Help me win the war against evil algae!!!!!

[TonyMuffTana]

This dark force must be stopped!!!!! Although things may look ok from far, they're far from good.

It's a 25g tank, with DIY CO2 going at ~15-20ppm, 80watts of 6500k light, ppmd being added almost everyday and I've played around with different light periods from 9 hours to 13 hours. I've got ~ 20 japonica shrimp, and siamese algae eaters. I'm still having my *** kicked by this hairy thing!!!!

Help me out here, anything left to do?? Short of a small nuclear weapon will anything get rid of it?????

http://pic5.picturetrail.com/VOL77/856751/1547276/18126393.jpg

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http://pic5.picturetrail.com/VOL77/856751/1547276/18126388.jpg

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http://pic5.picturetrail.com/VOL77/856751/1547276/18126302.jpg

[rockhead44]

Keep in mind that I am a newbee at the plant thing so don't do this till someone else replies.I had some thing almost as bad as this a while back.I had tried everything till I finally Gave up and took the extreme.I pull all the plants out and pain off all the algae and did the Clorox dip thing.Also cleaned the gravel.IT work for me But what a pain in the a**.I just was too tried of looking at my tank like that.I feel for you cause it looks bad.Now I don't have the algae problem but I am still learning the balancing act of nice plants without algae.Did you try the blackout thing?Hopefully someone else can help you out.Sorry to see those pictures and hang in there.Good luck.

[carpguy]

I went to this very good algae FAQ (http://www.aquaticscape.com/index75.html) and it looks to me like brush algae from your pics. They linked to this article (http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/red-algae.html) from the Krib on brush algae. Pretty much everything you'd want to know.

The first link has a brief rundown with pics of different algaes so you can make the right ID. The Krib has some good in depth info once you think you know what your dealing with.

Sorry, can't help beyond the links…

[Jared]

What do you put in your PMDD? How much are you adding? What test-kit readings do you have for nutrients? What's your phosphate reading? I'd do a 4-day lights-out treatment to get a grip on the current algae while looking for the cause. Post if you need instructions.

HTH,
Jared

[Matak]

That would be distressing!

Otocinclus, Amano Shrimp, & mollies are all great algae eaters. Does anyone know if these would be effective with this scourge?

[djlen]

Sorry to see your problem.....I've been dealing with the same thing for a few weeks now. I'm trying to straighten out my nutrient - CO2 ratio cause that, IMO is the only way to do it right.
Forget algae eaters and/or Otos for that stuff. They either don't like it or it's too tough to eat. And trying to pull it off the plants is like impossible. They'd come out of the substrate before that crap would come off.....it's tough.
One thing I've noticed that helps is to cut off the leaves that it forms on. You'll probably notice that it tends to grow more on the older leaves, and mostly the leaves nearer the lights(if it's like mine) and doesn't form on the younger, healthier leaves. And check out those links that Carpguy sent you. I'm positive, in my case it's a nutrient issue. I'm picking up an Phosphate test kit and adding nitrates cause my nitrate read zero. Check yours. Good luck.
Len

[djlen]

Tony check out this link and let me know what you think......I was really getting discouraged until I read it.
Len
[url]www.thekrib.com/plants/fertilizer/sears-conlin.html#case1

[plantbrain]

This is a nice tank except for algae.

Here's what to do. I just fixed two tanks as bad as this over the holiday when I visited a few folk.

The Abubias: You can either trim off all the algae, BBA, or dip it in bleach or remove it and put the plant in a bucket of water for 5-10 days in the dark etc, check it to see how it's doing every two days etc.
The bleach method works well but the point is, you need to remove all the algae you can get a hold of FIRST . This requires you to go in and remobve and yank up all the plants area by area and thoroughly clean and rub off all algae. If you cannot rub it off, eg BBA, then you need to trim it or bleach the portion that has the algae.
Don't dip the entire plant, just the algae infested part.

Reslope the gravel after each section, turn over the top layer some to disturb the algae. Lightly vacuum detritus/mulm. Replant. Do this in 4-6 sections of the tank.
It'll take some time to do each plant etc.

Okay, now the algae is off the plants and most is removed. Now vacuum off any mulm laying around, use a net etc to gather up any larger pieces of leaves, algae etc.

Do a 50% water change.
Add back to the make up water:
+dechlorinator
1/3 teaspoon of K2SO4
1/4 teaspoon KNO3
3 mls of trace mix
Some source of PO4, eg Fleet enema, KH2PO4 about 2 drops of the Fleet or 2 rice grain's worth of the KH2PO4.

