Blue-green algae

[sparky7]

Bluegreen algae!!Help!!!!

Help!!!!I have broken out with blue green algae, Have read some suggestion, one involved using kno3. Was told to buy stump remover, home depot only carries one brand and no ingredients were listed.......Any suggestions for removing the algae or where else I may find potassium nitrate???????

 

[latazyo]

I have heard that complete black out for 3 days takes care of it, no lights and cover EVERY side of your aquarium

 

[sparky7]

I've read that also, seems that fish might get alittle hungry

 

[latazyo]

well...ya could slip a few flakes in there...I dont' think the 2.3 seconds of maybe light would affect anything!!...hehe...or feed them at midnight

 

[wayne]

Blue green algae is hard work to get rid of. I wouldn't try chemicals as when the stuff dies your filter will be working overtime to remove the decaying rubbish, and you won't do your fish any favours. Blanking light won't help much either - it grows ridiculously quickly, so when you put light back in, 3 days later you're back to sq one.
Frankly I've just had a big attack in a tank, which I think was because my substrate was too thick, and over a period of a year just got dirty. I had lots of rocks, but not too many plants, so I popped the filter in a bucket with the fish and broke the tank down, removed most of the substrate and washed carefully what went back in. No more problems. The only plants in there now are tied to the rocks.
My water quality was always good, but my substrate was pretty mucky, the rocks made it hard to hoover efficiently - do you think that's similar to yours?

 

[Cichlid Woman]

Hi, folks,

I looked it up and here's what I found:

"The cause: high nutrients (nitrates) and bad lighting as well as a high organic content in the water." Ouch. Elsewhere, the article says slow-moving or still water encourages it. Might want to kick up your filter's water flow? It also says this stuff is easy to vacuum away with your gravel vacuum.

HTH.

-- Pat

 

[sparky7]

Hey CW, thanks for the input, but that's where it gets strange, We have 2 compact florescents on the tank, two cansiter filters running, so movement and lights are not the culpret, also, I have no nitrates or nitrites at all, test kits are recent.... and if my fish don't finish all of their food, I hand vacum .
Wayne, no my problem is a little different, I have onyx sand as my substrate, so nothing gets down in there, just vacum off the top.......But I'm really glad that you got yours under control!
After Christmas, I'm going to try w/c, covering and a little kno3, I finally found some spectracide stump remover that states that it does have potassium nitrate, will confirm with them after Christmas( The 800 is not in service do to the holiday) that that's all that's in there.
THanks for everybodys help, will update after I try......
Also will run the vortex the entire time the lights are off, somthin has to work here!!