cycling tank + algae outbreak, need help.

[quattro30]

Hi all,
I would like to say that this forum is very informative, especially to when it comes to setting up our new tank.
My wife and I recently set up our tank, we have three white clouds which are doing very well. We are waiting for the tank to cycle completely, but I do have a questions to ask.

We went on vacation a couple for a couple of weeks, when we got back last week there was an outbreak of algae. I will make the automatic filter responsible for this as well as forgeting not leave the light on for the duration of the trip.
Well, anyway, we changed the water and cleaned some the plants and rocks in the tank.
Yesterday, we discovered that the algae is starting to come back slowly, is this normal?

The tank is almost cycled, Nitrites have spiked and nitrates are now starting to climb. I read somewhere that the tank is too rich, is this because nitrates are climbing? This is the part where I get confused, do I need to do anything at this point other than continue to change the water?

Any feedback is appreciated it, great forum by the way.

Regards
Andy

 

[tstenback]

Hello and
If you are nearly finished cycling as it seems you are i would just manually get rid of what you can for now and when the cycle is finished get some good algae eaters i love otos (but they often die suddenly) becase they work so hard. I put 3 in a completely green 5 gal and within 3 days i could see through most of the glass and within 10 days the algae was completely under control with no additives put in the tank...fabulous. However, otos may not be feasible for your tank. If it is large then you would need quite a few as they only get about 1.5 inches tops. If you need a larger fish perhaps a bristle nose pleco they are also hard workers and get about 5 inches. For now only have the lights on when you absolutely must and if you must dont leave them on continuously. Turn them off for a few hours in the middle of the day as most algae requires continuous light to thrive. HTH

 

[quattro30]

Thanks for your feed back, we'll continue to wait for the tank to finish its cycling process and then we'll add some algae eaters. Our tank is a 20g tank, so a few otos may do the trick.
Anyway, thanks for your feed back....

Regards
Andy

 

[jams.alaskan]

Yeah, if you have already passed the nitrite spike and your nitrates are slowly climbing you are through the cycle and simple tank maintainence (water changes/gravel vac/ not overfeed etc.) should help you keep those nitrates under control just fine. They just keep building unless you have plants that are using them up - help to starve your algea by keeping the nitrate levels fairly low.

ALASKA