# Algae ID



## fishfreak600 (Aug 8, 2011)

Hi, I have a beautifully planted tank that is starting to get taken over by some kind of algae I can't truly identify from looking at pictures online. It's kinda taking over my HC, which is disappointing because its finally started to grow well.

I have 4 Otos, 1 Bristlenose, 2 Nerites, and 1 Amano shrimp. I'd assume that if they don't seem to be eating this algae, it's BGA... because they don't primarily eat bacteria, they eat algae. Thoughts?


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## Zefrik (Oct 23, 2011)

Definitely BGA


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## Zefrik (Oct 23, 2011)

You can use an antibiotic to get rid of it but not to much because it will eliminate your biological filtration.


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## aquageek (Feb 3, 2012)

Before you nuke your tank with antibiotics you might want to try a blackout. Then upon relighting make sure you dose up your nitrates and phosphates. That might help beat it into submission.


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## willbldrco (Mar 24, 2007)

*All out war!!!*

I've found BGA is very resilient to blackouts. It's also completely immune to high CO2 (killed a few shrimp trying that out). 

After fighting it for months, I've *finally* beat it using this method:


Reduce light by 1/2 (I cut power to 2 of my 4 T5 bulbs)
Do 50% water changes twice a week (this is twice as frequent as what I had been doing)
Clean out your filtration system every 4 weeks until the BGA is gone
Manually remove as much as possible
Syringe spot treat with Excel where you can't remove it
Keep up this regime until there is very little BGA left (4-6 weeks in my case)
Adding a bunch of "grazers," in my case, Amano shrimp, to keep the substrate clean

#1 above will hurt your HC, but it simply slows everything down and makes the fight much easier (I learned this from Tom Barr, plantedtank handle "plantbrain"). After trying to save my HC by keeping the light high enough to keep it in "carpet" condition, I finally just decided to screw it and sacrifice my HC in my fight against the BGA. Once I made this choice, and to pull out all the other weapons in the list above, I the tide against BGA started to turn my way.

#2 will keep the organics in the water column down which is what BGA thrives on, also critical. 

#3 helps keep organics down too, I cleaned out both my canister filters twice in a 4 week period.

#4 this might be one of those "duh" suggestions, but really, every time I had 15-20mins, I was using long tweezers picking out BGA chunks where I could get at them. It's very important to get as much as possible out of your tank. Luckily it's fairly easy to remove. I hammered the small bits left with Excel (see next item).

#5 was another weapon which seemed to work - I don't know why, but I just noticed that the BGA had a much harder time spreading than before I used the Excel. After each water change, I spot-treated areas in my tank until I had added 2x the amount of Excel called for on the label. I did this with a 65mm syringe in two 35mm doses. At first I couldn't hit all affected areas, but over time it became much easier as the BGA's extent shrank. BTW, this was not cheap - I went through a liter of Excel!

#6 Keep at it and don't go on vacation or BGA will kick your butt. 

#7 Amano's won't eat the BGA, but they will keep the tank clean which helps with organics (they will metabolize organics taking food off BGA's table). I learned this from Ole Pedersen's awesome "Graxing Control" article in the July-Sept, 2011 issue of "The Aquatic Gardener."

Doing all these things (and anything else you can think of to hurt the algae) rather than picking just one or two from the list, is CRITICAL. This is another thing I failed at before (thinking I could just find the *couple* parameters which was out of wack and fix them to win the BGA war). I wasted months in a sad back-and-forth fight with the BGA, tweaking this and that. But finally I followed another Tom Barr gem: One must endeavor to fix ALL issues ASAP, even if they seem unrelated, to turn the tide and keep the algae out.

At this point, my tank looks great! I've stopped with the Excel treatments, and I've slowed my water changes to every 5 days with a plan to return to my once-a-week schedule in a few more weeks. I've now got to hunt to find very small bits of BGA left and when I find them the appear sickly.  

I can't tell you how happy I am to be in this position. BGA has dominated my tank-life for FAR TOO LONG. At times I hated my tank (especially during the busy holiday season), but now I'm in love with it again and I'm spending less and less maintenance time on it. 

I hope this helps!

Will


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## herns (May 6, 2008)

Maracyn will solve the problem. Then do large water change and crank up CO2! Co2! Co2!


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