# Please help. This algea doesn't go away!



## sasa (Apr 15, 2005)

Hi,

I'm been fighting this algae for more than 2 months now. 

Tank specifications
* 77 gallons tank 
* pressured CO2
* Glo light (2 tubs T5) 9 hours per day

NO3 around 20ppm
PO4 0.5ppm
KH range

I'm using the EI method with Greg Watson ferts:
* 3/4 tsp KN03 3x a week
* ¼ tsp KH2P04 3x a week
* ¼ tsp Trace Elements 3x a week
50% weekly water change

I'm adding extra potassium to try to reach the 1.0ppm (liquid from seachem)


The algae is easy to remove, but it alwasy come back after 2-3 days. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any help you can give me

Sandra


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

How much CO2 is in your water? You almost have to use a drop checker to know that. Carbon is the primary nutrient plants need to grow well, and algae occurs most often when the plants are not growing well. Also, how are you determining how much nitrate and phosphate is in the water? If you use test kits and haven't calibrated them, the results are not necessarily accurate.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

sasa said:


> ...
> * Glo light (2 tubs T5) 9 hours per day
> ...


What's a Glo light? I'm also not sure that you have very much light with two tubes over that tank. How many watts are they?


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## sasa (Apr 15, 2005)

it's a GLO-T5 HO (high output bulb)

I have 2 of them, each one with 54 W.

Sasa


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## kunerd (Aug 2, 2007)

Try dosing with Excel.


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## Bill Weber (Jul 17, 2005)

Before adding any more chemicals in your tank, try to cut down on the time your lights are on. Try 8 hours a day for 2 weeks and see if that makes a difference. Also, having several windows in your fish area will impact the light conditions. You can increase the lighting once the daylight gets shorter.

Hoppy's advise on s drop checker or CO2 indicator is a good one. You need to know how much CO2 is actually in your tank before dumping in products like Excel. These are available commercially for 10 - 20 bucks.


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## Wö£fëñxXx1 (Feb 10, 2005)

Sasa
Before you go "buying" any more equipment that you may not need, just simply increase the bubble count of your C02 a little and make sure you have good flow in the tank, I am seeing more and more of this these days, poor flow/filter/media will cause a myriad of problems.

Your dosing and your lighting looks good.


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## sasa (Apr 15, 2005)

I have a drop counter, right now is around 4 bubles per second. 


Sandra


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## mikenas102 (Feb 8, 2006)

Among other problems, picture 4 shows alot of Green Dust Algae (GDA). I also see a heavy buildup of it on the driftwood in picture 2. Do a search here for GDA and you might find a few courses of action to take. Unfortunately, it's one of the toughest algaes to get rid of.


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