# Please Help!!! Algae in my 125g community tank.



## 4rdguy (Nov 27, 2010)

Hey there, im having alot of Brown/dark green algae forming on my fake plants in my tank. i have my lights on for about 12-14 hours a day (dont have a timer yet) my plecos will go to it one in a while but not usually. i didnt think anything of it until i did my normal 30% weekly water change / light gravel vacuum and noticed some of the fake plant tops that rest on the top of the water were almost covered fully in this algae. i ended up cutting some of the really bad parts off and throwing them out but i wanna fix it. lighting is a 6ft light with 4 bulbs. 2 average everyday "wide spectrum 30w" and 2 aqua-glo t8 18,000k 30w fish color enhancing lights (reccomended by the local big als for my tetras, rams, roselines and dwarf gouramis colors to "pop") tank temp is at about 76ish, running 2 AC500s and a powerhead of some sort just for flow. (the powerhead has a spot for an air tube to make it an aerorator as well which im not using atm.)

i was origionally using both sets of light but have stopped using the "everyday wide spectrums" just keeping that section turned off and using the aquaglows daily. do i have too much/little light? tank is in my room in the basement and gets no sunlight at all.

thx in advance, Brad


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

do you inject CO2? I found that my algae disappeared after I started injecting CO2


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## 4rdguy (Nov 27, 2010)

solarz said:


> do you inject CO2? I found that my algae disappeared after I started injecting CO2


no i dont. its all Fake Plants.


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## Rmwbrown (Jan 22, 2009)

I wouldn't say you have too much light - your well under 1 watt per gallon. Moreover, though it is hard to say by your description of the algae, chances are your dealing with a few low light species. 

What kind of clean up crew do you have stocked? Otto cats, SAE, Amano shrimp?

If your using none of the above, i would look into getting some shrimp and some Otto Cats. Even though you don't have live plants, you may want to start up some DIY C02 just to keep the algae at bay.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Rmwbrown said:


> I wouldn't say you have too much light - your well under 1 watt per gallon. Moreover, though it is hard to say by your description of the algae, chances are your dealing with a few low light species.
> 
> What kind of clean up crew do you have stocked? Otto cats, SAE, Amano shrimp?
> 
> If your using none of the above, i would look into getting some shrimp and some Otto Cats. Even though you don't have live plants, you may want to start up some DIY C02 just to keep the algae at bay.


What's the point of adding CO2 if he doesn't have real plants? I thought that the CO2 helps live plants grow, and thus allows them to out-compete algae.

I don't have experience with Ottos, though I hear good things about them. I would go with SAE, and Amano shrimps, and maybe some snails. Although be careful with the shrimps, because I'm not sure if you have fish big enough to eat them...

Oh right, I forgot: if you don't have live plants, then the easiest way to wipe out algae is to do a total black out.


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## 4rdguy (Nov 27, 2010)

my clean up crew:

1 L128 Blue Phantom Pleco
1 Albino Longfin Pleco
1 Golden Algae Eater


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

it's a diatom, which is a common brown algea resulting from excess nutrients in a new/recently established aquarium. no big deal, just shake em off the plants and do more water change to remove the excess. When your tank is older, you'll see green algea. I don't know what fishes you have there, you can get some more of algae eaters like plecos and ottos. if you test your water and it's okay then don't worry too much if the sight bugs you then do the above.


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## 4rdguy (Nov 27, 2010)

-50 Cardinal Tetras
-5 Roseline Sharks
-5 Diamond Marble Angels
-2 Dwarf Gouramis
-3 Pearl Gouramis
-4 Blue German Rams
-1 L128 Blue Phantom Pleco
-1 Albino Longfin Pleco
-1 Golden Algea Eater



Holidays said:


> it's a diatom, which is a common brown algea resulting from excess nutrients in a new/recently established aquarium. no big deal, just shake em off the plants and do more water change to remove the excess. When your tank is older, you'll see green algea. I don't know what fishes you have there, you can get some more of algae eaters like plecos and ottos. if you test your water and it's okay then don't worry too much if the sight bugs you then do the above.


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

4rdguy said:


> -50 Cardinal Tetras
> -5 Roseline Sharks
> -5 Diamond Marble Angels
> -2 Dwarf Gouramis
> ...


I see, you can get more of the algea eaters but seriously its no big deal just shake/wash em off and do water change. results from nothing but excess nutrients


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## 4rdguy (Nov 27, 2010)

ok cool. i just didnt want it to hurt anything. all my water paramaters seem fine, in the lowest colors of my test kit.


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## Rmwbrown (Jan 22, 2009)

solarz said:


> What's the point of adding CO2 if he doesn't have real plants? I thought that the CO2 helps live plants grow, and thus allows them to out-compete algae.


There are two schools of thought on this. The first as you suggest, add more C02, increase plant growth and limit the amount of nutrients that are available in the tank - this certainly works for things like green spot and hair algae. The second is that some algae don't fair so well when higher levels of C02 are present - for instance Red algae. By increasing the Co2 you limit the conditions necessary for growth. Do low light algae fit into this category? I'm really not sure, but for the sake of experimenting, it's surly worth a shot.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Rmwbrown said:


> There are two schools of thought on this. The first as you suggest, add more C02, increase plant growth and limit the amount of nutrients that are available in the tank - this certainly works for things like green spot and hair algae. The second is that some algae don't fair so well when higher levels of C02 are present - for instance Red algae. By increasing the Co2 you limit the conditions necessary for growth. Do low light algae fit into this category? I'm really not sure, but for the sake of experimenting, it's surly worth a shot.


