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

"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

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