New to forum! Have algae fighting question I KNOW someone here can help me with!

[Gourami Swami]

Another tip, bringing up the percentage of your WCs to 75% may be just as (or more) effective than more frequest 50% WCs. Think about it, if you do a 50% you cut the nitrates to half, but then they creep up, and next time you take out half, there would logically be more in there, so half still leaves you higher than after the first WC. Bigger percentage change will be better, just make sure temperature is not too far off when filling, and dechlorinate enough for the whole tank at the start of filling.

 

[FishNamedGil]

Gourami Swami Thats a good point, and something I actually thought about. I'm a nerd and a numbers guy, so I put the frequency idea to numbers quickly recently considering only 50% water changes 2 or 3 times a week, but I did it again with this theory and came up with the following...

Pattern over 10 water changes with a weekly 75% change and a biweekly 50% change. Assuming a starting point of 24.5 and a linear NO3 increase of 12.5 every week (average from my past couple of weekly measurements), the theoretical NO3 levels stabilize after about 4 weeks (8 bi-weekly and 4 weekly changes).

Two 50% changes gets it down to 12.5 ppm. One 75% change gets it down to 16.7. Both are under 20 and better than the stabilization of 24.5 I have now. If I want to go for < 10 ppm, I have to do bi-weekly 75% changes or three 50% changes.... each gets me down to potentially 8.3.

Of course, I could also consider bio-load and re-home a couple fish. Thing is the only ones I wouldnt mind re-homing are the smaller ones... the Blue Acara and the spotted Pleco... And I actually really like the pleco, I just dont know if the pleco is helping at all with the algae/cleanup, or just producing more nitrate....

 

[phreeflow]

Not sure if you’re vacuuming the substrate with each water change but that will help. I had one tank that would get out of control with algae no matter what I did in terms of maintenance….extra water changes, only feeding every other day, cutting the lights down, disinfecting everything with bleach and/or hydrogen peroxide, adding tons of plants. Only thing that really got it under control was swapping all the substrate and using new decor. In my case, I suspect the substrate was leaching silicates or phosphates but I’m not sure. Just know that when I swapped it all out, everything is fine

 

[Gourami Swami]

Your analysis looks good, though I would still think there are some more variables which may throw it off. How are you getting the 6.3 increase number, from water tests? What size are all your fish?
On the pleco, they can eat some algae and make the tank appear cleaner, but they are definitely big poop-producers and if nitrate is the concern, you'd be better off just wiping the tank yourself when you do a water change.
Also, how are you doing your water changes? If you don't have a python or similar that can fill from your tap and are using buckets, it will make your life much easier. With one of these, the difference between a 50% and 75% is about 5 minutes. Two 75% may put you even lower, which will help you out.
In the end, If you don't have any plants, and you do have nitrate and also light (partial sunlight plus tank light), you will probably always have algae growth to deal with. You can keep fighting it with cleaning, and chemicals that strip your water of this or that, you can try natural things like adding plants and upping the WCs, or you can embrace it. Or combination of the three. But probably can't stop it from growing.
Any pics of full tank? Would be curious to see

 

[FishNamedGil]

Not sure if you’re vacuuming the substrate with each water change but that will help. I had one tank that would get out of control with algae no matter what I did in terms of maintenance….extra water changes, only feeding every other day, cutting the lights down, disinfecting everything with bleach and/or hydrogen peroxide, adding tons of plants. Only thing that really got it under control was swapping all the substrate and using new decor. In my case, I suspect the substrate was leaching silicates or phosphates but I’m not sure. Just know that when I swapped it all out, everything is fine

I do vacuum it a little.... but it's a CaribSea large/course sand substrate, not just gravel. I dont dig deep into all the substrate across the whole tank most of the time....it's about 1.5-2 inches deep, so I usually just swirl around the top as usually recommended for sand. Digging sparingly. I dont know if there is a better substrate otherwise, but these were recommended for cichlid tanks and I've always thought the sandy types were better than the gravel.

 

[FishNamedGil]

Your analysis looks good, though I would still think there are some more variables which may throw it off. How are you getting the 6.3 increase number, from water tests? What size are all your fish?
On the pleco, they can eat some algae and make the tank appear cleaner, but they are definitely big poop-producers and if nitrate is the concern, you'd be better off just wiping the tank yourself when you do a water change.
Also, how are you doing your water changes? If you don't have a python or similar that can fill from your tap and are using buckets, it will make your life much easier. With one of these, the difference between a 50% and 75% is about 5 minutes. Two 75% may put you even lower, which will help you out.
In the end, If you don't have any plants, and you do have nitrate and also light (partial sunlight plus tank light), you will probably always have algae growth to deal with. You can keep fighting it with cleaning, and chemicals that strip your water of this or that, you can try natural things like adding plants and upping the WCs, or you can embrace it. Or combination of the three. But probably can't stop it from growing.
Any pics of full tank? Would be curious to see

The 6.3 is 1/2 the 12.5 ppm increase (rounded), which I averaged over the last few weeks of testing nitrates. My assumptions were:
1. A 12.5 ppm increase per week (based on previous weekly nitrate tests)
2. The increase is LINEAR such that each day would increase by about the same amount from day 1 to day 7
3. Doing a 2nd water change would be mid-week (e.g., Saturday and Wednesday) such that the nitrate difference would be about 1/2

Fish sizes roughly are an 8" Oscar, 5-6" Jack Dempsey, 4-5" Severum, 5" spotted pleco, 3-4" Blue Acara. As much as I like the look of this pleco.... plecos are always the least interesting fish to me, and I realize he contributes a lot to the bio-load. He and the Blue Acara are the 2 I'd remove first, then the severum. If nothing else, and I HAD to, I'd be happy with the Oscar and the JD as the only inhabitants, especially as they get larger.

