# Blue Green (or so I think) Algae



## Babelfish (Feb 25, 2004)

Hello Everyone,
I'm fairly new around here but...thought this the best place to ask. 
I was away for 2 weeks in early January and had someone else looking after my fish tanks. For the most part everything went well, however I came home to a lovely betta tank just filled with what I was told elsewhere that it was blue green algae.

So far I've been doing okay with water changes, but for those of you that know bettas, this guy isn't really happy about it. There is no filtration in the tank although I have started using an airstone, as I had been told that this form of algae likes to grow in areas where there is little water circulation.

* This is the post I made on another forum*
It's not nearly as bad as in the pic I attached from 2 months ago, however I don't like that it keeps comming back. I'm also hopeing to plant the tank soon and want to do whatever I can to get it in shape before I do.

Right now there is some hornwort and I just added two tiny pieces of water wisteria, Hygrophelia difformis, that have grown from leaves that were pinched off a larger plant.

Tank is approx 6 gallon hex (half full @the moment), bulb is a 14watt screw in flourescent (not a daylight bulb). The bulb had been in that same set up since September of 2003 @least and I only had problems after being away for 2 weeks.

I'd love any help on this...I'm just starting to fumble around plants so forgive me if I've left anything important out.

^_^


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## taslixado (Feb 29, 2004)

hello!

you can fight this algae by dosing 10ml of H2O2 by 60l of water.
aply it directly above de algae.
use this dose once a day by a period of two weeks.
don´t worry about the fishs and the plants, they have specific defenses, the "catalasis".

best regards!

André Daniel Nóbrega.
TasAquascaping 2004


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

A standard 3 day blackout works and is 100% effective in killing what's there. Cost: Free.

Remove as much as you can now, do a 50% water change, turn off CO2 increase surface turbulance, add trash bag, towel etc over the top of the tank for 3 days so that no light gets in.

Add about 1/16th of a teaspoon of KNO3 or better yet, make a small stock solution and dose this 2x a week. See Chuck Gadd's dosing calculator.

If you make a stock solution, adding say 1ml of the solution would add 1ppm of NO3 per dose etc. This might be easier than dealing with 1/16" of a teaspoon(divide a 1/4 into 4 parts etc).

BGA appears when the tank has been neglected either by not enough NO3 additions or by not cleaning the filtewr, doing regular water changes etc.

BGA possess Catalases and peroxidases FYI but at high H2O2 concentrations this over loads BGA relative to the plants/hopefully the fish. All photosynthetic organisms have to have a method to deal with the super oxides, peroxides and all the O2 that's produced through photosynthesis which is what BGA use. 

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## nonamethefish (Feb 25, 2004)

My ten gallon Heterandria formosa tank suffered an outbreak of this stuff about 7 months ago. The ghost shrimp who were in there didn't touch it. It grew in sheets, smothering the java fern, coating the glass and the lava rock, and even growing on the gravel. By the time I finished reading Thekrib's archives, I was pretty down, but decided to up the water changes. After 2 weeks, the stuff stopped growing. After the last bits were removed, it never returned. Occasionally it comes back, but a water change and removing it solves that problem.






Good Luck!


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## Babelfish (Feb 25, 2004)

T'anks all for your help, 
Since it's such a small tank I'll keep up on the WC's (maybe even twice a week if the betta doesn't get too mad @me :roll and leave the air stone (there is no filter) running all day.

I hadn't been feeding any ferts as there wasnt much growing in the tank...but I'll look into doing that as well.

I'll save total blackout for last resort, as this is one of the tanks @work and I'm really sure my boss won't be too happy with trashbags on my desk :wink:

T'anks again

^_^


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