Hikari Algae Tablets

Mar 15, 2005
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I put in one Algae tablet, and my bristlenose pleco (4") ate half of it and then i removed it. The next day the water was green and i could barely see through it and i found out that it was suspended green algae. has anyone else had this trouble? could it have been the algae tab?
 
It wasn't the algea tab specifically. Is this a new tank? Green water blooms are fairly common with new tanks, and fairly common with any tank which has high nutrient levels and decent light. The common cure is a good three- four day blackout (complete blackout) and some increased cleaning and maintenance before and after the blackout. If your tank is visibly green today, it has been mildly green for several days. Green water blooms IME come on slowly over about a week, they seldom look green at all at first.
dave
 
I use thoes same tablets, and thats never happened to me. Although, after a while, the tablet seems to expand into wierd brown looking stuff.
 
Never had a problem... I'd say it's probably a nutrient imbalance (like dave said, probably a sign of an immature tank). The hikari algae wafers and sinking wafers won't cloud your water or create algal blooms. I've used them for months- even when uneaten they'll just form a cake of green mush. My bristlenose in the 30g will charge anyone who comes near his wafer- getting him to clean his plate is no problem at all.

Couple things you can do that would be helpful:
1) Test your water and see if you have excess phosphate, nitrates, nitrites, or ammonia...
2) watch how much light the tank gets.
3) water changes.
 
Sorry about the green water outbreak, don't worry though, it's not a result of the algae wafer - I feed these to my bristlenose, he loves 'em. Spirulina is, according to what I've just read (just Googled it) actually a species of blue-green algae - cyanobacteria. These algae grow in sheets, they're very different from unicellular floating green algaes, so I'd say it's just a coincidence that the outbreak occured right after feeding the wafer.
 
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