You can get the KH2PO4 from www.litemanu.com of the Fleet's down at the drug store.

You'll need to add KNO3, KH2PO4 or the fleet, and the traces once more after 4 days. Then after 7 days, repeat the water change, 50% and add the above amounts once again.

CO2, this is where much of your headach lay.
Measure the KH then measure the pH in the morning when the light comes on and when it goes off right at nighttime.
I think you'll find the CO2 is low at the night reading but okay during the day.

You may want to change the yeast CO2 brew weekly or use two bottle alternated weekly or consider and different method of diffusion.
Aim for 20-30ppm of CO2 during the light cycle at all times.
Check the pH during the week to make cerrtain it is in good shape

You do the above routine, for 2-3 weeks and I can promise you will not make algae issues.

Print it out etc and follow this and tell me in 1-2 weeks how's it going.
I do this same old thing time after time, year after year. It's old hat.

It removes the algae, addresses the cause, helps the plants grow extremely well and provides only young tasty algae for the herbivores that you have. Would you eat tough old yellow lettuce? Neither do algae eaters.

So only the new algae which are young and tasty will even appear and quickly be picked off.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[djlen]

Thank you for the feedback and game plan. Just one question....
What's the mixture for the bleach. Ratio of bleach to water. I don't think you mean to dip them into straight bleach, right?
Len

[plantbrain]

20:1
water: bleach


Soak 1-3 minutes till the algae dies, turns white etc.
Don't soak roots etc.

Don't do this more than oncve a year, if so work on prevention, not regular cleaning of BBA, your plants will look bad as result of repeated bleaching and you may as well buy plastic if you are not planning of resolving the issue better(Namely a CO2 issue).

Use only on tougher leaved slow growing plants, basically just Aubias, Bolbitus etc, trim the other plants.
Regards
Tom Barr

[TonyMuffTana]

Thanks everyone for all the advice. I'm going to start working on this in a couple of days when i have some time.

Couple of questions though, what concn' of phosphate and nitrate should I aim for? I've been using regular flourish for the trace elements. Is there anything that I should use instead?

Thanks again, and I'll keep an update on the improvement!!

[plantbrain]

Flourish is fine and what I use.
NO3: 5-10ppm
PO4: 0.2ppm or so up to 1ppm or more, no real set point, main thing is have some present every few days for the plants. It's fine if NO3 or PO4 hiy zero but not for more than a day or so. Absent levels will stunt plants if more than a couple of days.

I'd be careful assuming much regarding the NO3 test kits results, unless you have a good kit and have some to reference it agaist, most fail to give reasonable result in the 0-10ppm range.
The dosages I recommened to you will give about 10ppm after each dosage of 1/4 teaspoon in a 20 gallon tank and is accurate to about 1ppm or so. Depends on how much wood, gravel etc displaces the water. But that's as good/better as any test kit anyone has.
You can call up the local water dept and ask what the tap water's NO3 and PO4 are delivered to your area/home etc.
They will get back to you about it.

Then you know what you are adding to your tank pretty closely without the need for a test kit.
You can estimate by doing large water changes and resetting the tank with fresh nutrients afterwards.

You'll find this to easier than testing etc all the time and good for the plants, bad for the algae.
Lamott makes the kit I would say is the only worthwhile kit out there for the hobby, runs 50-60$.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[djlen]

Ok, I've elected to try a combination of suggestions to eradicate this menace algae. I just finished doing 60% water changes on both the 40 and 55 gal. tanks. I pruned out every leaf that I could see that had the crap on it. I then(while doing the water change) syphon vac'd every square inch of substrate that I could get to, hopefully to remove as many spores as possible. Turned off the CO2 and draped them in black trash bags. I'm telling you it looks like a mortuary around here. I will wait 2 days and do another 50% change and cover em' up again for 2 more days.
I don't have my Potassium Sulfate from my supplier yet and figured since I have to wait I might as well try this option before going radical with the bleach thing. In 4 days I will have all elements that Tom Barr has suggested(once the K2SO4 comes) and will proceed from there with a fresh supply of CO2.
If I forgot anything please let me know.
Len

[Jared]

Make sure you aerate/raise the spraybar -- the fish won't be getting much O2 from the plants.

Jared

[djlen]

I don't have a spraybar, but good filtration with plenty of water movement.
And a fairly small fish load. Hopefully this will do the job.
Len