Question about black furry algae and lighting

[Walker Anderson]

I am haveing little outbrakes of a black furry algae on my larger swords and only on them. My pygmy chains, java fern and cabomba are all algae free.
Is there anyway to prevent this or any idea what I am doing wrong? All I could do was last night trim or remove the more effected leaves.

My cleanup crew is 2 bronze corys, 2 albino cories, and 2 albino algae eaters. They keep the tank very clean, but wont touch the black fuzz.

I am new to planted aquariums so my questions may seem sillly. My dad scoffed at me for using plastics. And after my first bunch of cabomba, I yanked all the plastics and went live. They are so much nicer.

Also a lighting question.

My tank came with a single bulb flouresent with no reflector. The tank is 30 gal. I replaced it with a 2 light flourescent hood. Still not enough light so I removed the flip up lid in the front and took the light hood I replaced and with a little dremel work made it the flip lid and have a flourescent glow bulb in the front. At 60 watts will this be fine for most plants without annoying the fish?

Or should I look at Home Depot or Lowes for some kind of timer since they are seperate light hoods, and have them timed for max light in afternoon, and dimmer as the day winds down. Like the 1 grow bulb in am, 2 light till noon, all three till late after noon, then 2 till evening, and a few hours of 1 till all off?

Thanks for any replys,
Walker Anderson

[djlen]

That lighting will be fine for your tank and not affect the fish one way or the other.
If you get a timer, put both light sets on it to go on and off at the same time. A 10 - 12 hour photo period is the norm.
The algae you are experiencing sounds like BBA (black beard algae) and came into your tank either on the plants you introduced or even some spores could have been in the water with the plants or new fish.
In any event lighting has no effect on BBA. Use our search engine for a ton of information on this algae.
Best way to clean it up is to do just that. Cut it or prune it off the plants, or pull the plants and bleach dip them(search engine for this also).
Then pick up some Flourish Excel at your LFS and dose it as instructed on the label. It will help grow the plants and the BBA will recede over time.

Len

[Walker Anderson]

Thanks for the reply, I will look into the suggestions. I hit Lowe's on lunchbreak and picked up 2 timers for around $15.00 for the 2 light fixtures. Got a 50lb bag of sand for around 3.00 to put just a little in a corner for my corys to burrow in. And also after reading a bit about light sent back by the reflector above the light bulb being of greater importance than I thought, I got a can of Krylon Chrome, and a new paint I havent seen from Krylon, clear Reflective paint. I figure the one with the grow light has a white background, I will chrome it and the spray on the reflective paint to see if I can increase it's effectiveness.