# how to prevent algae build up?



## sturtzzy (Oct 4, 2012)

what the best way to prevent algea build up?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Keep lights and nitrates to a minimum. Algae cannot grow if there is not enough light and nutrients.


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## T-RightFish71196 (Oct 7, 2012)

If you don't already have one get some sort of algae eater or two, bristlenose plecos are great at clearing out algae and can be kept in almost any sized tank with almost any fish. Other than that keep your curtains closed or find some way of shading your tank to reduce the amount of light hitting it. I also think there are chemicals you can buy to kill off algae, though i'm not sure as i have never had that much of an algae problem myself


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## norwalkfisherman (Oct 4, 2012)

Put in live plants, algae can't grow if there is no nitrates. Live plants use nitrates and light to grow. So limit your algae growth and have some cool looking plants to spruce up your tank!


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## smitty814 (Sep 27, 2012)

Yeah I think to prevent algae build up you have to keep the nutrients down. Less light also.

Here is an article I found on algae consuming ammonia. If true then....

Algae will *preferentially* feed on ammonia. And in fact, this is true with most all aquatic plants with the exception of 6 species (which, at the moment, I can't recall since I'm away from my notes). FWIW, ammonia is 20x more bioavailable to algae than nitrite... and something like 50x more bioavailable than nitrate.

Green, algae-rich water virtually assures a zero-ammonia level... which is one of the reasons the "natural" koi-healers (no disrespect here) encourage green water in the recovery tanks. Zapping the ammonia level to zero does good things for the healing process, and gives the fish a feeling of "cover" in the process. Algae also has been shown to be nutritionally desireable to recovering fish (something about trace elements which algae concentrates and makes available to the fish), so this is good stuff too.

As to algae whacking nitrite and nitrates... yes it does, but there are three distinct pathways to this end, as follows:

1). Because algae preferentially consumes ammonia, very little of it gets to the biofilter for conversion into nitrite and nitrate. This gives the *appearance* that algae is also "consuming" nitrite/nitrate. Regardless, the end result is a very low level of nitrite/nitrate, even though the process is basically an "ammonia interception" and not a "nitrite/nitrate conversion".

2). Lacking ammonia, algae works on the next most bioavailable compound: Nitrite. It assimilates nitrite by back-converting a portion of it to ammonia internally (really-really... go look it up). So if you've got a measureable amount of nitrite and no ammonia, the nitrite is a gonner. And of course the side effect of no nitrite is that no nitrate will be produced by the biofilter.

3). Lacking ammonia or nitrite, algae goes to work on nitrate. The process is slow, metabolically inefficient, and will be abandoned the moment ammonia (or nitrite) is available. It takes nearly the same amount of energy to process the nitrate backwards towards ammonia as the nitrate actually yields. (This is one reason why nitrates are useful as a fertilizer. They're a "long-burn/low-energy" compound compared to raw ammonia).


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