# Help! Algae is taking over! (pics)



## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Hi all. I have a 20H tank that has been setup for about 3 weeks now. This tank, despite my religious testing of the water and attempts to keep water quality good, has progressively become overrun with algae. I do water changes every 2-3 days(5 gallons) and have been very careful with dosing. Here are some pictures that I just took of the tank -- it has potential, but this ugly algae is spreading(fast!) over the driftwood, substrate and plants. I manually removed it by scrubbing the driftwood last night and snipping off parts of plants that were too far gone and when I got home from work today, this is what I saw.

As you see, the algae is covering a lot of the plants and driftwood, as well as the substrate surface. I've never seen algae "pearl" before, but this seems to be doing it -- I wish the plants would do this instead! I have 4 SAEs and 1 otto(plan on getting more this weekend -- I lost 2 in the last week or so).
Does anyone have any suggestions? I plan on doing a water change this evening, but I'm open to any and all suggestions. I believe what I have is hair algae and maybe some BGA, but I'm not quite sure. Help please? I'll be doing a water test, so results will follow...
-Ryan


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## Jason Baliban (Mar 3, 2005)

Get those water parms posted!!! roud:


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## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

LOL Nasty!
Increase C02..alot, do a 50% h20 change, sucking as much of that bba out as you can, dose 1/4Tsp KN03 1/16Tsp KH2P04, and get that C02 up UP and away...
Clean you're filter if you have not done so lately, bba is coming from either low to no N03, dirty filter or pour water quality.. you llearning :wink:


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Just tested the water and it is:

temp = 76 degrees (F)
pH = 7.0
KH = 10.5 dkH
GH = 11.0 dgH
NH3 = 0
NO2 = 0
NO3 ~ 40 ppm (very hard to tell above 15-20ppm w/ red sea)
PO4 = 0.2 - 0.5 
Co2 = 30-35ppm (according to --> http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm)

Analysis:
The pH went down from 7.2 yesterday, which makes sense since I cranked up the Co2, thinking it might help the plant growth out. The KH and GH normally are closer to 5 or 6, but I did an emergency water change a couple nights ago with the local tap water(pH~8, kh/gh~22) of about 5 gallons. I have 5 gallons of bottled/ RO water which I will be putting in later. The nitrates are pretty high, but I'm sure will lower after the H2o change. I know I should aim for the 10:1 NO3 - PO4 ratio, so obviously I need to lower nitrates and raise phosphates a bit. Is there anything else anyone would like to add? This algae problem has been going on for a couple weeks and I can't seem to shake it.
I did a big water change a couple nights ago, plus I removed all plants and trimmed off algae-ridden parts and tried to re-plant in a way where they will have room to grow and there are less "dead" areas. I'm getting beat to death here, so if anyone wishes to interject wisdom, its definately welcome 

one more thing....should my Co2 be higher, given that there's 110w over a 20g (5.5wpg)? and....I've been dosing moderately, but perhaps not enough. I've been dosing CSM+B solution every 2 days(2 mL or so) and KNo3, KCl and "Fleet" on the off-days (1 tsp or so, mixed in some water).


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## ThomE (Aug 26, 2004)

Take a look at this link.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=13247&highlight=blue+green+algae

Also what is your NO3 from the tap?

IMHO your tank is pretty much out of control. I would black that tank out then water change and reset your tank. 

Good luck.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

You must have bought some plants with BBA? Its a small tank, if your buget allows I'd nuke it and start over. Hate BBA.....Hate it, hate it, as I run screaming into the front yard in my underware. Oh sorry did I type that?


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Not really sure the budget allows to just nuke and start over. I've probably spent around $70-80 in plants -- my wife will start getting mad! lol
If I have to, well..... but I'd like to find another way. <CR><CR>
To answer Thome's question: The NO3 both out of the tap and from the bottled wter I buy(too cheap for R/O) is around 5.0ppm! That's a surprise. I may remove as much algae as possible and blackout for 2-3 days ---> is this recommended? It's an uphill battle, especially with this much light, but I'm determined!

And to the previous poster -- I don't think any of the plants had BBA(or whatever it is) when I purchased them. Most plants came from one of this site's sponsors  The stargrass came from a generous member's clippings and one of the other plants came from a LFS --- the tank it came from looked pretty clean.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I had it bad, your tank looks good compared (this was some time ago), cranking up the CO2 really helps, although I do get a single tuft now and again on the Florite. I've done the black out with BGA and Thread Algae, but never tried it for BBA. I don't think the black out will work, remembering articles I've read.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

