test your tap water for nitrates, also you mentioned the green sludge in your canister. How often do you clean it? Your uv clarifier doesnt work for s+++. Algae should never be a problem with uv. Does it have a glass sleeve around the bulb? Do you clean it?
Cichlid Tank - never clean
- Thread starter trogdor1980
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slapper said:test your tap water for nitrates, also you mentioned the green sludge in your canister. How often do you clean it? Your uv clarifier doesnt work for s+++. Algae should never be a problem with uv. Does it have a glass sleeve around the bulb? Do you clean it?
You do realize his bulb is over 6 months old.
He needs to change his bulb. BUT THATS NOT THE POINT. a UV only covers UP the problem, It does not fix it.
I dont have a algea problem on my cichlid tank, its perfect. the only prob is that it might beging to be small for my oscars. However my other community tanks with the platies, Mollies and other freshwater fishes is hell. I did whatever with that tank. put algea destroyer in the tank and it still ugly. I havent being turn the light on for like 3 weeks now but its not much of a change. The plants that once longed beautiful now they all destroyed with algeas and I just dont know what to do wtih my 29 gallon tank.
WckedMidas said:Now how can you make a statement or coment like that?
Its proven to much light will cause floating algea blooms for one. Second if he does have a floating algea bloom . Doing mad watter changes just feeds the problem. And only prolongs it from clearing up.
Do not challenge me then walk away.
Post up your information please.
its like this everytime i have had this problem. I freaked out lost my mind and started doin mad watter changes like you and a couple others sugested. I thought yeah do the same thing. So i did. was doin 40 percent watter changes every day . Cleared watter up to like you said. Then the watter would start turning green again. and it got greener and greener untill you couldnt see **** in the back. Now i have tried doing the watter changes 40 percent every other day for a month straight. thinking that would get rid of the problem. nope it came right back. When i stoped doing all the watter changes the tank started clearing up after a week with no watterchanges. i dont no why dont no how. but it did. I also removed one of the lights i had on the tank. I didnt cover the tank completely . i just removed one light. I beleve the floating algea was liveing anf thriveing off micro orginaizims. in the fresh watter. And when i stoped giveing fresh watter to the free floating alge that made my tank look like mountan dew.The algea atarted dieing off.PeacockBass said:waiting.
how a uv sterilizer is used-should be looked at wattage and flow rate -for best results,a smaller tank needs 12 watts or more ,to be effective the rate should be slow for better exposure as it passes the bulb--if the flow rate of the canister filter is say 200-300 gph that too fast for the uv to do it's job from what i have read---so splitting the flow on the out put side is recommended or going to a higher wattage bulb lets say 36 watts.In my 66 gallon which is still cycling,i have one of my canister filters an xp2 hooked up with a coralife 18 watt uv split on the output side so the rate going through the uv is about 150 gph.I just get algae on surfaces,no bacterial blooms---my nitrates are almost to zero,water is crystal clear.
Water changes would only effect algae if it were high in phostates nitrites nitrates iron and such.I would think the benefits of large water changes would largely outweigh the negative.But i guess they say algae problems are sometimes a product of poor maintenance.But testing your water should be done to see if chemical treatment might work---phoshate removers for example.
I personally have to research the light aspect as i like to see my fish when i wake up and when i go to bed---i am cleaning green algae from the glasss daily-water is crystal clear---there's the patience level too it's only been running for 7 weeks---with blue gouramis,and three weeks with my leichardti arowana--which has grown an inch in that time
Water changes would only effect algae if it were high in phostates nitrites nitrates iron and such.I would think the benefits of large water changes would largely outweigh the negative.But i guess they say algae problems are sometimes a product of poor maintenance.But testing your water should be done to see if chemical treatment might work---phoshate removers for example.
I personally have to research the light aspect as i like to see my fish when i wake up and when i go to bed---i am cleaning green algae from the glasss daily-water is crystal clear---there's the patience level too it's only been running for 7 weeks---with blue gouramis,and three weeks with my leichardti arowana--which has grown an inch in that time
****, i had a whole article typed on the subject and i guess it was too long. so ill start again. I have my 90g cichlid tank. 1-7" fh, 1-f1 labiatus at 4", 1 female festae 3" and 1 dovii 3". I feed two to three times daily with nls pellets and freeze dried krill. occasionally i throw in earthworms or crawdads for some fun live food. I have 4-96w pc flourescents, and its right next to a window recieving 2 to 3 hours of good sunlight most of the year. My water is crystal clear, and i do 50 to 90% water changes weekly. I am with peacock. the only way you can do too big of a water change is if your fish arent used to it, causing it to shock them and bring on stress from too drastic of a change. most of the time that would mean your tank is too dirty, but your fish adapted to the environment over time, thinking that you are doing a favor by thoroughly cleaning the tank, you remove all the old dirty waste and throw in nice clean fresh water and shock the fish because the change happened to quick and they didnt have the time to adjust. if on the other hand once your tank is cycled you begin performing large scale REGULAR water changes you wouldnt have the problem as the fish would adapt to what was happening in their environment. For your algae bloom, you definitely have way too much nitrates in your water. Not doing big enough REGULAR partial water changes.
I would recommend starting a 50% water change every 3 days until the bloom is gone. at that point i would continue to do 50 to 90% weekly. you only need enough bacteria in your tank to convert the ammonia and nitrite to nitrates. if you do regular partial water changes you should never have a big enough accumulation of toxins that doing a water change would affect your system . you could vaccum half the tanks gravel one week and do the other side the next week. water changes are the key to keeping fish. the more you do the happier and healthier your fish are gonna be. cut back a little on the feeding and step up the water changes or continue to feed as you do, just do much larger more frequent changes and you should solve the problem. if it doesnt the problem would be your tap water and that will require obtaining water from a different source that is void of nitrates. LET THERE BE LIGHT. algae happens period, we just have to control it. Light isnt the problem, its the dirty water.
