Algea Bloom

Questions first:

1) How old id your tank and are the plants well established?
2) What are your water parameters?
3) What kind of fish do you have in the tank?
4) How many WPG (watts per gallon) of lighting to you have?
5) How many hours a day do you have those lights on?
6) Does direct sunlight shine on the tank during the day?
7) Are you possibly over-feeding your fish?

Sorry about the long line of questions but the details you provide will help a lot with the right solution. The quick answer to stopping an algae bloom is to do a complete 96 hour blackout of your tank. The problem will be that the underlying cause won't be fixed. Check back with some details and info and you'll get lots of help with your algae.

***While you're waiting for some help, use the search feature and you'll discover a treasure trove of great information related to algae problems on this site. I've learned volumes since joining here a couple of months ago. Good luck!

Thanks for the information.

Here's what I gathered from your information:

You have a young tank (less than a month old) which I suspect didn't get cycled prior to introducing your fish. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. If that's the case then your water chemistry is most likley way out of balance and a potential cause.

Unfortunatley you're flying blind in regards to knowing what your water parameters are. I use a master test kit made by Aquartium Pharmaceuticals and it does an excellent job of keeping me tuned in to what my levels of ammonia, nitrItes, nitrAtes, and Ph are. I would get one of these ASAP. Here's a couple of online sources that have them at a good price.

http://www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=19383;category_id=3233;pcid1=;pcid2=

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=4454&inm=1&N=2004+113074+113565

You mentioned that sunlight is shining on your tank. This could be a huge contributor to algae formation. Additionally, it could easily heat your tank up far beyond your intended temp ranges. The fluctuations will definitely stress your fish and possibly kill them eventually.

See if you can determine what wattage your light bulb is. I'm not very suspicious of this being the problem but you will want to make sure you have enough light/watts for the types of plants you have growing there. Others might have differing opinions but I would suggest that four hours of light a day is not going to sustain your plants for very long. Most people seem to use a timer and leave the lights on from 8 - 12 hours if they have live plants. It depends some on the species you have in the tank.

Finally, I don't see anything wrong with feeding twice a day. Just make sure you don't give them any more than they can eat in a few minutes. I've been guilty of over-feeding in the past. Fish do very well on amazingly little food. It's fun to feed them and it's easy to give them too much...been there.

To do's:

1) Get a test kit ASAP.
2) Try to find a way to block the sunlight hitting the tank or move it somewhere else.
3) Search, search, search. You'll learn far more than this newbie can share in a post.

Check back with your progress and/or questions. You'll get this problem under control and your enjoyment factor will go up too. Good Luck!


***Here's a few tips to get you started:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?dept_id=0&siteid=6&acatid=328&aid=714

You do better take your plants out if you decided to do the blackout.

I agree you need to get the test kits asap. It is just $25 in petsmart if you don't want to wait for shipping.

Plants will do just fine during a blackout. I just did a 96 hour blackout on a moderately planted tank with plants that had been in there less than two weeks. They actually looked better when I unwrapped the tank and many had developed several new shoots. BTW, the fish will do just fine as well.

Just get some of the better magnetic cleaners clean it out and tint the room window or sumthin

Water changes in the mean time will help. A blackout can kill the algae, but it won't remove the food source the algae is using--knowing what's feeding it is a big part of the solution.

OrionGirl said:

Water changes in the mean time will help. A blackout can kill the algae, but it won't remove the food source the algae is using--knowing what's feeding it is a big part of the solution.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the catch OC! Geez, how'd I overlook something so trivial as water changes. I'm going back to newbie school now...

Keep at it AH....you'll have a great tank in no time!