I'm going to remove as much of the algae as I can from the substrate and glosso, but I'll leave the rest alone and see what happens in the ensuing days. I'll go ahead and dose as Craig was suggesting and hope the plants win the battle! I may pick up a stem plant or 2 this weekend to use until everything settles, plus some more ottos and maybe a bristlenose pleco. Does anyone suggest blackout? I've only tried blackouts on green water in the past (had it twice), but I've never had algae as bad as I have right now either.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I don't know if this is true or false, I just commenting from observation. It seem to me that BBA is unlike other algae that are always present and appear when the conditions are in favor. I had a fresh water Clam and Trap Door Snail that it attached to, and I noticed in the substrate that it often was attached to little bits of sea shell. I would think that it prefers the calcium because after my tank was really free of BBA these are the items that I would occasionally find infested. I think BBA has to be introduced on a plant or other item, I know that it is very hard to remove manually in fact it really can't be done. It attaches itself with a hard gelatinous anchor that reminds me of a barnacle. I wonder if it kinda flowers sending out little spores of baby BBA. end thought.


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## Barbels (Aug 3, 2004)

:hihi: :hihi: :hihi: :hihi:


150EH said:


> Hate BBA.....Hate it, hate it, as I run screaming into the front yard in my underware.


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## danmhippo (Feb 3, 2005)

150EH said:


> Hate it, hate it, as I run screaming into the front yard in my underware.


Are you a "he" or a "she"? :wink:


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

danmhippo said:


> Are you a "he" or a "she"? :wink:


I think I'd like to know your gender before I answer that, I've heard stories about Taiwan. 

I'm half old man


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## danmhippo (Feb 3, 2005)

LOL!!

Let's get back to the topic, shall we? roud:


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## TINNGG (Mar 9, 2005)

<giggle> A friend sent me an enormous clump of java fern. I took it out of the bag and tossed it in my 75 just to see what it looked like. (and to get it in water until I could figure out what to do with it). It was *then* I noticed it was absolutely covered with BBA. I went straight away to snag a bucket and put it in. Of course, some of the fuzz escaped. I noticed a tumbleweed of sorts a few days later. It disappeared though and that's the one algae I haven't actually had growing in this tank. Hmmm....<g> If it prefers calcium, I'd say it would have a party in my in-laws' well water.


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## ThomE (Aug 26, 2004)

Ryan,

If you do nuke it, I could ship you wisteria, Ludwigia repens, Rotala rotundifolia, penny wort & creeping jenny. I need room in my tank, so this is really doing me a favor. PM me

Thom


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## John P. (Apr 10, 2004)

5.5 w/g? That's a lot of light, especially on a new tank. I suggest you remove one of your 55w bulbs for now.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

If I end up nuking it, I want to make sure I know what I did wrong, so it won't happen again. John, you say its too much light? You may be right, but is it still doable? Last night after all the posting, I did a 6g water change with R/O-bottled water and removed a good deal of the algae --- it was slimy and made a mess when I pulled it out, but at least I was able to remove it from the glosso and other things *fairly easily*. There's still a fair amount in there, but its not as bad. I'm thinking, based on what I've read, that its actually staghorn algae, which my SAEs *should* eat. I also dosed 1/4 tsp KNO3, 1/4 tsp K2So4 and 1/2 tsp Fleet(Phosphate) as someone suggested. I'll give it a few days and see if there are improvements before I nuke it though.


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## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

Just make sure that you're C02 is at a very elevated level...


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

I cranked the Co2 up and tested the water again after my 6 gallon(bottled/RO) water change and macro dosing, I had:
pH=7.0
KH=8.0 (CO2 ~ 24 ppm)
GH=8.0
Nitrates ~ 40ppm
Phosphates = 2.0 ppm
NH3 = 0
NO2 = 0
** I also wiped off the filter intake and diffuser, plus I cleaned out the filter --- not too much, but I wiped down the sides and changed out some of the water, leaving about 1/4 - 1/3 of the mulm in there.
This morning, I cranked the Co2 up a bit, so ther pH should drop to around 6.8 I'm hoping, which would get the Co2 up around 30+ ppm. 
Co2 is up, I dosed macros, lighting(of course) is high @5.5wpg and I manually removed as much of the algae as I could. Time will tell...heck, I should be able to tell by tonight if the algae is choked or still flourishing.


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## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

24ppm C02 is not enough, double that! turn it up, I would have thoroughly cleaned the filter had it been myself, leaving mulm in the filter, well, it has spore's.
Plant's are the bio-filter, the can is for mechanical..clean it good 
You should start seeing a noticable diference in a day, if you turn up the C02 and keep N03 and P04 at decent levels.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Maybe I'll clean the filter thoroughly tonight if I don't see significant improvement. I'm a bit gun-shy I guess, since 2-3 weeks ago I had a tank dump when it was near empty, which dropped the pH down around 6-6.2 and Co2 was through the roof --- all fish (10 harlequin rasboras, 1 SAE, 3 ottos, 3 cory julii = all dead). So, I guess I'm being cautious, since I have 1 otto and 3 SAEs in there now. In my experience, SAEs tend to be pretty hardy whereas ottos are fairly delicate, especially when young(and mine is). I had a couple SAEs in the past who lived through a lot of tank fluctuations, changing tanks, etc. I'll take your advice and probably clean out the filter tonight, since I won't have to worry about a NH4/No2 spike, since the fish load is fairly low.


