Yikes!

[reptileman]

So my 227 litre has been overun with diatoms and know some type of green algae is joining. and i mean plants, moss, and rocks are covered with it..... in blankets what do i do?

 

[Mikey1]

algae is normally caused by poor tank maintanance, overfeeding, insuficient water changes, etc etc
 
how have you been maintaining the tank?
 
how many fish are in it?

 

[reptileman]

i have been doing 10-20% bi-weekly water changes, there is 13 fish in the tank, and as for overfeeding my cousin dropped the food container in with it open a slight bit but nearly no food came out i took it out immediately and tossed it as  it quickly was waterlogged.

 

[Ellieabbott4]

I had a huge outbreak of diatoms a few weeks ago. I chucked a few malaysian trumpet snails and they have done a massive clean up! I can't even tell that I had a problem before i put them in

 

[reptileman]

my one problem is i want my tank to be things from africa only...

 

[Ellieabbott4]

Oh right ok, maybe don't add mt snails then

 

[reptileman]

if i can't find anything from africa to use, then i will use MTS' because it's disgusting, besides when i add my bichir he will probably eat them, i thought they were a pest snail though?

 

[This Old Spouse]

I'd suggest finding the cause of your problem first before just tossing something in there to hopefully eat the problem. As Mikey said, there are things that cause the problem. How long are your lights on every day?

 

[reptileman]

lights are on 12 hrs a day,but i think i found the problem, now to control it, the problem is that i didn't rinse my pfs before putting it in and it probably put extra silicates into the  water i didn't rinse BC my friend told me i didn't have to (hes uses it in all his tanks but his salt)..... so i know i can get that out with more frequent/ routine water changes, but in the mean time i need something to control the stuff, whilst i do my part

 

[This Old Spouse]

Cut your lighting time in half. 12 hours is way too much.

 

[reptileman]

okay what if i did 10hours with a 2 hour siesta?

or just in half totally whilst i'm combatting it?

 

[This Old Spouse]

Unless you have lots of plants and are dosing with CO2, your lights really shouldn't be on more than 5-6 hours per day.

 

[reptileman]

i'd say the tank is low-medium on the amoun t of plants and i'm dosing seachem excel (liquid carbon)

 

[This Old Spouse]

I'd still say 5-6 hours max per day.

 

[reptileman]

alright i'm going to do 3-break-3, or would it be more beneficial to the plants for a staright 6......