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aqua_2k
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 Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 3:27 am Post subject: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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Hi all,
Just wanted to share my experience gained on algae control in planted tank.
For any planted tank we encounter algae at certain point. I had once turned down my planted tank and rescaped from scratch due to algae problem. But then algae turned up again in my new scape as well..this time with high severity, my tank had
Blue Green Algae(BGA)
Black Beard Algae(BBA)
Hair Algae(green/brown)
Green Spot Algae
Diatomic Algae.
This time I did an extensive search on this topic in various forums and articles. Root cause happens to be carbon and light imbalance for most of the algae types. Wherein I had 1 BPS of pressurized CO2 and 12hrs of light 4WPG and daily dose of 40ml seachem excel on Monday and 8ml consecutive days and 25% water change on Sunday apart from other nutrient supply.
I thought to start with increasing the CO2 and decreasing the light photoperiod. I increased the CO2 to 2BPS and lights to 8hrs a day and seachem flourish excel daily dosage of 40ML. This lead to fish suffocation and eventually few of my cardinals and rummy nose died  and I depleted my 500ml excel bottle in a week. With no good improvement and algae problem grew so severe, it covered by willow moss, Christmas moss, HC cuba, Glossostigma, Java ferns, driftwoods. Tank start to appear in real bad shape. With algae over growing most parts of my tank.
All these algae had different root causes and different ways of treatments and I did not want to raise CO2 to risk my fishes life, finally I resorted to blackout method which I felt was more convincing for most of the algae I had in my aquarium. Got additional Ottos and a pair of bristle nose and started off with black out period by fully covering the tank with thick blanket and added an air-stone to oxygenate the water and turned-off the CO2 during the blackout period, with no feeding during the period. I occasionally checked the tank to monitor fish and plant health by lifting the blanket.
And on 4th day I did see my tank was fully cleaned up with no sign of algae, though few plants died off in the process it turned out to be the best remedy for me  . I lost few patches of HC cuba, glosso and hemianthus micranthemoides most of other plants survived with NIL impact. Note: I do have very sensitive plants like tonina belem and tonina fluviatilis which remained intact. All plants looked healthy and many with new growths in 4 days of black out. Fishes were feed with artemia biomass on the 4th day of their fast as grand treat 
Lessons learnt(in a hard way  )
1) Do not overdose Flourish excel or suddenly increase CO2 to stress or suffocate your pets.
2) If you have cichlidae like discus/angle/RAM…move them to a separate tank before black out. If they are left hungry will hunt down small fishes. I caught my discus munching on RCS just at the end of first day of black out
3) Always have your tank stocked with algae eating fish and shrimps. It would be hard to get them when you have algae breakout. I was not able to get SAE and Amano shrimps and had hardtime to find ottos.
4) Always go for Ottos locally bread than imported ones. Since they adapt easily to your water and tank parameters.
5) Even your fish can eat algae when left without food, I did see my dwarf neon rainbows feeding on hair algae.
6) Algae/algae spores can easily get transmitted from new plants getting introduced to the tank, Give PP bath to plants before adding it to the aquarium.
Regards,
Senthil. |
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radjanair
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 7:05 am Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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Hi, Aquatk,
Good experience.
Vaazhthudan
radjanair
9440831894 |
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jabba
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:01 am Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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Nicely explained man  |
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dotfish
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:04 am Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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| Thanx for posting your experience, will be great help for newbies like me |
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Thuds
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 12:20 pm Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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Thanks for sharing your experience it will help all.
We all have encountered this problem at some point of time.
My experience is reduce feeding considerably and no fertilization.
Thuds |
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Razeen
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:17 pm Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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| An extraordinary article for algae issue. |
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nandy
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:19 pm Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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| Its a tough job to fight against algae.. Nice experience.. |
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crazyomzi
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:26 pm Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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am facing the same problem right now and this will surely help me.
thanks a ton |
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abhis9
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:42 pm Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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| Thanks for sharing your experience Senthil...... |
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cyclopse99
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 3:23 pm Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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Thanks for sharing. I also tried a similar approach and kept blackout for 4 days but it didn't really cleaned all my algae. Though i must say it reduced a bit. Only difference was i didn't added the airstone for o2.. hmmm .
My learning from my mistake is you can also try using active carbon in filter along with what aqua_2k has suggested. Using active carbon will further reduce any nutrition value in the water for algae. |
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aqua_2k
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:50 pm Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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@ radjanair, jabba, dotfish, Thuds, Razeen, crazyomzi,abhis9 .... thanks, it was pleasure sharing the experience 
@ nandy...it is true algae problem always made me frustrated to a gr8 extent ... having put in lot of dedication in bring up the scape..this problem at certain point seems to ruin the interest....it is good such a simple solution as this helps to control the issue.
@ cyclopse99....I think blackout period coupled with algae eating crew will be the optimal solution...I had 2 bristle nose, 8 Ottos, 3 Amano shrimps and 40+ RCS and Fire yellow shrimps to act as algae control crew. It would be good to have SAE if anyone is planning to experiment this ...
I thinks Algae's main source is the light and nutrients(means lower levels of nutrients that plants cannot absorb due to imbalance in carbon and light source). If you cut-off light algae will not able to utilize nutrients and eventually die.
Regards,
Senthil |
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viv88
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Joined: Jan 03, 2011
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:01 am Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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Thanks for sharing your experience  .Did this method clear out BBA?  Im having a tough time here with BBA.  |
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aqua_2k
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:27 am Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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| yeah viv88...I got BBA transferred thru bolbitis introduced to my tank , i tried bleach bath to bolbitis for BBA, but eventually the plants died off..It got spread to glosso by the time . I didn't want to take out glosso or willow moss, even brushing didn't help. So finally tried my luck with blackout..even BBA was gone at the end of blackout |
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keluthi
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 8:21 am Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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Simple & effective piece of work!!  |
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govindsj
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| Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:22 pm Post subject: Re: Algae problem and control - My experience. |
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Hi Senthil,
An experience definitely worth sharing and blackout method seems to be a genuine way to stall algae.
Regards
govindsj |
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