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## ThomE (Aug 26, 2004)

If you do increase the CO2 over 30 ppm. Keep an eye on the fish. At that level it's getting pretty toxic for fish, especially at night, when the plants don't use the CO2.


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## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

I understand being gunshy, I have lost fish before by overdosing C02, at the level I run my C02 during the day, it gets turned off at night, if not, it get's to a deadly level by morning.. hehe


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

ThomE said:


> If you do increase the CO2 over 30 ppm. Keep an eye on the fish. At that level it's getting pretty toxic for fish, especially at night, when the plants don't use the CO2.


I ordered one of those JBJ regulator combos w/ solenoid last week and there was a delay on shipping(uggh), but I should have it next week. So, the Co2 won't be on during the night once I get that.


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## Kris (Feb 27, 2004)

Wö£fëñxXx said:


> I would have thoroughly cleaned the filter had it been myself, leaving mulm in the filter, well, it has spore's.
> Plant's are the bio-filter, the can is for mechanical..clean it good


quick question: if one is pulling out stuff to bleach in a solution, should the filter material also get bleached? the floss, the case, the intake valve, etc? or just scrubbed with a toothbrush?


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## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

Bleach it all..
Add new media/floss.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

grrrrr. After removing a lot of the algae last night, tonight its all over the place again! Even the driftwood has pearling algae LOL, and I scrubbed it all off there.
I'm going to clean out the filter 100%, wipe out as much algae as I can and reduce the lighting for a few days (55w instead of 110w). If this doesn't work, I may have to NUKE and start over. Sheesh! I didn't want to do this...


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

New filter floss and bleach anything (hard plastic, etc) you can. Don't bleach anything absorbant you will have problems getting it rinsed properly.


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## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

ringram said:


> grrrrr. After removing a lot of the algae last night, tonight its all over the place again! Even the driftwood has pearling algae LOL, and I scrubbed it all off there.
> I'm going to clean out the filter 100%, wipe out as much algae as I can and reduce the lighting for a few days (55w instead of 110w). If this doesn't work, I may have to NUKE and start over. Sheesh! I didn't want to do this...


You might want to get you some Maracyn, start dropping tablets in, it will start killing it instantly, then keep cleaning and removing all you can, keep N03 and C02 up and it will not return, if you fail to do this it will come back again..bga is mean stuff..


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## finex (Feb 15, 2005)

*perhaps you could avoid taking it down and reclaim it*

google these: nerites snails, malaysian trumpet snails, amano shrimp

some or all of these may help turn the tide


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

yes, it is mean stuff. It has a real stranglehold on all the plants, but I'm really disappointed with how poorly the didplis diandre and red foxtail are doing --- they were starting to look pretty nice a week or 2 ago! Same goes for the red temple and glosso.
Ok, I just removed some of the algae from the tank --- well, as much as I could --- and vacuumed the floating crap that was in the water afterwards. Then, I disconnected the filter and cleaned that sucker out REAL good -- no bleach, but its clean nonetheless. I also removed one of the lights, so instead of 5.5 wpg, its going to be 2.75wpg until I can get it under control. I did another water change, but today it was only about 3 gallons worth. I may do a larger one later if I go out to the store and refill the 5g jug. The tank looks every bit as bad now as in those pics, if not worse. I can't believe how persistant this algae is. If I see no improvement from the cleaned filter and reduced lighting, I'll pick up some Maracyn this weekend and nuke it for a few days until the algae is gone.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

finex said:


> google these: nerites snails, malaysian trumpet snails, amano shrimp
> 
> some or all of these may help turn the tide


well, I have 3 or 4 snails(not sure what kind, but its not trumpet) --- 1 came with a plant from a LFS and he sorta multiplied (hermaphroditic creatures are neat). Anyway, I also tried shrimp and don't intend to go back until everything gets settled. Even then... I wasted $60 on shrimp last weekend, buying 5 cherrys and 12 amanos and they were all dead the next morning. Not sure if it was stress from shipment to the LFS or what, but that's what happened.


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## ThomE (Aug 26, 2004)

ringram said:


> I wasted $60 on shrimp last weekend, buying 5 cherrys and 12 amanos and they were all dead the next morning. Not sure if it was stress from shipment to the LFS or what, but that's what happened.


I heard if you place a leaf or something for the shrimp to hold on too. They tend to do better.


