Help with Algae

[davdev]

I am really new to planted tanks, and I am experiencing a major alage bloom I was looking for help with. The algae looks like little white hairs attached to all my plants, and it has really clouded up the water.

I have an assortment of plants including Wisteria, Java Fern, Amazon Sword amongst others.

The water quality is OK (0,0,10) and I do 10% changes every other day. (only water source near the tank is cold, so doing bigger changes really effects tank temp, never had a problem before the plants)

Tank is 75 gallon mostly native sunfish and a small bullhead cat (with 1 eartheater as well ).

Temp is kept at 76-78 F

My lighting is a coralife strip with 2x65 T5, and another single strip that is 28W.

I also dose following these instructions:
http://www.seachem.com/support/PlantDoseChart.pdf

I do not use CO2, and my substrate is PFS augmented with Seachem plant tablets.

Filtration is via a 30 gallon DIY sump, and 2 HOB (Emperor 250, AC 110)


I know I was leaving my lights on too long for a while, upwards of 12-13 hours. I have cut that back so they are on for 4 hours in the morning, then off for 3 hours, then on for another 5 before shutting down for the night. Tank is in a basement so the only ambient light comes in from two small basement windows along the opposite wall.

Based on this information, any good ideas for removing the algae? Should I leave the lights completly off for a few days? If so, how will that effect the plants I acutally want to grow?

 

[davdev]

Just as a follow up, I had read on another forum that overdosing the tank with Seachem Excel does wonders for eliminating algae. Since I had been dosing excel anyway, I decided to give it a shot. So for the last 3 days I have been dosing at 2.5x the normal dose. In that time I would say about 75% of the algae is gone. I am going to do it for a few more days then do a water change and will post my results.

So far I see no issues with any of the livestock in the tank.

 

[JasonG75]

Here is a great link that identifies algae and how to handle it.

http://aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/

 

[davdev]

Here is a great link that identifies algae and how to handle it.

http://aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/

I found that as well. Unfortunatley my algae doesn't really look like any of it. If anything it is closest to Beard algae, but it is white, not black or green

 

[wantokeeptrout]

one good trick is to hook the light up to a timer. All algae needs 4 hours of straight light to grow so if the light is intermidditly on and off for 2-3 hour periods algae will grow much slower and/or die while your other plants will do fine. my friend has a great shrimp tank that is carpeted with plants and has next to no algae.

 

[Owain4]

I would slow down the doses of fertilizer, obviously there is too much nutrients in the water if algae is growing. maybe do 2/3 of what they tell you to dose. Honestly Java fern and amazon sword will grow regardless of fertilizer.

 

[davdev]

I would slow down the doses of fertilizer, obviously there is too much nutrients in the water if algae is growing.

That is opposite of what they say over at the planted tank. They said cutting back on dosing only takes nutrients away from the plants, and since the algae need less nutrients, it will take over.

 

[Owain4]

Honestly i run my planted tank without fertilizers, no added co2 at all, yet my plants have high nutrient requirements. Java fern and anubias are low light growing plants and i would say are pretty hardy plants that probably dont even need fertilizers. See either there is too much nutrients in the aquarium; nutrients that your plants aren't absorbing which promotes algae growth. There could be excess phosphates, or even an excess of light in your tank since java fern and anubia are low light growers.