I have a 20Long with white play sand. i have 5 multies and a rubber lipped pleco, and 5 small snails. i am getting this green algae on my sand and i can figure out how to get rid of it. can someone please help me!
Algae in sand
- Thread starter belmont0182
- Start date
Algae that's out of control always indicates an abundance of nutrients. You could try adding some plants that would compete for the nutrients, feed less, and do more frequent water changes. I've found that amano shrimp will help clean the sand better than any fish, so you could try adding them as well--by themselves, though, they won't be able to show much progress.
Wups--sorry, I was thinking multi platties. Cichlids likely would make a snack of any shrimp. Increased cleaning might be your best option, as the fish might go after plants as well. I'm not that informed when it comes to cichlids! 
do how do i clean it, ive tried to vac it up but the algae is heavy and barely goes up the tube. ive pulled the algae out manually but it reappears the next day. they dont even get that much light, i dont turn it on till around 130 and i turn it off around 12
that kinda algea is horrible... if there is no plants and strong fish, i might suggest the "algea destroyer" it worked wonders in my brothers tank
a toxic liquid you squirt in and it kills just about anything it can, sometimes fish, but the algea doesnt stand a chance
Hans said:
Nice thought, but "Algae Destroyer" (or it's main chemical component, Simazine) doesn't quite work like that.
The way it was explained to me, it's an oxidizer. It robs the water of a certain amount of O2, enough that repeated doses will keep the algae from having O2 to grow on. We used it at the Aquarium Service store on all our FW tanks. It's mostly a preventative tho; don't expect it to kill all the algae at once, it takes repeated cleaning and regular doses of AD to keep the tank "clean." Kind of like taking 3000 milligrams of Vitamin C a day; it's a more than you need, but it keeps the crap out of your system.
Use as directed! I can't stress that enough. If you use too much, it will kill everything in the tank by ripping out all of the O2 that the fish/livestock use. Go light if you use it at all. Make sure you have plenty of surface ripple for gas exchange. You will also want to find out if your nitrAtes are high, and if so, what's causing it and how you can slow them down (regular large water changes will help).
If you use this on a planted tank, it WILL kill all of the plants (algae's a plant, ya know).
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT USE ALGAE DESTROYER ON A SALTWATER TANK.
well right now the algae is an eyesore, i dont want to risk my multies because of algae, i think im going to just give them less light less food and more gravel vac...thanks all for your help