GRRR, I wish i could strangle algae!

[stipe]

I absolutly hate ALGAE. Its everywhere in my tank, front and back. First it was brown algae the covered my beautiful green, pink and purple plants and basicly staved them to death but now its this stupid green algae that recks my tank. How do you egt rid of this algae.

Firstly i had brown algae evrywhere, but this seems to have disapeared excpet for some mineute places. Now i have this green algae that wont budge, i need a bloody knife to scrap it off.

How do i get rid of the algae for at least a month (so i can relax, lol)???? Please i need help, befor i have a stress attack.

 

[rob]

yep gotta say algae is a pain in the #*% i was having to do by weekly cleans to keep up with my brown algae and then started to get green algae starting to grow on my old substrate and put it down to over fertilization so cut down the ferts a bit and also changed substrate to a not so fine pool filter sand. this site may help, if u havnt checked it out yet ?
http://www.plantgeek.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=16

 

[sharn]

a few people double dose on flourish excel by seachem, not sure if it works on all algae though and id imagine you would need to remove your axies.

 

[jennifer]

Here is some info on Flourish Excel:
http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/FlourishExcel_faq.html
I think it would help only if there are plenty of live plants in the tank (and not anacharis). I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not.

What you describe, Stipe, sounds like the normal algae progression of a tank that was set up a few months ago. The first thing that invades is the brown algae, followed by various forms of green or blue-green algae.

I would strongly encourage you to "stick with the program" and the problem will subside over time. By "the program" I mean... (1) manual removal of algae from the places where it looks bad, (2) leaving the algae in a few places where you don't see it, (3) promptly removing uneaten food and poop, and (4) (most importantly) keeping up with 10-20% per week water changes. If you slack on the water changes, this allows more nutrients to build up, thus more algae.

I find that during the first year with a big tank, the algae problems are worst. After that, it really does get better! Hang in there, and don't do anything drastic.

 

[stipe]

My tank now has been set up and muature since half way last year i think.

My tank is a completely, full, planted tank. I use my axie tank as a nursery and have made over $100 selling plants

. I use a capful of seachem 'flurish' twice a week, but dont repeat till a fornight. Would it be from excess silica? as i read somewhere off the site.

I havnt cheched the site out. Ive been so busy with my schooling, grrr i hate assesments and tests. Thats why i havnt been on the forum for a while, lol.

Oh yeh my tanks about 220L

(Message edited by stipe on March 13, 2006)

 

[beech]

My solution was a simple one - get yourself a pair of Hillstream Loaches.
They are FAR too fast for your Axie to catch - even with stalk technique, and they keep ornaments and glass clear - and often broad leafed plants too.
I put a Pseudomyzon in Ziggy's tank, and they work together monsterously well.
Jacob the Pseu also eats scraps that Ziggy leaves behind.

 

[joão]

you could get some fresh water snails, just keep an eye on them cause they tend to reproduce a lot, and if you have a light for you plants try and reduce just a couple of hours, this will help a lot.
also it´s not that bad to have some algae on the back and side walls of your tank , the algae helps to neutralize the heavy metals in the tap water.

 

[stipe]

I keep he algae at the back and i ahve no pronlem with it there, its just at the front screen. I have 10 mystery snails adn over hundreds of ofspring that mysterisly disapear.

Oh yeh João Nunes i havtn seen you on here in ages, hows it goin, lol.

 

[lexie]

My solution was a simple one - get yourself a pair of Hillstream Loaches.
They are FAR too fast for your Axie to catch - even with stalk technique, and they keep ornaments and glass clear - and often broad leafed plants too.
I put a Pseudomyzon in Ziggy's tank, and they work together monsterously well.
Jacob the Pseu also eats scraps that Ziggy leaves behind.

Umm.. Do the fish try to suck on your axie? Cos I desperately want some sort of fish for my axie tank but I keep getting advised against it so I really want to be sure before getting one... Algae is so hard to deal with!!

 

[lexie]

I also heard that they needed a very strong current in order to survive... Let me know what you do for yours if you can! Thanks!

 

[joão]

hi stipe, I´ve been away doing a research with amphibians,specially xenupos laevis.
Also lexie I don´t advise you to get any kind of fish to put in the same tank as your axies , more than the parasite and bacterial infections that they could bring to your axies they also tend to nib on axies gills cause they mistake them for blood worms, some people say that snails could carry parasites too , yes , but I found more easier to catch any kind of infection from fish than snails, what I said before I think it´s the safest way to end with some of the algae, it works with me, of course I also have to clean the front wall of my tank but it´s also not that hard it takes me 2 minutes with that magnet thing that scraps from inside and cleans the outside at the same time.

 

[rheann]

The only thing I can recommend is a Rubber Mouth Pleco.

They stay around I think 6 inches when full grown, are gentle, and do a good job of cleaning. Snails also clean, but I always have trouble with my snails dieing

.

The Rubber Mouths will clean the algae off the plants too, and do a pretty good job of it.

If you do get one, make sure that it is large enough that it will not fit into the axolotls mouths.

The Rubber mouths are pretty shy, so they won't come out when you have the lights on.

I hope you can find a solution to your problem what ever you do, good luck, yes, algae is a pain in the butt