would wipe out any nerites I get? The assassins are kind of small right now and its a 75 gal so there's a bunch of room, but I'm just afraid about the nerites being food. Too expensive for snail food!!
 
Pretty sure assassins will eat any snails other than their own kind. Even big apple snails aren't always safe
 
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