Ah, I see. Good to know!


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

I'd just shake em off the plants then they'll be sucked into the filter and be a good food for the bacteria. No worry the bacteria will break them down.


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## fishclubgirl (Mar 4, 2010)

Another thought: put in some floating live plants ie hornwort,najas grass or even, even , even "duckweed". It will take some of the nutrients away from the algae and your fish will love you even more!!


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## 4rdguy (Nov 27, 2010)

i kinda like this idea minus the duckweed. i know a friend of mine who has a 18" circle of riccia floating on the top of his planted tank and love how it looks. i think i may have to do this.



fishclubgirl said:


> Another thought: put in some floating live plants ie hornwort,najas grass or even, even , even "duckweed". It will take some of the nutrients away from the algae and your fish will love you even more!!


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Cut the lighting period. Get a cheap timer. Oto cats are the best little algae eaters around, and will consume brown algae. The Chinese type (your golden) eventually becomes a problem. They shouldn't even be sold in my opinion. If the fake plants become coated with a green algae, you can remove them and give them a soak in a light bleach solution followed by a good rinse/soak in water with dechlor. Algae will grow even with low lighting if the photo period is long enough.


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## Cypher (Apr 15, 2006)

It would help if you could you post pictures of your tank and the algea. That way we'll get a better idea what type and kind of problem you're having.


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## 1200assassin (Jan 14, 2011)

What chems do you use in your aquarium. As stated before this is a problem with to much unused nutrients in your aquarium. If you do not use any additive other than chlorine remover then it could possibly be your light. You can also try adding a posphate remover to your filter. I would cut down on your light time by half for a few weeks until the algae disappears and then slowly increase the amount of time that the light is on. Hope this helps. Brown algae was a pain for me also.


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## 4rdguy (Nov 27, 2010)

I don't use any chemicals at all other then the big ALS water conditioner stuff. Here's some pics of the algae. The plants were bright green at the beginning like the first pic



























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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

Ya, mine looks like that too, I have plastic plants: http://i54.tinypic.com/23rp9hs.jpg. I just shook them off during water change. When you start mixing plastic with real plants, you'll end up pulling out all the plastic plants out because real looks better but more maintenance. Then you gotta get proper lighting, trimming and all that stuff but good luck, don't worry about the algea.


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

You can reduce the lighting but you have an albino pleco there I am sure he can appreciate the algae


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## Icy88 (Jan 19, 2011)

My tank used to have an extremely bad case of green algae. I didn't touched my tank for like a year and was just topping the water off. Everything was green and you can't even see through the glass. That's how thick the algae was. I have turned the tank around and it's been almost a month and still no algae bloom. My tank is now heavily planted with crystal clear water. 

I am running a UV sterilizer 24/7 and I scrape the glass clean every other day and I do a 30% water change every other day. I am not even using a de-chlorinator and my fish and shrimps don't seem to mind it. I use Excel daily and it seems effective in keeping the algae at bay. I also have API Algae Fix to nuke algae but I plan to use it just as a last resort. It was really hard to find Algae Fix nowadays and the guy at Menagerie told me that there was a ban on stuff like that. I also have 3 SAE on that tank and lots of MTS and about 30 RCS. My tank is getting 4.6 watts/gallon and the lights are on for 9 hours a day.


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## vinjo (Dec 8, 2010)

Algae almost always is present in a tank, just the nature of the beast. It's up to you to figure out how to manage it.

Best bet is as you mentioned "lighting". Get that cheap timer you've been procrastinating to get and set the right amount of hours for your light. That should quickly reduce the growth rate of the algae. It won't cure the issue but it'll significantly hinder the process.

Next step is to get a UV Sterilizer. This should be in inconjunction with the light-timer. It'll kill the floating spores and anything that is drifting in the water column. UV's can take several days before you really notice the effect, it'll take time but worth it. (Especially for such a large tank).

Lastly, Live Plants. I assume you dont have any because fake is easier to deal with. My suggestion is to get 1 type (probably a floating species) and place it in a filter bag which you then hide behind something in the tank. Every time it starts to outgrow the filter bag simply green bin some of it. You'll effectively starve algae of nutrients this way.

I'm currently having a similar issue in one of my aquariums.

Brown algae usually stems from silica. After enough time the brown algae will process most of it and eventually die off from starvation and then a different green algae will likely take its place.


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## 4rdguy (Nov 27, 2010)

Update. My algae problem got too out of control so I took out a lot of stuff and did a rescape while I was at it. I'm planning on adding live plants with some Eco-complete substrate. I've also got a timer and have it set to have my lights on from 12:00 noon to 9:00 at night. Also swapped out my 2 normal bulbs for 2 ho t8 or t5 (I forget) life-glow bulbs. What a difference wow.


























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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

reduce your lights to 8 hours


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## qwerty (Dec 15, 2009)

Personally I see little reason to worry about algae unless we're talking cyanobacteria (not actually algae, but anyways...).

First off, it isn't going to hurt or bother your fish. 

If you correct the source of the problem, then it will correct itself on its own.

Also, if you have algae eaters in there, the problem will correct itself that much quicker.

Diatoms are normal, especially in new tanks. Algae to some extent is normal in every tank. As long as you remove uneaten food after feeding, clean the substrate well when you do water changes, have adequate water circulation and filtration, don't overstock your tank, perform water changes regularly, and don't subject the tank to too much light, you should be virtually algae-free.

When you get a timer it might be a good idea to shorten the length of time you're leaving your lights on. FWIW you can also turn your lights off for an hour or so and then turn them back on to slow the algae down a bit.


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