# Algee problem!!!!!!!!!!!!!



## Ry_707 (May 23, 2008)

These picutres were taken 5 hours after cleaning the tank!!!!!!!!!! And the algee has started re growing!!!!!!!





































Any ideas on how to stop it?? After about 5-7 days the sand is 80-90% covered, comments and help please guys


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## MetalHead06351 (Oct 3, 2007)

I would not use any of the algae killing products out there because most of them kill fish, too. I would get some sort of algae eater like a bn pleco, siamese algae eater, or something like that.


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## blairo1 (May 7, 2006)

I'd also seriously want to know what my phosphate and nitrate levels are, both in the tank and from the tap!

Whereabouts in the UK are you? I have a general water guide that I can check out and it'll give me an idea of how much of what you have in your water. But with it being so prevalent I'd be suspicious of high phosphates - either in the source water or overfeeding (fish look healthy and not exactly overfed, but do you see much waste food, I'd be surprised with mbuna).

What lights are you using - how much of what spectrum? Brand names if you don't know the spectrum.


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## kornphlake (Feb 12, 2004)

That's blue green algae, aka cyanobacteria, and isn't necessarily triggered by phosphates, the only chemical imbalance that has been casually linked is when nitrates are zero aquariums seem more likely to get BGA, it's difficult to prove that nitrates inhibit the growth of BGA as it will grow just as well once established with high nitrate levels. Algae eating fish won't touch the stuff because it releases toxic chemicals as it is digested.

There are a few ways of dealing with BGA, both start with a good cleaning to mechanically remove as much algae as possible after. One treatment is to turn off the lights and cover the tank so that no light gets into the tank for 3-5 days, this is effective some times but you need to deal with the toxic chemicals that are formed when the algae dies, you have to use carbon in your filter during the black out and for several days after or you may loose fish. This method has been about 75% effective for me and has never resulted in complete erradication, the algae will usually start growing back within a couple weeks. The second method of eliminating BGA is to use erethromyacin as directed on the package for 5 days, it doesn't hurt to turn off the lights while treating but it's not necessary to completely black out the tank. This method deals with the algae and apparently prevents the release of toxic chemicals or neutralizes them. I've only used erethromyacin once and it's been 100% effective with no reaccurance.

One member of my local fish club claims that BGA doesn't appear to be waterborne, he's got several thousand gallons of aquariums on a central filtration system, a single tank will get a BGA outbreak and the rest will remain spotless. He claims that taking the affected tank off the central system and treating it individually with erethromyacin seems to make that tank immune to future outbreaks, he's never had a repeat outbreak in the same tank even when another tank on the same filtration system gets infected.


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## Toby_H (Apr 15, 2005)

I agree itâ€™s Cyanobacteria. Iâ€™ve delt with the stuff, ineffectively for the most part, for years 

Iâ€™ve Blacked tanks out for as much as 7 days and it only died off for a week or two and within a month was as strong as everâ€¦

I have UV lights on the two tanks that have it worst and they have no impact. I also have multi tank systems in the fishroom and have Cyanobacteria in only one tank. So I agree that it seems to not be waterborne.

I keep my nitrates exceptionally low, often near zero, in the tanks that have it the worst. My tap water is high in phosphates.

I have a lot of tanks but the only ones that get any Cyanobacteria are the ones that get some (any) direct sunlight. Iâ€™ve also had it transfer on dÃ©cor to a tank that gets zero sunlight (but with basic aquarium lights) and it doesnâ€™t seem to thrive.

I avoid using chemicals in my tanks and I had never spoken with anyone who had used it successfully, so I never tried it.

But it sounds like Kornphlake knows what he is talking about. Iâ€™ll definitely look into trying Erythromycin. Thanks for the input.

lol, after proofreading... sorry for the choppy post, it's been a long day..........


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## Sammich Bite (Mar 23, 2007)

in my personal experience the only times *** gotten cyanobacteria is when:

1. phosphates are up
2. too much food/waste excess/dead or decaying matter left in tank
3. dead spots/low current in the affected area
4. overhead lighting and UV bulbs are older than 6-8 months
5. direct and indirect exposure to secondary light source, such as sunlight or "yellow" incandescent lights.

i wouldnt say any one of those is a definite cause, i just know that a combination of most or all of those contributed to its growth.

