# Oh so beautiful field of... ALGAE????



## DrunkG0D (Oct 10, 2012)

Hello all,

I have a beautiful field of algae on my newly planted Iwagumi tank. Can anyone tell if me it is BGA or Rhizoclonium?

Look at it pearl!


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## steven p (Jun 22, 2012)

Not bga but it is kinda neat looking.


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## puopg (Sep 16, 2012)

Looks like cyano.


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## fishcrazee (Mar 28, 2006)

It almost looks like you did the sand river effect, it's pretty cool actually haha


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## stevenjohn21 (May 23, 2012)

That takes some skill ! I agree with the others, it looks kind of cool although i bet its annoying you !


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## DrunkG0D (Oct 10, 2012)

*Ialpc?*

Yeah I wonder if I can send this in to IALPC this year and win something :biggrin:.

Its quite annoying because it spreads fairly rapidly, the day before yesterday I cleared it off my rocks, the next day it came back with a vengence.

Last night I did an 80% water change and started using a tooth brush to scrape the stuff off my soil and rocks but only managed to go through about half the valley.

Heck it pearls more than my HC. I should have saved my money on the plants and grown this stuff instead.


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## stevenjohn21 (May 23, 2012)

DrunkG0D said:


> Heck it pearls more than my HC. I should have saved my money on the plants and grown this stuff instead.


Ha ha , you are taking it better than i would !
Have you tried blasting it with excel and pumping up the C02 higher ?

I just noticed you have no fish, new setup im guessing ? Empty it and dry start it, maybe once the HC spreads in it will compete better against the algae and you will end up seeing less or none at all.


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## DrunkG0D (Oct 10, 2012)

*Remedies*

I have pumped up the C02 to where my indicator started reading yellow/green. I have not OD'd excel yet because I want to be sure of what this gunk is before I decide my next step.

If it is actually cyano/blue-green algae then I might decide to blackout or what not.

Have reduced my photo-period to 4 hours so let's see what happens today.


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## RedseaReefer (Aug 21, 2012)

Blackout works great on the cyano in my salt tank. I don't know about the entire substrate ecosystem in most planted but I also got a TON of snails to stir up the sand might work for you BUT.. I doubt you want a million snails on the glass lol! 

Oh yeah another thing is cyano almost always has bubbles under a green, blue, or red film  Iv never seen freshwater cyano before though.. Best of luck!! I would be so angry haha like I am with my bba problem >.<


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## greenman857 (Feb 25, 2012)

Yeah it is an impressive mix of algae! Too bad there wasn't an algae aquascaping club!
What i've done in some situations is just drop sand/fine gravel down on algae as a kind of mulch. you might try that, I've even found that moss and other plants will grow up out of the sand and the algae wont.


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## Aulonocara_Freak (Feb 4, 2013)

DAMN, that's cool. I would personally keep it as long as it's not killing your plant's.


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## aokashi (Jun 12, 2012)

it looks awesome! i would keep it...


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## msawdey (Apr 6, 2009)

LOL... that. is. awesome.


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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

if its blue green algae then its really a bacteria not a true algae. blue green is cause of dead spots in the tank. i fixed the little prob i had with it a few years ago by using a spray bottle on mist and sprayed under the water with H2O2 and upped circulation. circulation is the main think that will help and H2O2 is an oxidizer so it also helps with moving air to the spot to kill the bacteria. since no fish its worth a shot but yeah i would turn off lights and if its a must just use the lights in the room to see into the tank


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

no this is not BGA, you have two algae's going on here, GDA and hair algae, both are caused by very high light and less co2/or not proper circulation. i would reduce the light in your case.


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## AlanLe (Jan 10, 2013)

Where did u buy the tank? Looks good


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## DrunkG0D (Oct 10, 2012)

*ADA Tank*



AlanLe said:


> Where did u buy the tank? Looks good


Got it from a local ADA supplier  its a 120P


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## DrunkG0D (Oct 10, 2012)

*Updates*

So basically I have tried a few things, first I reduced the photo period to 4 hours and that seemed to slow the growth of the algae right down but it was still around.

Spent 2 nights siphoning out as much algae as I physically could from the substrate with a toothbrush and hose. I really hated sucking out the soil as well so I went easy.

Did a 3 day blackout without much success. 

Have been double dosing excel for the last few days but not much improvement as well.

I suspected that there wasn't enough greens to consume the nutrients in the water so planted another 2 pots of HC, that was all my LFS had in stock, and 2 pots of Lilaeopsis Brasiliensis along the back of the tank. Also several clumps of riccia tied to stones as temporary measure.

Added 10 tiny shrimps and 10 amanos + 5 SAE to try and clean up whatever algae was around. They aren't being very effective.

The good news is that my hydrocotyle seems to be coming back from the dead, the green spots have all disappeared, almost. The stems have turned green again from brown when it was first planted.

Now I'm contemplating what wicca27 suggested, to nuke them with h202.

Pictures attached! :red_mouth Oh yes the water has started to clear up a lot so at least I'm happy with that.


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## hedge_fund (Jan 1, 2006)

The amanos will keep the tank clean for you. I wouldn't be feeding them anything for a while.


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## Pindar (Jul 30, 2013)

This stuff goes away on its own if you wait for the tank to mature. That's how it happened for me anyway
Unfortunately you can expect it to get worse before that happens


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## Mizuhuman (Mar 16, 2013)

nice. looking better


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