# Watch me attempt to clear my ridiculous algae issues.



## Yamaz (May 13, 2011)

Good Luck


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## misterc007 (May 17, 2012)

following, That is some awesome algae. Good luck can't wait to see how it goes down!:icon_smil


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## taigrundal (Jan 1, 2014)

*so far*

So I did it. I did not remove any inhabitants. I almost immediately lost a bristle nose pleco so apparently I should've taken him out. I also lost 2 Danios and all my fish were up at the top of the tank so they were clearly not happy. 

I moved the baby electric jack dempsey out to a different tank as he looked lethargic too. I tried moving him first but I couldn't catch him! He's doing fine now. 

I followed up with a dose of Excel for the 2nd punch. I've attached some pics. I can't really say whether or not it helped yet. I can't tell from the guide whether it is supposed to be immediate. I'm open to suggestions beyond what I've done so far. I also trimmed up some of the plants but I've never done that before so who knows if I made things worse...

I'm glad I tried it here before trying the 40B with my green terrors....I think I will definitely move them out of the tank before trying this there.

I'm beginning to realize that I suck at fish.


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## Mizuhuman (Mar 16, 2013)

taigrundal said:


> So I did it. I did not remove any inhabitants. I almost immediately lost a bristle nose pleco so apparently I should've taken him out. I also lost 2 Danios and all my fish were up at the top of the tank so they were clearly not happy.


I told you so. *shakes head*

Did you read the whole one-two punch thread? there are valuable information in it.


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## jeremy va (Dec 22, 2012)

taigrundal said:


> This is my sad attempt to come back from a crazy algae infestation. This has happened every time I've tried a planted tank. So I had two options: 1. Flip my sh*t and tear it down again. 2. Ask advice her and journal my experience.
> 
> I'm going with option 2 for now. I'm going to follow the advice I have received so far and will post results. I will also accept additional feedback or suggestions on how to modify what I'm doing for better results. The hope is to have a useful process in place to help others that irritated as me
> 
> ...


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

taigrundal said:


> This is my sad attempt to come back from a crazy algae infestation. This has happened every time I've tried a planted tank. So I had two options: 1. Flip my sh*t and tear it down again. 2. Ask advice her and journal my experience.
> 
> I'm going with option 2 for now. I'm going to follow the advice I have received so far and will post results. I will also accept additional feedback or suggestions on how to modify what I'm doing for better results. The hope is to have a useful process in place to help others that irritated as me
> 
> ...


Algae fix would have been appropriate in your case.
No dead fish or algae. Neither method will resolve the long term issue, but that's another topic.


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## taigrundal (Jan 1, 2014)

*Algae fix*

The only thing I can think of for a cause in both my tanks is I went and bought crazy planted LED lights and I don't have enough or the right plants for them. So I guess a photo period of like an hour?


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Now that you are treating the symptom of the problem, what are you going to do about the problem...the one you already stated...the light.
You can move it farther away(up) and you can use 6 hrs to start and then go to 7 as the plants begin to grow better. I have light that would rate real close to the line between low and med light on a ten g tank(intentionally to grow a small amount of algae in it) and I don't use Exel or CO2 and the tank doesn't get overrun with the
algae as yours is because I keep it only on 7.5 hrs and have more plants.
You have so much excess light that I reallly wouldn't know what it would take to tone it down enough to not grow algae but what I said would be a good starting point.


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

I don't normally reply to individual "One-Two Punch" usages anymore, there's just so many of them. But in this case I'll make an exception.

First off, sorry to hear about your fish losses. There is risk with any chemical treatment, and I hope I made that adequately clear in my thread.

The One-Two was developed mainly for highly-resistant BBA/staghorn infestations. It typically works well on most other algae as well. If successful, you'll have to wait about three days before you see your algae start to decompose.

I agree with [Plantbrain] that for your algae, Algaefix would have been a better choice, _but I do not agree that it's zero risk_.

Fish gills contain huge numbers of tiny filaments, providing lots of surface area for efficient gas exchange. Algaefix is a surfactant (essentially soap), and makes these filaments tend to stick together, reducing the amount of oxygen the gills can absorb.

Adding the recommended 1mL per 10G dose of Algaefix, all at once as the directions state, results in a _sudden_ decrease in oxygen for the fish. Occasionally resulting in shock and death, especially when CO2 is used, but sometimes even when it's not. The tank may have low oxygen levels, or certain fish may have compromised gill function due to ongoing or prior disease, or rapid death of greenwater algae depletes oxygen; you can use Algaefix many times without any trouble whatsoever, and then one day get a nasty surprise. I've been able to reliably reproduce adverse effects under controlled conditions, then rapidly reverse them. Leading to this...

Algaefix can be used more safely if you take the dose, divide it into four equal subdoses, and add them separated by a few hours. This gives fish time to adapt, which they can and will do; they actually create an Algaefix-like surfactant in their gills naturally as a mechanism to regulate gas exchange, and they merely need to taper off production to compensate. Watch the fish during this process. If at any point you see signs of respiratory distress, stop. If CO2 is used and distress seems severe, cut it off and aerate or increase surface agitation. In all cases wait for signs to fully disappear, no matter how long that takes; then wait a few more hours before adding the next subdose.

