# What is this?????



## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

I have this algea spreading in my tank, it's discusting! has anyone had this before? and what will get rid of it?

 

I have a heap of ramshorn snails and some bristle noses but they don't touch it! i've got 40 glass shrimp coming to try to get rid of it.


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## dukydaf (Aug 31, 2004)

Form the pic I say it is a good start for BGA ( blue green "algae"). Althou the name they might be black. If it grows like a blanchet and it is scraped off easily then it is BGA.

Search the web for cure, as the only thing that worked for me was erytromicyne.
May God help you with this, hard to kill bacteria.


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## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

i might try to suck it out with an airtube hose


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

What are your tank parameters? What substrate, fertilizers, CO2 method if any, light intensity, tank size, etc.?


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## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

Tank p's....

pH: 7 / 7.1

Nitrate: 0

Nitrite: 0

Ammonia: 0 / 0.25

The tank is 150 litres and has a 3ft 30w powerglo globe.

I have a redsea yeast co2.

and i use Florish, Florish excel, Florish Trace.

A pic of the whole tank...


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## turtlehead (Nov 27, 2004)

Sloory said:


> Tank p's....
> 
> pH: 7 / 7.1
> 
> ...


The problems are in bold. What is the size of this tank?


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## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

the tank is a 3ft.

Hardness: 100ppm or 5.6dH

how do i fix those problems???


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

If I understand correctly, you have 1x 30w of light over the tank?

If so, your first problem is you don't have enough light. That is less than 1 watt per gallon (wpg).

If you want to have a low light/low tech tank, I'd still recommend getting that lighting up to around 1.3-1.5wpg.

If you want high light then a minimum of 2-2.5wpg.

The difference between the low light and high light methods will mainly be the speed of the growth of the plants and a difference in choice of plants. The higher the light, the faster the plants grow, the more CO2 is needed and therefore additional other ferts are also needed (NO3, PO4, Fe, traces...).

Healthy growing plants need NO3 in the water, as well as PO4. And you should have 0 ammonia in the tank.

Here's some good background reading on planted tanks:

http://www.aquatic-plants.org/articles/basics/pages/01_intro.html

www.rexgrigg.com


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## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

are you saying not enough light has caused this algea?


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

The whole point is to concentrate on the plants. If you give the plants everything they need in terms of the right mix of light and nutrients, they will grow well. If you have enough plant mass growing well, you tend to have much fewer algae issues.

So not enough light = plants don't grow as they should = algae. Even if you add fertilizer with not enough light you have the same problem.

Enough light but not enough other nutrients = plants don't grow as they should = algae.


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## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

so if i add more light the algea maight go away?


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## abnormalsanon (Jun 6, 2006)

It might go away, but you might get another type of algae, instead. It's all about the balance of nutrients, light, and CO2.

I'm definitely still learning to keep that balance, too. First I didn't have enough light and got brown algae. Then I decided to up the light to more than 3wpg, but didn't add enough CO2 or ferts. The result? Hair algae and BBA, which I'm currently trying to get rid of.


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## wiste (Feb 10, 2006)

As mentioned earlier in the thread, CO2, ferts and sufficient light should address the root cause.
Manual removal of the algae (or whatever it is) by vacuuming the gravel (if effective) should hasten its demise.


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## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

i also have a litle of that brown algea so i'm getting extra lights, hopefully i will see a change for the better.

Thanks for the advise everyone


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## DaveS (Jun 9, 2006)

Along the same lines as people have already mentioned ...

With my low light tanks (less than 2 watts per gallon) I have found that adding extra nutrients to the water column often times creates more problems than not. I tend to use substrate types of fertilizers (Flourish tabs, etc.) instead with perhaps a very low level of water column fertilizers (Flourish at half dose). 

I have fought the BGA battles for extended periods of time as well, and I can say that my worst outbreaks actually occurred when my plants were growing at their best, which would suggest a lack of nutients triggered the problem. In my lower light tanks, adding extra nutrients only seemed to make the problem worse. In the end, in multiple tanks, the final solution was simple: add more fish. My tanks were lightly stocked, and it seemed like adding more fish created more nutrients for the plants (nitrates most likely) which got my tanks in balance.

Dave


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## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

hmmm more fish eh?

well that may also be worth a try. thanks


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## Sloory (May 27, 2006)

Well last saturday i ended up sucking out most of the algea with a small air tube and one week later it seems to be gone, all except for the dark colour pebbles that it changed the colour of.

now there's just a small amount of a brown algea on some of the leaves of my plants.


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