That's it, I've had it - Blue Green Algae

[Shawn]

I can't take it any more. I simply cannot beat or keep up with the
blue-green algae outbreak I've had now for about 5 months. I've tried
everything. Blacking out the tank, removing my CO2 system, algicide
treatments - nothing works. It makes my tanks look like crap, and it's
killing all my plants. Their leaves are coated with thick slimy green
sheets of blue-green algae, and they're falling apart little by little. My
plants used to thrive and my tank was lush. My community fish species don't
seem to care one way or another, but for me it's just simply not a joy to
watch my tank anymore.

So now, looks like I face a compete take down. But I have some questions :

1) Do blue-green algae cells die when dried, or do they just do dormant ?
The BGA is infused through my gravel substrate so I need to completely wash
that out when I take down. But do I need to treat it when bleach to ensure
BGA's death ? Or will just rinsing and rinsing and rinsing and then drying
for a while do the trick ?

2) Can I save my plants ? These seems to be the things most covered by BGA.
Right down into the roots in the gravel substrate. Can I bleach-dip the
plants and kill the algae ? Or am I better off throwing them out and
starting over ?

3) My driftwood pieces are also covered in BGA. Should I boil ? Dry ?
Bleach ? What about other things like my filter components. If BGA just
goes dormant when dried, then something more drastic needs to be done to
ensure I complete do away with it, other than just drying.

4) How should I treat my empty tank and for how long ?

Thanks about it. Any other thoughts/advice would be well appreciated.
Thanks.

Shawn

[NetMax]

"Shawn" > wrote in message
...
>I can't take it any more. I simply cannot beat or keep up with the
>blue-green algae outbreak I've had now for about 5 months. I've tried
>everything. Blacking out the tank, removing my CO2 system, algicide
>treatments - nothing works. It makes my tanks look like crap, and it's
>killing all my plants. Their leaves are coated with thick slimy green
>sheets of blue-green algae, and they're falling apart little by little.
>My plants used to thrive and my tank was lush. My community fish
>species don't seem to care one way or another, but for me it's just
>simply not a joy to watch my tank anymore.
>
> So now, looks like I face a compete take down. But I have some
> questions :
>
> 1) Do blue-green algae cells die when dried, or do they just do dormant
> ? The BGA is infused through my gravel substrate so I need to
> completely wash that out when I take down. But do I need to treat it
> when bleach to ensure BGA's death ? Or will just rinsing and rinsing
> and rinsing and then drying for a while do the trick ?
>
> 2) Can I save my plants ? These seems to be the things most covered by
> BGA. Right down into the roots in the gravel substrate. Can I
> bleach-dip the plants and kill the algae ? Or am I better off throwing
> them out and starting over ?
>
> 3) My driftwood pieces are also covered in BGA. Should I boil ? Dry ?
> Bleach ? What about other things like my filter components. If BGA
> just goes dormant when dried, then something more drastic needs to be
> done to ensure I complete do away with it, other than just drying.
>
> 4) How should I treat my empty tank and for how long ?
>
> Thanks about it. Any other thoughts/advice would be well appreciated.
> Thanks.
>
> Shawn


I wouldn't try the complete tear down yet as Cynobacteria is usually
relatively easy to control, but it sounds like you have unfortunately hit
upon an ideal set of conditions for it to prosper. If your conditions
remain or return to this ideal set, then it would not take much for it to
survive your clean up.

If I remember correctly, Cyno is a nitrate fixer, so controlling your NO3
is one avenue. It does best in stagnant waters, so higher turbulence
often clears it out. If the passive methods don't work, then try some
Erythromycin.
--
www.NetMax.tk

[Elaine T]

NetMax wrote:
> "Shawn" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>I can't take it any more. I simply cannot beat or keep up with the
>>blue-green algae outbreak I've had now for about 5 months. I've tried
>>everything. Blacking out the tank, removing my CO2 system, algicide
>>treatments - nothing works. It makes my tanks look like crap, and it's
>>killing all my plants. Their leaves are coated with thick slimy green
>>sheets of blue-green algae, and they're falling apart little by little.
>>My plants used to thrive and my tank was lush. My community fish
>>species don't seem to care one way or another, but for me it's just
>>simply not a joy to watch my tank anymore.
>>
>>So now, looks like I face a compete take down. But I have some
>>questions :
>>
>>1) Do blue-green algae cells die when dried, or do they just do dormant
>>? The BGA is infused through my gravel substrate so I need to
>>completely wash that out when I take down. But do I need to treat it
>>when bleach to ensure BGA's death ? Or will just rinsing and rinsing
>>and rinsing and then drying for a while do the trick ?
>>
>>2) Can I save my plants ? These seems to be the things most covered by
>>BGA. Right down into the roots in the gravel substrate. Can I
>>bleach-dip the plants and kill the algae ? Or am I better off throwing
>>them out and starting over ?
>>
>>3) My driftwood pieces are also covered in BGA. Should I boil ? Dry ?
>>Bleach ? What about other things like my filter components. If BGA
>>just goes dormant when dried, then something more drastic needs to be
>>done to ensure I complete do away with it, other than just drying.
>>
>>4) How should I treat my empty tank and for how long ?
>>
>>Thanks about it. Any other thoughts/advice would be well appreciated.
>>Thanks.
>>
>>Shawn
>
>
>
> I wouldn't try the complete tear down yet as Cynobacteria is usually
> relatively easy to control, but it sounds like you have unfortunately hit
> upon an ideal set of conditions for it to prosper. If your conditions
> remain or return to this ideal set, then it would not take much for it to
> survive your clean up.
>
> If I remember correctly, Cyno is a nitrate fixer, so controlling your NO3
> is one avenue. It does best in stagnant waters, so higher turbulence
> often clears it out. If the passive methods don't work, then try some
> Erythromycin.

