friends planted tank?

[BuggyNutt]

My friend has a 60-65gal and he has it planted. I went over to look at it the other day and its really nice but he is haveing alot of algea growing in the tank. It looks like a bush and it is on his plants, glass, and his rock pile, so pretty much everywhere. he said he gets it all out of his tank and within a week or two it all comes back. The lfs told him to buy CAE's so he did and nothing changed. I dont have any ideas for him so I thought I would ask someone here for ideas. I did tell him I thought that there was to much lite coming in through the window and that could be one problem and I also told him to shut off his CO2 for a few days to see if that helped. I have never had a planted tank so Im at a loss. Im going over there this weekend to get some pics and hope to get them posted by sunday but would like to give him a little info when I go over there.

Thanks
Jason

 

[phreakyfaerie]

sounds like too much lite, my tank had the same problem untill i moved them all away from the windows.

 

[HarleyK]

Howdy,
I'd say we need some more info on his tank:

- color of algae (maybe you find a pic in the internet, google algae)
- fish (species, size, number)
- feeding habits (type of food, amount, frequency of feeding)
- type of filtration (incl. media)
- tank mainentance (water change intervals, filter cleaning intervals)
- lighting (type, age of bulbs, Watts, duration)
- specify daylight exposure (direct light for how long during the day?)
- water temp
- pH, GH, KH
- ammonia
- nitrate
- nitrite
- iron
- conductivity
- did the algae start with any changes on his set-up? Have him think hard about this, it's most often the case and greatly helps to narrow down the problem.

The more you can find out, the better we can help.

HarleyK

 

[fishnutham]

have to add something keep the co2 going the plants are feeding and taking nutrients from the algae also a blackout can help cover the tank for a few days should kill off some of the thread algae also auv sterlizer will keep some of the spores down and no more then 10 hrs of lighting

 

[sohfatfish]

Do not cut off the Co2 it willl only worsen the situation. In the mean time add some floating and fast growing stemmed plants to block some light and take up excess nutrients. Try as best as you can to tell us the conditions of that tank so we can help u further.