Yeah, I do water changes with an Aqueon/Python water changer hybrid rig (it's actually the Aqueon changer I attach to the faucet with the python brass fitting because it's durable). I only used a bucket when I had a 10 gallon -- wouldnt do 9-10 buckets for a 45+ gal WC. And yeah, I've done 75% changes before.... 9/10 it's because I just left it running a little too long and realized I pulled more than 50%....lol

 

[Gourami Swami]

Right, so your fish are not adults yet, the nitrate production is still going to go up significantly. An oscar, severum, and JD will be a heavily stocked 90 gallon, but if you are willing to do the increased maintenance and the fish continue to get along, you could probably keep those three. If any are females they will not reach their potential max size, which would be a good thing for you.
I would recommend trying to do as thorough of a gravel-vac job as you can. I usually vac my entire tank until no more poop comes from the gravel weekly.
On the original issue of the algae, yeah I don't think you'll be able to get rid of it or stop it from growing, just maintain it, for the reasons in last post.

 

[FishNamedGil]

Right, so your fish are not adults yet, the nitrate production is still going to go up significantly. An oscar, severum, and JD will be a heavily stocked 90 gallon, but if you are willing to do the increased maintenance and the fish continue to get along, you could probably keep those three. If any are females they will not reach their potential max size, which would be a good thing for you.
I would recommend trying to do as thorough of a gravel-vac job as you can. I usually vac my entire tank until no more poop comes from the gravel weekly.
On the original issue of the algae, yeah I don't think you'll be able to get rid of it or stop it from growing, just maintain it, for the reasons in last post.

Thank you Gourami Swami ... youve been most helpful... appreciate you level setting my expectations, since this is my first time with a large species tank... I think I underestimated the Acara, so he may be almost full size, the others are pretty close, but you're right they are certainly not all full grown. My intention originally was (had my firemouth not gotten killed), I would just have a firemouth, JD, and oscar. I decided on the severum later. In the end, if I can keep just the JD and an oscar, I would re-home the Severum too. Those 2 full grown would make for a beautiful tank, IMO. I've decided... I will re-home the pleco for sure, drop some of the bioload now.

So if you dont mind... one last question, and I'll consider this a wrap. Even though I may never WIN the algae battle here, what are your thoughts on these options to at least reduce algae growth in addition to the obvious extra maintenance (both of these I read mixed reviews on):
1. Vibrant to reduce nutrient levels further? I tried it once for several weeks....found it to improve things, then stop working for whatever reason (but everyone else says it's their #1 go-to algae fix)
2. I cant blind this type of window (large, arched living room window), so getting my window tinted enough, maybe 50%, to significantly reduce the light/uv on the tank all day?

thanks again!

 

[Gourami Swami]

Thank you Gourami Swami ... youve been most helpful... appreciate you level setting my expectations, since this is my first time with a large species tank... I think I underestimated the Acara, so he may be almost full size, the others are pretty close, but you're right they are certainly not all full grown. My intention originally was (had my firemouth not gotten killed), I would just have a firemouth, JD, and oscar. I decided on the severum later. In the end, if I can keep just the JD and an oscar, I would re-home the Severum too. Those 2 full grown would make for a beautiful tank, IMO. I've decided... I will re-home the pleco for sure, drop some of the bioload now.

So if you dont mind... one last question, and I'll consider this a wrap. Even though I may never WIN the algae battle here, what are your thoughts on these options to at least reduce algae growth in addition to the obvious extra maintenance (both of these I read mixed reviews on):
1. Vibrant to reduce nutrient levels further? I tried it once for several weeks....found it to improve things, then stop working for whatever reason (but everyone else says it's their #1 go-to algae fix)
2. I cant blind this type of window (large, arched living room window), so getting my window tinted enough, maybe 50%, to significantly reduce the light/uv on the tank all day?

thanks again!

Hello, no problem happy to help.
I've used Vibrant one time myself in my reef tank when I was having dinoflagellate/cyanobacteria problems. I found that it wasn't a silver bullet that cured all my problems like the company claims. Could have been other variables that caused my problem to continue, hard to say. I've read alot about it (there is a 300+page thread on reef2reef) and other people have had issues with it causing cyanobacteria blooms for them. But lots of people also say it worked great for them, and the product seems to be a success, available everywhere now though it's only been released for about 5 years.
I prefer to battle root causes of issues rather than introduce products to remedy issues. That's just my approach to fishkeeping, and of all the products out there I would trust bacterial-based products like Vibrant or Dr. Tim's much more than an algaecide chemical. So, i don't think it will hurt to give it a shot, but I wouldn't expect it to work miracles.
On the tinting of the window- sure, that would probably help, seems kind of drastic to me though, would probably put a blanket over the tank during the day before I tinted my large living room window.

 

[duanes]

Vibrant is only one of a series of products that add beneficial bacteria that compete with the algae, cyanobacteria, or other less desirable bacteria that form in aquariums .
There is also Dr Tims and a few other probiotics available .
I have successfully used Rid-X, made for septic systems (much less expensive and available at home improvement type stores).
You may want to peruse the thread below

The Use of Probiotics in Aquaculture

The use of probiotics in aquaculture has been around for decades but has gained some new popularity in the past few years due to a few fish food manufacturers incorporating some of these bacteria in their food. While numerous publications & studies about the use of probiotics and/or...

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