*** never encountered cyano when i had very low nitrates, as this would be nearly impossible for me to achieve without the aid of many plants, since my tap has about 10ppm to begin with. but im not at all denying the link between cyano and nitrates. i just think even with nitrates (high or low) in the tank it can and will grow out of control if left untreated. so just simply adding nitrates wont always work.

my suggestions before resorting to antibiotics:

1. add phosban to your filter media
2. vacuum all the **** you can, including as much of the cyano as possible
3. add powerheads or UGJ system to improve a good circulation
4. use new 6400k temperature bulbs every 6 months
5. do not expose your tank near any direct sunlight or near windows. also if you have lamps near your tank that are on a lot, change the bulbs to 6400k spiral compact fluorescents and do not leave them on too long near the tank.

there are 2 main things that cause cyano to spread quickly. food and light. it eats waste product, so things like excess food and feces will feed the bacteria growth. as for lighting you can reduce your tank lights but also IME the color spectrum seems to have an impact. regular yellow bulbs seem to speed its growth more so than the 6400k CFs. for some reason cyano doesnt grow as fast when i have fresh 6400k bulbs in, even when leaving them on for 8 or more hours. but when the bulb life deteriorates after 6 months it has an affect on cyano growth. i dont know if there is scientific reasoning for color temperature or if it is just a coincidence in my case, but i wouldnt take any chances.


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## kornphlake (Feb 12, 2004)

Phosphates have not been shown to induce cyanobacteria outbreaks, it is more likely that there is some other imbalnce that also affects phosphate levels. Overfeeding will cause phosphate levels to rise and will cause problems like algae, snail and other invertebrate population explosions and bacterial blooms, the root cause is overfeeding, not phosphates. It's easier to measure increased phosphates than it is to measure uneaten food though so I think phosphate gets the blame more often than it deserves. In the planted tank community Tom Barr is the guru of chemical imbalances, he's proved time and time again in controlled laboratory conditions (he's a PHD at a university in California, so his experiments are really done in a lab) that addition of laboratory grade phosphate in unusually high levels does not trigger an algae outbreak when all other parameters are carefully controlled. You can look for published literature on Tom Barr's site www.barrreport.com, most of the good stuff you'll have to pay for though.

Low or zero nitrates isn't the only way to contract cyanobacteria, it is mysterious in how it comes. Like I said above there is "CASUAL" evidence that suggests that low nitrates may leave an aquarium more suceptible to a cyanobacteria outbreak, this isn't a hard rule and there are certainly many exceptions. The best advice would be to maintain stable conditions in your aquarium and perform regular water changes with treated water from a consistant source (some municipal water sources are very inconsistant, you may want to pull a water quality report and see if your water source is one that has trouble maintaining consistant water quality.)

Cyanobacteria poses certain health hazards not only to your fish but to you as well, skin irritation and respriatory problems have been reported after coming in contact with BGA. I'd encourage you to do what needs to be done to get rid of the problem sooner than later. I'm not saying that changing your light bulbs, adding a UV sterilizer and increasing filtration won't help, but I have tried all of the above except the UV sterilizer and couldn't control BGA, the only successful, long term treatment has been antibiotics.

Edit: I'm not trying to say I'm right listen to me. Obviously others have wieghted in with their own experiance and have given suggestions. Their suggestions didn't work for me, I hate to see anybody spend money on equipment, lighting and moving heavy furniture and aquariums only to not see results when an inexpensive antibiotic will do the job with a high probability of success.


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## Sammich Bite (Mar 23, 2007)

thanks for the clarification on phosphates. makes sense, because i usually find phosphate spikes when there is too much left over food.

and the only reason why i suggested to take "other" measures over adding antibiotics is because i'm just afraid it will affect the beneficial bacteria as well. *** read many conflicting reports from users who both say it affects the bacteria as well as those who say it doesnt. so i just wasnt sure and if it were my tank, i wouldnt do anything to potentially throw off the balance of the aquarium (kill off beneficial bacteria) in order to fight another imbalance (cyanobacteria).

but if you have been able to dose antibiotics without noticeable effect to your filter bacteria, that would definitely be ideal. is there any measures you need to take to ensure your filter bacteria doesnt die?


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## kornphlake (Feb 12, 2004)

I noticed no increase in ammonia or nitirite after treating my aquarium with erythromycin. I've heard that it doesn't disrupt the biological filtration and in my case it didn't other antibiotics like Ampicillin will pretty much wipe out every bacteria in an aquarium so it should be used with more caution. It seems like Ampicillin and other broad spectrum antibiotics have been removed from the aquarium trade recently, most of what you'll find in pet shops is supposed to be "bio-filter safe." Although I can't confirm every product marked as safe is actually safe, I don't think it's as big a concern as many make it out to be.

All my tanks have some plants most are pretty heavily planted and I do regular water changes, I recently had trouble cycling a tank because I was taking filter media out of an established tank, it took 5 weeks to cycle the tank with media from an established filter. All I can guess is that between water changes and plants filtering the water the donor tank was kept so clean there must have been almost no bacteria in the filter media.


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