Thick green slimy algae

satanpie

satanpie

Banana plant addict.
Aug 25, 2007
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Long Island NY
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hey guys, ive had my 75 gallon up for a bout a year now its going well, but im developing this thick slimy dark green algae thats just starting to coat everything, it grows in poatches along my substrate and on peices of wood and on plants, what is it, where did it come from, how can i get rid of it? thanks
 
If it's on Decor such as Rocks and Fake Wood then you can bleach them with 1 part bleach and 19 part of water. If its plants then you can also do the Bleach treatment, but most of the time you can kill the plant with bleach which is bad. You can also add some Gouramis, they LOVE algae. Good Luck!
 
God help ya if its BGA... only way i killed that stuff was a week of 1/2 doses of marycyn/erythromicin.. which of course tossed the tank into a new cycle lost a bunch of fish.... now if i could just find something that works on black beard algae i'd be in heaven
 
yep thats it! ****! it just coats the bottom and sticks to everything,all over leaves of the plants and my driftwood aahgghggh what should i do?
 
and if i might add to that... how does one prevent this from occurring?
 
check ebay for maracyn... make sure it says erythromicin get the powdered form and use half the recommended dose for your tank... do a major water change before you start and vac out all you can then refill the tank and dose it for 5 days if you see any start back hit it with another dose thats what i did with my 55 and its been clean so far... but like i said in my first post it tossed the tank for a loop and i did lose fish
 
Cyanobacteria... been around for millions of years and pissing off tank owners =).

That stuff can be nuked out (antibiotics) but the root problem is still there.

Abundance of Nitrate and Phosphate will promote its growth.. just like algae...photosynthesis feeds it also.

The best way to prevent it is to keep phosphates (If non planted tank) at 0ppm and of course the obvious nitrates way down.

Having lots of flow can prevent stagnant areas ...since cyano doesnt stick to areas very well..once foothold though they stay pretty well.

Since you fresh water tank users use tap water...that can be a source of the foods required to push its growth...

Get your hands on phosphate removing media... watch your PH cause it does affect it some on the break in.

And...siphon out what you can....

if you really want to punch cyano in the mouth ... water change with RO water and have those freshwater salts on hand to put in that water..its stripped of all the bad things and good trace elements...changing out with that ...siphon... and phosphates being at 0ppm...that stuff wont last.

Before doing all this stuff i listed.

Check Nitrate and Phosphate ...the readings will be lower than it really is due to that stuff feeding on it to... but seeing 10ppm really means there is a lot more than that...
So if you see readings of like 80ppm of Nitrate..you can imagine how much higher it really is =)

its a common issue in marine... natural way to deal with it is reducing what it feeds on..takes a bit of time as you have to siphon out what does appear...but once foods are gone..it recedes.

good luck..sorry about the Cyano outbreak.
 
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