Pic Of My Algae

ok finally got a pic of my algae problem,as you can see its pretty widespread,so time for replacing all the sand

Its blue green algae, have a look at the sticky by George a blackout is the best way to get rid of it. No reason to remove the sand, it would just return on the new sand.

Liam ive already done the blackout and no success,im begining to think its rhizoclonium,another question
im not sure if bga pearls,because aboult half hour after my lights come on this stuff what ever it is begins to pearl
mister-t

It's blue green algae, I've had it I know, what you need to do is run a black out, 3-4 days 4 is better, no peeking no feeding no light and no co2, when you uncover the tank do a massive water change, 80% or 2 50% water changes back to back add kno3 and turn on your co2, also, increasing water movement over the sand will help.

ok ill do another blackout,ive removed all algae from the tank,just about to clean my filter,and do a 50%
water change,removed the affected plants,lets hope it works this time
mister-t

like many things, water changes seem to be the bigger the better when dealing with algae.
increasing circulation is probably going to be the key to beating BGA.

just refilling my tank now,also ive reduced the size of my spray bar,so as to give the water more circulation,so as to reduce any dead spots around the tank,is just such a pity im having these problems as my plants are growing so nice
mister-t

blackouts need to be at least a week or two... i usually blackout for a minimum of two weeks, if theres still algae then perhaps maybe another.

rhizo is normally the brownish slimy stuff that wafts in the water from wherever it is growing from. damned hard to fish out too becuase it will just fall apart in your fingers.

Andy

Rubix said:

blackouts need to be at least a week or two... i usually blackout for a minimum of two weeks, if theres still algae then perhaps maybe another.

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blackouts for a week or two,hope he dont mean contiuos,as thereis no way i would black my tank out for that long,or maybe ive read it wrong,andy the rhizo in james planted site,is green thats why i thought it might have been that
mister-t

yes i do mean continuous. i have black fabric i conceal the tank with and no light gets inside until the algae is gone. i only do this with tanks that have -common- fish (Danio rerio, etc) and usually put the fish in one of my other tanks during the blackout.

Liam said:

Its blue green algae, have a look at the sticky by George a blackout is the best way to get rid of it. No reason to remove the sand, it would just return on the new sand.

Click to expand...

I have had a couple boughts with BGA and something in that thread was contrary to everything I had ever heard. I had always heard that high nitrates were a prime trigger (along with overfeeding, high phosphates and too much light) of BGA but according to his article, LOW nitrate is the problem. I had never heard or read that before. I'm not quite sure what the reasoning behind that is though as I always thought/heard the nitrate is what the BGA fed off of.

Since reading that, I have done a little more searching and one thing that does appear to be a real key to controlling it is water flow and current. Almost everything I have read says that it thrives in low current areas. From my experience, that makes sinse as my biggest problems with it have been in betta tanks where I have always kept the flow rate on the filter turned down since bettas don't seem to like a lot of current.

It also seems that a blackout may not be the best (or even a good) method. The reason for this, according to a few articles is that the blackout stops the photosynthesis of the plants thus making it much easier for the BGA to pick right back up once the light is back. From my expereinces with blackouts, I would tend to agree with that as the BGA always came right back. I think I would probably go with a treatment of Maracyn (not Maracyn 2). According to most articles, it is very effective in killing BGA but is safe for fish and plants.

The reason that BGA can be triggered by low nitrates is that it can make its own nitrate out of nitrogen. In parts of the world it is cultivated to produce nitrogen for farming. I don’t know of anything else in our tanks that can make its own nitrates. The relationship between nitrates and phosphates is also important I believe, with high phosphates and low nitrates bga has ideal growing conditions as it can use the phosphate while other plants and algae are struggling with low nitrate.
Good circulation is important because bga doesn’t anchor as well as algae. Good circulation also means good filtration, bga seems to like detritus to grow on, if the muck goes in the filter it its harder for it to establish. It can colonise any water so even if it is killed by antibiotics it will colonise the water when the antibiotics are gone and if conditions are to its liking it will flourish again.
I have done blackouts for it in the past and yes it can come back though never nearly as strongly, with enough water changing (the water here has lots of nitrate) it doesn’t get a hold, if a spot appears I remove it as soon as I see it, I siphon it out with an air line so that it all comes out. It is in some ways the easiest nuisance ‘algae’ to deal with.
Anyway rdd I agree on the good circulation and the over feeding.

Where do you get a test to check phosphates? I've never seen a test for that in any of the pet/fish stores I've been in.
Also, where do you get kno2?

We just got done with a 3 day blackout and it got rid of it for now, but I know it's going to come back if I don't figure out how to prevent it from flourishing again.

Really no need to test for Phosphorus.
You can get your Nitrogen source from here.
Use Chuck's calculator to help with the calculations. It will all become clear when you go to the link.
Well, if you read through this thread again, you will see that dosing the nitrate to about 20ppm and increasing flow rate will help BGA from coming back. BGA usually starts from the substrate so you can slide a credit card between the glass and substrate to break it up.

P.S. I really don't advise doing weekly black outs. That would almost certainly cause more problems to your plants. 3days is enough.