I've also done some limited experimentation with adding from 1/3mL to 1/4mL per 10G _daily_. This is easier still on fish, giving them more time to adapt and a more stable level to adapt to. But I haven't been able to fully determine whether it's still as effective against algae, I'm only one person with a limited amount of tanks and algae to experiment with.

And I'm finding 1/6mL daily more interesting and experiment-worthy. It seems to provide a mild suppressive effect, so if there is a major underlying problem, this dosage only results in _slower_ algae growth. This is still useful, as things don't get so rapidly out of control while you search for the problem, and neither does it mask the fact that you have a problem or the effectiveness of any attempted solution (algae is an important diagnostic tool). If there is no problem, it succeeds in halting or reversing the slow accumulation of a bit of algae that most of us consider normal; and that's useful as well. It's possible that this or a lower dose may be safe for _continuous daily use_ with no adverse effect whatsoever on fish, many snails look promising too; shrimp I haven't tried, and wouldn't recommend on principle, given some species' extreme sensitivity. Experiments are ongoing, but it will be a _long_ time before I will feel comfortable writing this up with high confidence. Just thought I'd share while I was on the topic.


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## ctaylor3737 (Nov 14, 2013)

To be successful at planted tanks do your research it helps to know how to juggle the balance of a planted tank. You have to have patience to and try to stay away from quick reactions. Planted tanks are a joy to run and you'll have fun. 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk


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## jfynyson (Apr 15, 2013)

I agree as well with the Algaefix being a solution here. That algae looks a lot like the green beard or aka green fuzz algae and it was resistant to the One-Two Punch. However, I found substituting the Excel for Algaefix at it's recommended full dose worked beautifully. You can see my posts on the One-Two Punch Thread. So, sorry about your fish. 

Like others mention after killing the algae now figure out what the cause of the algae blooms was via all of the research available on this forum. Then put in place corrective & preventative actions. This will be a great learning experience though.


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## taigrundal (Jan 1, 2014)

*Update*

Thank you all for the advice. I picked up some algae fix as well as some new higher light plants. Since I just tried the 1 2 punch should I hold off on treating with algae fix? I'm hoping to add enough plant mass to go with my higher powered light. I bought all these lights before I found this forum and now I wish I could get rid of all of them for some finnex lights.....my two planted lights were $350 (40B) and $200 (20L). I didn't realize how how bad over lighting is. Do you guys think this unit would provide enough co2 to help maintain balance?







I'm also pretty confused on the fert side. I have seachem flourish but I feel like I'm just fertilizing the algae.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

From reading the description of it, that is a store bough version of a DIY CO2 system.
Saying you can make one from 2 litter bottles using instructions found on You Tube under DIY CO2.
Personally I would give the tank a couple of weeks to level off after that one two thing.
I could list half a dozen people on here whom I'd take their advise before others but then the "others" would get offended(likely)so I won't. But cross referencing some is good.
Flourish is fertilizer but only the Trace minerals type. This is what is the Micros in
those ferts called Macros/Micros. I use it instead of buying(cause I already had it when I started real ferts)the Micros. On this forum a person sells Osmocoat fert capsules
and cheap too. They are much more complete ferts and are used the same as root tabs.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=506393&highlight=
Look almost at the bottom of it. Reducing your light is far cheaper than getting
started in ferts and needs to be done even if you get ferts unless you go the injected CO2 route...= big $ to set up.
Raising the light/placing floating plants or using layers(start/w one) of screen wire between the light and tank all can cut the light. I use Giant Duckweed in my tank/w the T5 lights on a ten g and it keeps down the algae. I use the Giant kind because the regular is tiny and a complete pain to control. I just scoop some out every time I clean up. This is good also as it's about the size of a dime plants that you can just dip out some with a net. E-bay sells them...Water Spangles，Salvinia minima，
This besides just raising the light is probably the cheapest way to reduce the light.
Great that you got more plants. Faster growing type rather than just higher light type would be good here. But without some kind of balance between lights ferts you
won't get much results. So I'd look into those Osmocoat tabs and reduce the light
before I'd use more weed killer in there...LOL...
The algae will die off after some more plant growth occures and the light is decreased.
If you don't mind high maintenance then leave the light as is and get the ferts to go/w it. But if you want an easy maintenance tank, reduce the light first and see about the Osmocoat. Then after a couple of weeks of lower light if the algae is not obviously going away you can nuke it with Algaecide.


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## taigrundal (Jan 1, 2014)

*Update*

So I cleaned up some more algae, and added my new plants. No further fish loses here is how it stands now.

I'll shorten the photo period to 6hrs and see if that works any better.


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## Mizuhuman (Mar 16, 2013)

nice! its starting to look much better. So, which method did you use? the one-two punch or the algaefix?


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## taigrundal (Jan 1, 2014)

*update*

I used the 1-2 punch. I'm trying the algae fix method in my 40B which has the exact same problem but with 20 additional gallons of water...


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## Mizuhuman (Mar 16, 2013)

interesting. please give us an update on the 40B. I want to know how effective algae fix can be.


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