I'm green with envy... uh... algae!

[spryandspringy]

All of a sudden, most of my tanks have become completely overrun with algae. Even with anti-algae chemicals added to the water (I know, I know...) I'm still scraping away enough to completely obscure the glass and coat the gravel or sand twice to three times a week.

Only one tank, of course it's the planted tank, seems immune. The fact that this tank is staying so blissfully clean and clear makes me doubt that a change in my local tap water is to blame, though that could be a factor; the plants could be eliminating the effect.

So, I'm open to suggestions. I could just buy a passel of plecos (kind of like a gaggle of geese, or a pod of whales ) to try to clean up, but these tanks all have aggressive cichlids in them which could mean death for the little suckers -- pun intended. I could try more of different chemicals, but I already feel guilty about adding them. Is there anything I could add to my filter media that could help? Do I just need to keep on scraping?

 

[Psycho Magnet]

I had the same problem awhile back. Turns out I was over feeding and leaving my lights on for too long.

 

[spryandspringy]

I've been checking my water quality, and Nitrates are a little high, but not out of control. Everything else looks fine. Wouldn't my water quality be a mess if I was overfeeding?

 

[Psycho Magnet]

When I was overfeeding everything checked out fine except the nitrates. They were pretty high and that's when I got the algae bloom. I also work 24 hr shifts and sometimes I forgot to shut off the lights when leaving so the tank had an abnormal amount of light.

 

[guppy]

Sounds like to much light, and too big a bioload either from fish waste or overfeeding, did you change foods recently? Shade your tank, put your lights on a dimmer circuit so you can control the intensity, and add some cheap, fast growing plants like elodea to compete with the algae for nutrients, feed your fish carefully so as not to overfeed. Between these steps you should see an improvement.

 

[sohfatfish]

A pretty large and regular water change would help as well besides the fast growing plants.

 

[wism_chan]

Try to reduce down the timing you open the light for your fish tank.
It may help to preven the growth of the algae....

 

[spryandspringy]

Thanks, folks! I'll change the light timers and reduce the food. (Although I can't imagine feeding them less; they already flip out when it's feeding time.) Hopefully that and some more water changes will do the trick.

 

[fishnthings]

my fish always flip out during feeding no matter how much i feed them. some fish are just straight up pigs

 

[Psycho Magnet]

my fish always flip out during feeding no matter how much i feed them. some fish are just straight up pigs

Straight on, I have tested the waters at all of the LFS here and pretty much all of the seemingly knowledgeable people at these shops have told me to feed once a day. At first it was hard for me to do that but since I've started (and also put my lights on 11 hour timers) I have had much less problems with algae and sick fish.