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 Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 8:01 am
I'm having just a bit of trouble with brown algae in my tank.It's a planted 5g with about 12 hours of flourescent lighting a day and a couple livebearers,2 cherry barbs and 2 tetras.Do any of those anti algae chemicals that are out there work in tanks with live plants and activated carbon?Advice would be very welcome-thanks!
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Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:04 pm
First of all, every tank i've set up has gone through a phase of having brown algae, some not as bad as others. Second if you add too many chemicals to your water you can kill your fish in the same way saltwater fish need alot of salt in their water to live.
The best cure for algae is a good scrubbing pad, I let it grow naturaly on my decorations and use algae as a natural background for my larger tanks and i think it gives it a more natural look to the tank.
Also, getting something like a Pleco to eat the algea isn't actualy going to help the problem. Fish that eat algae don't completely remove it from the tank, but they can help maintain algae from spreading.
I would recomend going to the dollar store and getting a pack of those sponges that have a rough side for scrubbing, just make sure that you only use it in your fish tanks and not for cleaning house. And when the rocks in my cichlid tank get really bad looking i'll soke them in bleach for a few days and then spend about 2 hours making sure they don't smell like bleach before putting them back in the tank lol (this also allows me to redecorate my rockwork every so often as well)
Hope this helps ^_^
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Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:33 pm
ya i agree just get a srub pad for that size of a aquarium, go to the pet store and get a brittle pad or if you want get a magnetic one and just do it manually. i wouldnt add any more fish becuse they would just add to the problem.
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Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:26 pm
Thank you guys - I do have an algae pad and a steel blade I (veeeery carefully) use to clean it off,but neither of them are really very effective - guess I should look into upgrading!
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Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:15 pm
well, as long as you're tank isn't near a window you have no problem. It takes me about an hour to clean both my 55g tanks every week and it can take up to 3 hours if i clean all my decorations (plants, rocks, ect..). Algae is a recurring problem, even if you did use chemicals to get rid of it the algae would just grow back.
Also, i'd recomend cleaning ur filter (actualy scrubbing it down) ocasionaly. YOu have to be careful not to break any parts though lol I've nearly blown the motor in one of my Biowheel filters because i didn't fill it up before turning it on.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:05 pm
Personally I don't really like the magnetic scrubbers. They do get some of the algae off but it really is better off to do it manually. It's very important, like they said, that there isn't too much light. Afterall, algae is a plant and it thrives with the sun. Also, you should try to lessen the food for you fish a bit. Algae is known as naturally growning food so your fish can munch on that for a nice snack. Fish food contains lots of nutrients and minerals, so the algae also feed off that.
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Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 11:12 am
Algae can be a pain, ya know? But the fish like it and most even eat algae.... Try regular water changes and feeding a little less food, because uneatten ( is that a word? o.0 ) food dissolves into basicly algae furtilizer.... Also as was said a good manual scub down never hurts...
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Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 4:18 pm
brown algae grows due to excess nutrients, you might try feeding your fish a bit less. Also I read somewhere that white fluerescent light might induce brown algae growth, perhaps you can reduce the amount of light to 8 hours.
Yes brown algae is relatively easy to clean when you have it in small amounts, but there is also this good product called algone, it won't hurt your fish or plants and it works very nicely.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 8:34 am
Thanks guys - things aren't so bad now.Mebbe my lil catfish is taking care of it for me.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 5:27 pm
good to hear, also on a side note some other plants added to the aquarium might also work
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