Bit Of An Algae Breakout

Had my tank up and running now since last september, current stock is in my sig, I did last year have a mild case of BGA which I managed to get rid of using a half dose of maracyn. However, after this went probably since early december I've been getting what I thought was hair algae long flowing strands growing on the plants/rocks and also on some of the slower growing ones like a fur (from reading a few other posts I think this is BBA), I thought I would give it a little time to see if the tank settled and it was christmas, but it's been getting worse, I've now removed a number of plants to try and curtail it but it's still there. I was thinking of adding more plants more than before to see if this would help but i don't want to start off on the wrong foot, I've stopped adding fish while I try and get this under control as I don't want to scare them when I replant, would this be a good move to just put loads of plants in or is there something more scientific I should look to do. If I do replant, is this going to be stressful to my fish.

Thanks,

Keith

Would it hapen to look like this?




If it does then you may want to read This Post

After following Zigs advice from that Thread I have now turned the fight around and the stuff is dying off with a great redness - I've not been treating a full week yet and intend to carry this on for 14 days.

Think so, but not quite the same, I'll get a couple of piccies up tomorrow to see what people think.

Cheers,

Keith

OK, added some pistures of the algae:




Think the last one is the BBA, not sure about the other?

Cheers

Keith

Id say you have a "bit" of an algae problem allright

It looks like you have several different algae verities in this tank

If you can post your tank stats that would be helpful.

The Excel will probably do wonders for your algae but it will probably come back if you dont correct the root cause.

So maybe tackle both at the same time, you could dose Excel for a quick banishment of the current algae and work out whats causeing it at the same time.

Hi Zig,

Tank is 180 litres, 1 wpg lighting, ammonia 0, Nitrites <0.3, nitrates best I can tell from the kit @ 10 ppm, every time I have tested nitrates never seem to be very high. Not sure what other stats you might need to help determine the cause.

I guess it's best to leave the plants at the moment while I work out what the problem is, I do think though I need more plants in there, especially as I've already removed some that were particularly bad.

Cheers,

Keith

Hiya Keith

Is this a Juwel tank by any chance with the origional light tubes still installed? and if not what type of tubes are lighting the tank ATM.

Are their many fish in the tank?

Why do you think you are getting readings for nitrite @ 0.3 what sort of filter are you useing? the readings should really be at 0.

Hi Zig,

Yes it is a Juwel tank Vision 180 and yes I still have the original lights, I had thought of swapping them for some Arcadia ( I think they were) lamps, but funds never got there, I guess this is something you are going to recommend. Fish population is 6 harlequins, 3 Pakistani Loaches, 3 Cory Julii and 2 Guppies (I did have 5 corys but 2 died as did a few guppies, I haven't replaced these yet because of the algae, just incase I need drastic measures).

The nitrite is <0.3, it may well be 0, but this is the lowest reading on the kit I have, I suspect it is 0. The other point I should mention, I did at one point add liquid feed for the plants, but once I had the algae I sort of stopped in case that was the cause.

I've checked out my plant situation and here's the low down on current position I had some green cambomba, whose stems kept rotting, this is virtually gone now, I also had some Elodea densa thick and hydrilla verticiliata which I've removed as again the stems kept rotting. I'm now left with 3 clumps of sagittaria natans (covered in algea), a rather large area of amazon swords, covered in both types of algae I mentioned, a plant which I think is bacopa monniera, about 5 stems of (I hope I've got all these right) hygrophila polysperma, 2 cryptocoryne wendtii and a red african tiger lotus lily, I have tried to aim for low light plants given the wpg I have.

I had been planning on adding more plants this was the list out of interest I came up with, but I haven't ordered them yet, I more interested in sorting out the algae first.

Ludwigia Palustris (Green Ludwigia)
Rotala Wallissii (Red Feather Ambulia)
Gymnocoronis Spilanthoides (Curved/Thick stem hygro)
Ceropteris Siliquosa (fine leaved indian fern/water sprite)
cryptocoryne lingua
crypto wendttii
didiplis dindra
Amazon sword super xl
thick green mygrio
mini willow leaf
Dwarf Sags

Thanks,

Keith

OK, just got myself some flourish excel, so I'm going to try the overdosing to get rid of the suspected BBA, not sure this will get rid of the other algae but it's a start.

Keith

Update on progress, now on day 10 where I've been dosing on about 3x the normal Excel dose. Most of my algae has now turned reddish and things are looking better.

How long should I continue dosing, what should I expect to see next, does the algae turn white, think I saw this mentioned in another thread?

Cheers,

Keith

Mine turned white(ish) a sort of gray white and my fish started eating it so i knew it was dead as they never went near it when it was alive, usually you go 14 days dosing the excel, you might have to dose longer than the 14 days if you are only at the red stage now, also you are not injecting CO2 and this usually along with the OD quickens things up, once you see it go a white/gray colour it is more or less dead and depending on the fish you have they may start picking at it, i would still manually remove as much as you can from the tank and fingers crossed it wont return, but see how it goes, there is no real time frame as such the 14 days is just a guideline, for some tanks even with CO2 injection it can sometimes take about 21 days or so and for others the algae can go red within a couple of days, but the red is a definate sign you are getting the upper hand.

Good, I'll just keep going then and try and remove it by hand as it goes whitish.

Cheers,

Keith