I’ve seriously been battling this over a year and can’t figure out how to make it go away. Here’s the insane list of things I’ve tried:
-multiple water changes a week
-no water changes for over a month
-10% water changes
-90% water changes
-keeping the blackout curtains closed for weeks
-90% UV tint on left side of tank near window
-completely covering the tank and turning the light off for a month (poor girl)
-bigger canister filter
-a wide array of “algae-killing” chemicals
At this point, I’m tempted to put her in a temporary tank for a bit and literally bleach everything. I will go scorched earth. Please help!
Posted by annual_mushrooms
27 Comments
More details: 55 gallon tank, 10 year old parrot cichlid, Fluval FX4 canister filter, the light automatically cycles through to morning to night cycles.
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Tried a UV sterilizer? It seems you can’t control the light enough to stop the algae from coming back, so killing it as it grows instead of trying to prevent it from growing may be worth a try.
You could try reducing the intensity of the light, and/or reducing the number of hours its on for
I would assume you’re vacuuming the substrate? If so, maybe replacing is it taking some out. Are you using any kind of fertilizer for the plant that could also be an issue.
UV sterilizer in the short term. Long term, you might try some sturdy plants like anubias, val, java fern etc. See if there are any he doesn’t eat. My huge goldfish and tire track eels don’t eat anubias and can’t keep up with the val’s growth. And some swords survive as well. And I give them anacharis which they strip but it grows so fast that it just seems to stick around indefinitely as a food source.
But overall, I would look carefully at your feeding habits. Feed him and watch how much he eats and see how much you have to feed him before any of it hits the bottom. And if you let a tiny amount hit the bottom, how fast does he clean it up. I’ll bet if you do that experiment a few times, you’ll find that you are WAY overfeeding him, which most people do. And if you get the feeding right, I’ll bet the algae will subside.
The bleaching thing is a no-go. It will just come right back unless you address the underlying issues.
How easily accessible is that filter? Anyway you could add filter floss to it? Looks like free floating algae. Yeah, you might have to change the floss frequently but whatever. I’d rather do that and have clear water.
Plants, like frogbits or pothos, that could draw carbon from air. Btw is that pothos on right corner? Best result is the leaves must be above water, with roots submerged. Also how much did you feed your fish?
Roast? More like jealous. I try to grow green water to feed daphnia etc… What’s your secret? lol
Currently don’t have any aquariums setup. Cross country move and the rental doesn’t allow aquariums.
I definitely don’t have an 8g bowfront setup with local native plants and some cobra guppies (one male, three female) lol
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You could try growing pothos out of the tank. It’ll uptake a lot of nutrients, and with the tank being by the window, have access to free light.
Less hours of light and less food.
SO I had a problem recently with green algae living in the water and making it super cloudy like that. Yours is a bigger issue than mine. A couple things I did to fix mine:
1) Turned lights on to just 4 hour per day
2) Got a UV sterilizer/filter
3) Reduced feeding to every other day.
I went on vacation and came back (had someone feed them once while I was gone) and the water was crystal clear. We turned the light back on to like 8 hours a day and the green algae came back.
It wasn’t clearing up after lowering the lights again so I got API Algaefix on amazon and put it in (I -underdosed- and also diluted it in tank water before pouring it in SLOWLY because comments said overdosing is dangerous) — within an hour my water was crystal clear again.
SO OVERVIEW:
1) UV filter
2) API AlgaeFix
And then for maintenance to keep it from coming back:
1) Limit feeding a bit
2) Limit light exposure
3) Maybe weekly/biweekly/monthly dosing with Algaefix (it recommends once per week but I’m only going to do it if the algae starts to get bad again).
He looks like he knows the answer but won’t tell it
Off topic your fish is looking at you like “You gonna fuckin fix this?”
Floating plants. Fast growing since your fish will eat them. This might be one of the few times where frogbit and duckweed are anything more than a nuisance.
More plants and less light.
Is that pothos growing emersed? If not try letting it grow emersed, it should not be kept submerged. Next to that try adding more submerged hardy plants like anubias, amazon swords. Or floating plants like frogbit. The awnser is plants.
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This will clear it in a day or two
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C8PH0OI
All algae needs is nitrogen and light. If it’s not the light it’s the nitrates. Cut those down and it should start to resolve but it’s generally not an overnight thing in an established tank. Check tap water for nitrate levels as well. I found my local tap to be around 100ppm back when I was running a lot of tanks. If the tap water is very high in nitrates you are left with two options RODI or buying filtered water. As others have said a UV sterilizer will also help a ton. Best of luck to you!
Live plants! And reduce the time you have the light on. Even 2 hours or so can make a huge difference
Two words Daphnias and snails.
What are your water parameters?
Id throw in some live plants, and maybe some snails/shrimp if your fish wont eat them.
If there is a spot with good water flow, some vampire shrimp would love this tank, and they filter stuff out with their little grubby mits, so free floating algea would be great for them. If youre worried about pruce, you can get an army of ghost shrimp for like 75 cents a piece. Super high mortality rate, but they make a great low priced trial. I have 6-7 ghosts in with my betta, in a 5.5 (about to upgrade to a 10) and they do a great job cleaning, bht i have to put new ones in every month or two just from high mortality.
But yeah, i had some major algea issues too, and more plants+a clean up crew is a solid investment.
Sounds like you tried everything at this point, have you tried dumping in a cupful of daphnia?