# Constantly Getting Algae on Hardscape Near Surface



## DGalt (Jul 1, 2008)

When I first started the planted tank journey about a year ago I went through the usual issues of those new to planted tanks (too much light, not enough CO2 = BBA, etc.)

I have since become more experienced and don't see algae really anymore except in one spot....on my pieces of driftwood that have portions near the surface (and subsequently near my lights).

Obviously, the closer something is to the lights the more intense the lighting will be on that spot. But I plenty of tanks don't seem to have this issue; what are they doing differently / what should I do? As I said, I'm not getting algae anywhere else, including the slow growers such as anubias or crypts that I have in there.

I'm really at a loss about what I should do. CO2 levels are at about the point where if I increase them my fish start to get annoyed (been playing with CO2 a lot lately, think I have it at about the max I can without stressing the fish out too much). Currently I have 40W of CFL spiral lighting over the tank (which is 15 gallons), but I even had this issue when I was using only 26W, which is why I think it's a result of the wood being close to the lights.

The algae is specifically BBA. I haven't had anything else in the tank since I cleared up my diatom issue about 4 months ago. I've tried removing it on several occasions as well as spot treating with Excel and H2O2. They all work, but only temporarily.

I'm going to just give the tank conditions I had in the past since I just changed a whole bunch of things. The lighting _was_ 26W CFL spiral (2x13W), Schultz aquatic soil substrate, no dosing ferts, pressurize CO2 system. Plants were mosses and anubias. Nitrates are generally around 10ppm. I have recently changed my substrate to ADA aquasoil and have added dwarf hairgrass, crypts, and dwarf sag to my plant list. And the lighting has increased to 40W, although I'm going to be switching to a new fixture soon.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

thanks


----------



## wwh2694 (Aug 15, 2008)

I had similar problem before. What I did I used flourish excel directly on the BBA everythime I change water. I use a syringe to draw the dose seachem recomend on the first 50% water change. When you take the water out and see the BBA above the water use the excel directly and wait about 20 min then fill the tank. You will see about 3 to 4 days those BBA will turn red and white and die. My guppies love to eat them when they turn white. You have to make sure that you dose your fertz excatly the same amt and excatly same time every day for the plants to grow well. You have to add some fast growing plants to fight algae. I use an auto doser with PPS pro. The plants know when they are getting there food. I you have more than 3 watts of light per gallon like i do I set my lights to turn off in the middle of the day and come back on at the afternoon. Balance is the key. Hope this help.


----------



## fishaquatics (Aug 2, 2009)

To fight algae that grows on your wood, I would recommend getting a Farlowella acus. when I got this intresting fish it cleaned all the algae on my wood. Only get one because if you get two there would not be enough algae to feed both. The negitive to this fish is that it is sensitive to water quality and hard to find at pet stores, otherwise its a great fish. Look it up on google, very cool fish.


----------

