Medication for Algae

WinterWind

WinterWind

Mad pianist
Feb 11, 2005
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I have much algae in my tank, I think thread or beard algae. It is long, green, and bushy, and VERY annoying. Each week I change water, it is such a hassle to take it out, and then there are still a lot left! Anyways, I would like to ask if there are any safe medications or something that will rid my tank of this thread algae. Are there any that will kill the algae but is innocuous to my other plants(sword plant, java fern, aponogetons, riccia, annubias, etc.)? I heard that algae destroying medications could be harmful to plants.

I know of the bleaching method, but i don't think that will do too good for me b/c I will have to strip down my whole tank (don't have time), or else the tiny spores of algae will only once again infect my tank.

Nor do I have room for algae eaters in this overstocked 10 gallon tank.

So I will have to settle on some "algae-be-gone" solution. Any recommendations for medications that you have used or might be helpful toward a solution for my algae problem?

Thanks.
 
I am not going to give any advise on chemical aglae removing solutions, for the pure fact that I won't use them,for that I will apologise. It seems like you have tried everything and are probably down to your last resort. What would be the best thing to do would be to find out the cause of your algae problem and fix that, unfortunately chemicals are a bandaid fix. Algae as you may know is caused be excess nutrients or an unbalance in something in your tank, and if you have plants and you have algae, the plants are not doing their job or could be doing a better job at least. If you can't put in algae eaters what about some amano shrimp, they would do wonders for the algae that you are speaking of,unfortunately not cure it. There are many ways of fixing your algae problems ,but for starters can you tell us you water parameter's? Cheers.
 
Well, sounds olike your problem is too many fish so i suggest you get rid of some of the fish and get more plants to compete for the excess nutrients in your tank. Once you fish population is down, do a water change, clean off as much of the algae without using any chemicals and ad a few algae eaters. Large leaf plants will definitely consume more nutrients and hold back the algae. Shrimp are wonders with this type of algae also. you are in the right place to get informatin for your problem so keep asking questions. You bound to come up with the answer.

thePlantMan cometh...............
 
A ten gallon tank is quite easily fixed and balanced, but no one can help you without knowing all the variables. How many fish, amounts of plants? Water parameters(gH,kH,pH,nitrates,phosphates....any info. you can supply), do you feed extra nutrients and if so what?
Do you use CO2 or Excel as carbon additives?
Most important....what is your lighting?
If I was in your home and saw your tank I could clean it up and it would sparkle in 2 week.....3 weeks max. I'm not bragging. I'm trying to illustrate a point. If you tell us your situation we can help. Without adequate knowledge you will not receive adequate advice.
One thing you need to know. Chemical fixes are not the way to go.

Len
 
its called and ALGEAEATER!
 
Thanks for all the replies. I have 2.8 WPG over my tank, and I do have A LOT of plants in there. There is an amazon swords, a good variety of aponogetons, java fern, anubias, a blanket of riccia on top, and some dwarf sag. I have 6 fish in there: a male betta, 3 white cloud minnows, and two medium-sized cories.

I'm not sure about the water parameters, but I do change 40% of the water once a week. I am not currently (and have not for a while) added any nutrients.

If you were in my position, what would you start doing to get rid of the algae? Please provide a sort of "attack plan". Thanks. :)
 
Well for starters I would suggest testing the water for Po4, No3, Kh and ph. I know it is expensive but if you are talking about a plan of attack, you need to know what to attack(figure of speech). In the long run using chemicals to treat the algae could possibly run a much higher cost. BTW you are adding nutrients everytime you feed your fish, I say that even though you may have been refering to ferts. Just as a point of intrest you should be adding ferts to introduce the neccessary nutrients to promote good plant growth so that you plants can out compete the algae for excess "algae producing nutrients", if you do not the plants will not grow and therefore the remaining nutrients will consumed by more than willing algae.
 
WinterWind said:
Thanks for all the replies. I have 2.8 WPG over my tank, and I do have A LOT of plants in there. There is an amazon swords, a good variety of aponogetons, java fern, anubias, a blanket of riccia on top, and some dwarf sag. I have 6 fish in there: a male betta, 3 white cloud minnows, and two medium-sized cories.

I'm not sure about the water parameters, but I do change 40% of the water once a week. I am not currently (and have not for a while) added any nutrients.

If you were in my position, what would you start doing to get rid of the algae? Please provide a sort of "attack plan". Thanks. :)
Click to expand...

Something is going to grow in there, you have a choice of what that something is.

If you want plants to grow, well focus on them and their needs.

I'd suggest a few thing, swords, probably way way too big for a 10 gal tank.
I would alos suggest use Seachem Excel in your case.
Add about 1.5x the amount suggested.
Next get some fertilizers.

KNO3
KH2PO4
Traces
See what your GH is(add SEaChem Equilibrium, about 1/8 teaspoon after water change).

So these are plant nutrients, they are easy to add(eg 2x a week, once after the water change and once mid week).

Yea, they have chemical names, so does baking soda, we can easily cook with baking soda without all the chem( calling it "Sodium bicarbonate").

You'll add:
1/8 teaspoon of the KNO3 2x week
A smige of KH2PO4(about 1/2 a rice grain or a whole rice grain's worth(uncooked)
2 mls of Traces 2x a week
SeaChem Eq after water change
SeaChem excel every other day

This plus a little pruning and elbow grease will solve about 90% of the issue at least.

You can spend the $ on test kits etc, but the ferts here will last a very long time(years for a 10 gal) except for the Excel unless you get a big jug from Big Al's On Line etc.

The rest of the ferts can be bought from :

www.gregwatson.com

For peanuts.

Test kits do not grow plants.
Algicides do not grow plants.
If it does not grow the plants, don't add it to your tank.

You can test etc later or now if you so chose but do not waiver from the path based of those test results, discuss them with folks in the know prior to making any changes.

As far as dosing, if you do weekly 50% water changes, nothing will ever build up beyond 2x the dosed amount for the week.

So you do frequent weekly water changes to prevent things from building up, and then dose 2x a week to prevent anything from running out.

Happy plants.

Regards,
Tom Barr


www.BarrReport.com
 
Even though I hold Tom in very high regards, I have to dissagree with a few things that he said. "test kits don't grow plants", the statement is very true, but test kits are absolutly essential in order to give your plants the best possible chance to grow. Eg On a Co2 injected tank the need to know the value of the PH and KH so as you can work out how much Co2 to put in, I will assume that your tank is not Co2 injected, but you will still need to know the levels of Po4 and No3, for the reason that these two nutrients are the biggest reason why algae will flourish(A few other factors will also come into play). IMO you would be mad to add KH2PO4 to a tank that has high Po4 b/c it will just make your situation worse and that is why it would be wise to test your water first before going and adding a plethora of ferts.

So I would suggest testing your tap water and your tank water and see if anything is lacking or not needed and then follow Tom's advise by adding the required ferts as suggested ,only if they are lacking I might add. Cheers.
 
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