war on algae

[green_fox]

so for the past several monthes algae and i have been at war. i have decided a two week blackout should do it in. now i have concerns for the plants in my tank and im not sure if they will do well with out the light for the two weeks. also what is an appropriate amount of time to leave the lights on in my tank to keep this algae from advancing on my tank again that will still allow my plants to grow? its about 54 watts of 6700k T5 HO light on a 75 gallon tank. thanks in advance for any advice

 

[sbrodacz]

so for the past several monthes algae and i have been at war. i have decided a two week blackout should do it in. now i have concerns for the plants in my tank and im not sure if they will do well with out the light for the two weeks. also what is an appropriate amount of time to leave the lights on in my tank to keep this algae from advancing on my tank again that will still allow my plants to grow? its about 54 watts of 6700k T5 HO light on a 75 gallon tank. thanks in advance for any advice

How often do you do water changes? What kind of filtration?

 

[xander]

^ agreed, if your tank is indoors and you have an algae problem, it's likely that your tank has exceedingly high nitrates and other nutrients

 

[green_fox]

i try for about 20% every week (i did fall off that horse for a while and feel really bad about that) i have a magnum 350 filter along with an ac 30 and a 70

 

[NWatson]

I had a similar problem....water perameters were good. I do about 50% water changes a week. I just put timers on the lights and cut the hrs. back to around 9 a day.....so far so good.

 

[Valous]

what kind of algae? also what are your water no3 readings?

 

[green_fox]

its really long and light green (havent got an id and threw most of it it in the garbage) no3 test tells me about 5 ppm which does not sound right

 

[goldies88]

UV sterilizer will clear it in no time http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsU...256/cl0/coralifeturbotwist3x9wattuvsterilizer

 

[cudamaster13]

UV sterilizer will clear it in no time http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsU...256/cl0/coralifeturbotwist3x9wattuvsterilizer

uv steralizers and plants that reqiure alot of natrates to survive should help u i used to have bad alagea in my brackish tank and i added 5 mangrove seedlings i no longer have nitrate problems

 

[boldtogether]

UV steralizer and more like 50% water changes weekly. The only thing thats going to removehigh nitrats and/or nutrients without also removing oxygen is either a reductor($) or delution. The nitrate could also be an indicator of over feeding. Also, if you have a canister filter that doesn't get serviced at least once per month, they can become nitrate factories. A UV properly "flowed" will do miracles. Word of advice...over-size if you like to leave the lights on more than 9 hours/day.