How Can I Stop Algae Bloom?

[MikeO]

Following a 7 week fishless cycle and now having been stocked for about 4/5 weeks, I am suffering the dreaded algae bloom.

I understand it happens a lot in new tanks, but whilst this is a new set up, the tank is not brand new and has been used previosuly.

My woes started about two weeks ago with brown algae - It has been relentless. All over rocks, heater, ornaments and some on the glass (to a lesser extent).

Now in the last week green algae has started to rear its head on the rocks.

I have changed my weekly water change from 30% to 50%. My ammonia and nitrite are zero. My nitrate is below 5.

The tank runs 3x30w bulbs. One blue, one white, one pink. I have cut the light on time down to 9hrs, basically goes on when I leave and off when I get home, but still it keeps coming back.

I do not want to resort to chemicals. I have a plec coming next week (L137) but I do not know if he will eat any of the algea as they predominantly eat wood I think. Either way its not going to eat the amount that keeps growing.

What can I do to stop it growing?

 

[PDSimon]

From my very short time here so far, the main problems that cause algae seem to be direct sunlight and leaving the lights on for too long. I think a lot of people have theres on for 6-8 hours a day but this needs confirming

 

[MewMew42]

aye cutting down to 6 hours a day will help, just get a timer theyre pretty cheap!

is teh tank in a bright room or near a window?

how often do you feed?

 

[MikeO]

It is near the french doors in the living room, but because of the layout of the room / house it does nto get direct sunlight, but the room is obviosuly bright.

I feed twice a day, once in the morning little bits at a time for three minutes (cichlid pellets - red and green mix) then a little bit of flake on the night. There is never any excess food - my malawi are greedy little gets!

I will look at a timer - its nice to have the lights on when im home at night, so it would make sense to have no lights in the day when the room is bright and then turn them on about 4pm. Will give that a go and see if it helps.

Is there anything else I may be able to do?

 

[drobbyb]

You really only need to feed your fish once a day. I know the bottle says to feed more often, but they are just trying to sell you more food. One other thing to point out here is that the more food you feed, the more ammonia is produced. Ammonia + light = algae.

 

[MewMew42]

I have heard moss balls can help combat algae, it works for me but its worth a try!

 

[stuuk1]

Im a noob but feeding twice a day seems alot... Ive been told this by the way.

I suffered with getting very green water very quickly when I was feeding daily. I cut down to feeding once, every other day and now Have cleaner water.

When I feed once every other day, I chuck an algae wafer in, with a sachet of blood worm. I alternate between blood worm and flakes.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree, keep your feeding low. Your change to 50% weekly water changes will help (you might get some BBA from that but it will be less of a problem than the brown diatoms.) The major thing is cutting your light - 6 hours may do it or you may even want to go down to 4 hours, it will depend on how your plants do as opposed to the algae - its a balance in that regard. If you have slow growing plants you may want to see if you can find some floating plants to shade the tank more from your lights (the lights also sound like they might have been intended for a marine environment.. not sure.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[MikeO]

I have no plants becuase of the fish I have (see below) and the likelyhood they would destroy them.

I have purchased a timer (thanks for the idea mewmew) which I am currently fathoming out how it works as its electronic (what ever happened to the ones with the slidy edges from the good old days? lol).

Will see what the tank is like in two weeks or so once I have cut down the light and reduced to one feed a day. Dont think I could drop to every other day....they would get well stroppy. They already follow you everytime you go near the tank to try and get food! Greedy little gets!

 

[Macro]

Just a thought here but you say you have no plants in the tank and your running 90w of lights. That's about 3w per gallon and that is borderline bright even in a planted tank from what I understand. Is it possible to only turn on one or two of the lights to lower the Watts per gallon some? Maybe you could do that in conjunction with lessening the time on per day too. Like I said just a thought.

 

[OldMan47]

A 90W lamp over a 60 gallon tank is in the medium to low light range. That would be fine if you had lots of plants to remove the nutrients from your water. With no live plants, limit your light to periods of less than 4 hours at a time. I agree with the observation that the timers with the little pins around the edge are easier to deal with. It is the only type that I have. The electronic ones are for the young folks who do not find them confusing and I find them very expensive. With no live plants in the tank, cut your lighting down to only the time you are present to enjoy the fish.

 

[Macro]

Thanks OM I misunderstood the original post. I didn't realize the L137 was the plec's type I thought he was saying what the tank size was (137Liter) lol. I see now that in his sig it's 260L and that the 90w is indeed not overly bright. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused

 

[OldMan47]

L numbers are easy once you catch on to the code Macro. The L stands for loricard (probably spelled that wrong) which is a way of saying plecostomus. The number usually means that the species has yet to be properly classified by the scientific community but that the number is being used by retailers to identify it as being different to some degree from any other pleco. Most of the L number fish also have a commonly accepted common name for sales to the public in fish shops. Nobody will buy an L-xxx but they will buy a starlight, leopard or whatever pleco. The corydoras trade uses C numbers in much the same way for species that have yet to be described in the scientific literature. Those also have common fish shop names because again, people don't see numbers as attractive but creative names often appeal to them.