Erythromycin works very well as a last resort. Note that Erythromycin
can also kill off the bacteria in your filter so test for ammonia and
plan on your tank possibly cycling if you need to use it.

--
__ Elaine T __
><__'> http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__><

[spiral_72]

While I am thinking about this. There aren't any fish that eat BGA, are
there?

my aquarium page, info and pics at:
www.geocities.com/spiral_72/Spirals_page.html

[flupke]

Shawn wrote:
> I can't take it any more. I simply cannot beat or keep up with the
> blue-green algae outbreak I've had now for about 5 months. I've tried
> everything. Blacking out the tank, removing my CO2 system, algicide
> treatments - nothing works. It makes my tanks look like crap, and it's
> killing all my plants. Their leaves are coated with thick slimy green
> sheets of blue-green algae, and they're falling apart little by little. My
> plants used to thrive and my tank was lush. My community fish species don't
> seem to care one way or another, but for me it's just simply not a joy to
> watch my tank anymore.
>
> So now, looks like I face a compete take down. But I have some questions :
>
> 1) Do blue-green algae cells die when dried, or do they just do dormant ?
> The BGA is infused through my gravel substrate so I need to completely wash
> that out when I take down. But do I need to treat it when bleach to ensure
> BGA's death ? Or will just rinsing and rinsing and rinsing and then drying
> for a while do the trick ?
>
> 2) Can I save my plants ? These seems to be the things most covered by BGA.
> Right down into the roots in the gravel substrate. Can I bleach-dip the
> plants and kill the algae ? Or am I better off throwing them out and
> starting over ?
>
> 3) My driftwood pieces are also covered in BGA. Should I boil ? Dry ?
> Bleach ? What about other things like my filter components. If BGA just
> goes dormant when dried, then something more drastic needs to be done to
> ensure I complete do away with it, other than just drying.
>
> 4) How should I treat my empty tank and for how long ?
>
> Thanks about it. Any other thoughts/advice would be well appreciated.
> Thanks.
>
> Shawn

Another cause might be the type of lights you use. Not saying this is so
in your case but when i changed my grolux lights to plain philips TL's,
most algae where gone except for some string algae.

flupke

[Ozdude]

"spiral_72" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> While I am thinking about this. There aren't any fish that eat BGA, are
> there?

I think most of the loaches, Siamese Algae Eater (SAE), Flying Foxes, Amano
Shrimp, Ottos and Plecos *might*, BUT they aren't a total solution - these
fish are more adding to your bioload than becoming automatic algae
controllers.

From my experience with SAE's, Mystery Snails and the like, and from
everything I've ever read about algae eating organisms, it's unavoidable
that the human has to do some regular manual cleaning at some stage, or
control the bio properly.

I am not intimating for one second that you aren't doing tank maintinence or
anything, but what I am saying is that a creature or two won't necessarily
help.

I think mechanical removal and environment tuning is in order for your
situation, to be honest, and when it's right again, *then* add some
creatures that like algae. This way you can start clean slate and the
organisms can get a foot hold before it gets out of hand again.

Fwiw, I completely scrubbed all fixtures, vacced the gravel, scraped the
inside glass surfaces with a credit card (the most incredible thing for
removing algae btw) and used chlorinated water for the scrubbings,
yesterday. I would have used 1 part bleach to 19 parts water too if I'd have
had bleach handy, or even H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide), but I didn't.Then I
changed out 50% of the water and completely flushed the filter media.

Then I sat down with a cup of coffee and pondered for 1/2 an hour or so what
*I* was doing to the tank which gave favourable conditions to the algae.

As of today the SAE's and snail are still eating algae off the rocks (I left
some green algae there for them, and because it looks quite nice having a
patch or two on the rocks) and the rest of the fish are happy. The water is
much clearer and I can see the styro background in it's right colour once
again ;)

In my situation, I worked it out (I think): too much fish feed (3 times a
day, but too much, now reduced to one feeding at night), combined with too
much liquid fertilizer for the plants and then perhaps too much light,
though I doubt it with only 72W over a 50gal.

It was definately, to my mind, a nutrient imbalance, too much phosphate from
the fish flakes, and upped levels of micro-nutrients from the daily liquid
fertilizer.

So far, I've gone to one feeding per day, one dosing per week of fertilizer,
and clened manually as much of the green stuff as I could, and this appears
to have given my poor plants a head start to start out-competing the algae,
which is really the issue - if you can get the plants to get in there before
the algae does (by what ever means) I don't think you'll be plagued by out
of control algae.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful besides relating my experience, but to
answer your question: there are creatures which eat algae (I think gold fish
eat it in massive quantities too), but they shouldn't be relied upon to save
the human from a little manual work.

All the best with your problem,

Oz

--
My Aquatic web Blog is at http://members.optusnet.com.au/ivan.smith

[spiral_72]

No, I understand what you are saying. I would consider my maintenance
pretty good, but my case it will probably be ignorant neglect........
Or the tap water.

my aquarium page, info and pics at:
www.geocities.com/spiral_72/Spirals_page.html