# The Pleco Resigned: Eradicating Algae, Restoring Order



## Pyro (Nov 20, 2005)

Well, as the topic would suggest, I'm having major problems with my tank, and it's pretty much reached critical level.
There's algae everywhere. It's attached to teh hornwort, it's on the jungle val, it's attached to the black glass and actually growing off the glass. It's on the gravel, and the tank looks like a nuclear bomb has been dropped and 3 danios and a clown pleco are the only survivors.

It's so much, I think the pleco resigned. The hornwort was so algae-infested and looked so bad, I initiated slash-and-burn and erradicated all but a bit of hornwort from the aquarium, but now I'm back at stage one.

I need a significant ammount of help in erradicating algae. The tank looks awful, positively awful. My aquascaping isn't very good, and I need help.

I had another thread about dosing, and buying fertilizers from some place like Greg Watson wouldn't bother me if needed.

There's no nitrate in the water, I can't test phosphorus, and I currently do not dose with anything. I have one Hagan (the ladder thing) CO2 thing running quite well. Right now, CO2 is about 11. I need help eradicating existing algae and preventing it from coming back. Is a full tank scrub-down and redesign nescessary, or is there something else you'd reccomend?

Thanks! (I attached a picture which is actually suprisingly good quality...although most of you aquascapers are going to cringe and faint when you see how bad this looks.)

Right now, there's a bit of hornwort, anacharis, and jungle val. Wysteria can (and most likely) well be added as soon as I get these problems sorted out.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

You didn't say how much light you use, but if it is 3 or 4 watts per gallon, with that CO2 you just have to supply nutrients for the plants. They need nitrate, phosphate, potassium, trace elements. See the fertilator at the top of the page.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

And you need *alot* more plants!

The order of requirements for plants are:

light>CO2>macro elements>micro elements

Work on these going from left to right.


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## |squee| (Feb 3, 2005)

You need about 20 times the amount of plant mass. Here's what I'd do. 

1) Read up the link in my signature ("Get started here!")
2) Dump those plants. No point saving them
3) Do what you learnt in the link in my signature. 

You need alot more plant mass at the start because lack of plant growth = algae growth. You want a ton of plant growth so that algae can't grow, and that can only be acheived by heavy plant mass right at the start. Waiting for them to grow and spread is usually a futile attempt; they'll most likely scucumb to algae earlier.

Don't think about aquascaping so much now... get to know how to grow plants first. Good luck!


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Zero nitrates is not good. The plants need N03 to grow to out compete the algae. Keep N03 around 10ppm.

Get a phosphate (P04) test kit. This will be needed in keeping a balanced tank. Keep P04 around 1ppm.

Add a lot more plants, mostly fast growers to soak up nutrients that the algae feed on.

Add a variety of algae eating fish and shrimp.

keep your C02 levels at 20-30ppm at all times.

Remove as much algae from the gravel, glass, plants & decor as possible and then do a 50% water change. 

Being consistent with nutrients, waterchanges, C02, lighting is needed in getting rid of the algae.


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