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## jart (Jan 17, 2003)

Ringram, remember the golden rule: patience. I know it is frustrating for you at this point. I am wondering though if you should hold off on the livestock and instead go with the advice to decrease your lighting and increase your CO2. This is my first attempt at a CO2 injected tank and so I'm not an expert but just a subtle reminder to try not to do too many things at once. That said, good luck, and you will get it straightened out, as long as you stick with the advice of the forum experts (keeping in mind I'm not one of them :wink: ).


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## finex (Feb 15, 2005)

ringram said:


> well, I have 3 or 4 snails(not sure what kind, but its not trumpet) --- 1 came with a plant from a LFS and he sorta multiplied (hermaphroditic creatures are neat). Anyway, I also tried shrimp and don't intend to go back until everything gets settled. Even then... I wasted $60 on shrimp last weekend, buying 5 cherrys and 12 amanos and they were all dead the next morning. Not sure if it was stress from shipment to the LFS or what, but that's what happened.


with snails it matters which type you have, some are ok for plants, some are good for plants (eating algea), and some are downright terrible. the two I've listed don't eat my plants at all: wisteria, crypt wentii, crypt parva, glosso, java moss, java fern, and ludwigia g. In fact they clean algea off the plants, the glass, the malaysian wood and in the case of mts, they turn the substrate and clean it. Amano shrimp do the same. I have a newly setup tank, and since I introduced these three criters it's been smooth sailing. 3.25 wpg, ferts, excel, and 5 rasboras in a 20g.


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## danmhippo (Feb 3, 2005)

I'd suggest you get some floating water lettuce to 1. shade the tank somewhat and 2. outcompete algae for nutrients. You need to crank up the CO2 to over 30ppm.

For my tank which is battling BBA and filamentous green algae as well, I am slowly adjusting the CO2 input 0.1pH every day. I am closely monitoring fish's behavior to determin at what pH (CO2 concentration) is being the maximum. 

So far over 4 days, according to my pH monitor, the tank pH is currently hovering around 6.15-6.25, assuming the calibration is not off. The CO2 concentration is at over 100ppm!! (I seriously think my pH monitor's calibration is way off.......). But eitherway, I am just squeezing more and more CO2 to the tank to help combat assorted algaes.

Also with the help of 5 SAE, I am able to see my substrate now. All dosing schedule as normal and I actually "think" the tank is improving. I have 5.4WPG for the 10G tank, with dwarf puffers, betta, and a big school of cardinals.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

jart said:


> Ringram, remember the golden rule: patience. I know it is frustrating for you at this point. I am wondering though if you should hold off on the livestock and instead go with the advice to decrease your lighting and increase your CO2. This is my first attempt at a CO2 injected tank and so I'm not an expert but just a subtle reminder to try not to do too many things at once. That said, good luck, and you will get it straightened out, as long as you stick with the advice of the forum experts (keeping in mind I'm not one of them :wink: ).


Yeah, well I'm obviously not either  Having said that, *ehem*, believe it or not, this isn't my first time with a planted tank and my last time it went much, much better. It was with the same 20g tank, but I used DIY co2 and had 60w of T-12's, so this time I have almost 2x as much light, and its CF so its more intense as well. That last time, I grew just about anything I put in there, had very little algae (tiny bit of BBA once, but nothing like this) and it was inhabited by a breeding pair of kribs  See what happens when I try to turn it up a notch?? Yes, patience is the key, for sure. I'm considering just leaving it alone with the reduced lighting. Still doing water changes every 3 days or so and lightly dosing, but give the plants time to grow and out-compete the algae...that's the only way I'm going to lick this thiing.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Just in case anyone's interested, I think I've finally beat the algae. Well, there still is algae, but if you look at these pictures compared to the ones on the beginning of this thread, I think you'll see a drastic improvement. What am I doing differently? Well, for starters, I cut the lighting in half --- now I have 55w over 20g (2.75wpg) -- and it will remain this way indefinately, or at least until things are under control. I have also been doing 5-6g water changes every 2-3 days, keeping up the regular dosing regimen and increasing the Co2. Tonight's water test results were(after 7g water change):
pH = 6.6
kH = 8.0 dKH
Co2 = 50ppm
GH = 7.0 dGH
NH3 = 0
NO2 = 0
NO3 ~ 40ppm
PO4 = 2.0 ppm

I'll continue the way its going, as the plants are growing MUCH better and the algae is losing the battle. It easily picks off the leaves and I just vacuum it up. There is green spot algae on the glass a little, but it cleans up pretty easily too. Keep in mind that its only been 6 days since the "ugly" pictures were taken and about 4-5 days since I pumped up the CO2 and cut the lighting down.
So, the key things here were just as many people suggested...increase Co2, decrease light, keep dosing...Looks like only time will tell, but the glosso is looking a lot better and filling in nicely as are a lot of the others, namely the Wisteria and Stargrass.
Now I need to invest in some good tweezers and scissors for when I really try to work out an aquascape. 
Thanks for all the advice & help!
-Ryan


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