agabr123

well i'm having some massive green algae problems in my 5 gallon tanks. i'm pretty sure that this is because of the lighting (i'm going to have to double check the wattage on the bulbs in there) but it's gotten REALLY bad and i can't seem to get it off with my algae scrubber. tankmates are out of the question for two of the tanks, hera hunts snails like it's her job and ares doesn't tolerate them either and i'm not comfortable having otos in there with that little space. i'm working on getting a picture so i should have that up soon. one of the tanks is pretty heavily planted with live plants and driftwood, the others don't have live plants. strangely enough the one with the plants is actually worse! when i woke up this morning the algae in hera's tank had basically exploded, you'll see what i mean when i get the pics up.

any suggestions?

EDIT: the lights are 9 watts, so it's 1.8 WPG

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Shawnie

mathas is great with algae issues....maybe you can pm him or he will see this? im trying to grow algae and cant for the life of me LOL ....goodluck alex!

momo9700

I noticed the same problem with my 29gal when it had live plants. But my 10gal doesn't get the stuff. I think that it has something to do with the live plants, but otherwise I'm not too sure what it is.

agabr123

i added some of the better pictures

Jonah

At risk of me sounding a bit like a broken record I had a tank with a bad algae problem which even heavy planting could not control I put 3 marimo balls in it and within days I could see a visible result.

And the little piggy molly fry like them as well!

agabr123

hmm thats interesting, ill have to try it!

Torez

get smaller bulbs that might help

ER9

it looks like accumulating green dust algae. the best remedy seems to be to let it run its course. let it build up for three-four weeks....scrape it off, do a large water change and watch it. if it reapears. repeat the process. it could be low co2 or low nutrients thats your problem. i had it pretty bad at one time and it eventually went away. intense light may be a culprit as well...if it is cutting back on the intensity or photoperiod might help...

really good post on the stuff here

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/al...seriously.html

agabr123

yeah, along with that i'm going to try a blackout for a while, and decrease the amount of time that i leave the lights on and hopefully that will help some. thanks for the link, it was really helpful!

CHoffman

My goodness Alex...that is some green Algae...LOL...Good luck with this..I know you can win.

agabr123

lol, yeah it's definitely taken over and it wont come off with my scrubber! i'm going to have to get something else to take care of it, and i'm not happy about the fact that hera will turn any snail that i put in there into lunch otherwise i'd put a bunch in there to see if they can do anything about it.

ER9

if your tank is glass you will probably need a razor blade scraper to get it off. it gets harder over time.

agabr123

hmm, i think that my 5 gallon kits are acrylic, i know for sure that they aren't glass but besides that i couldn't tell you. i'll have to check.

ER9

if they are acrylic they sell plastic razor scrapers. the razor blade is made out of hard plastic. i have acrylic tank as well. what i did was buy a 3" wide X 6" long piece of 1/8" plexiglass. i just used the piece of plexi as a scraper. it works extremely well and doesn't scratch your tank.

agabr123

i'll definitely have to look around for that, i have to pick up a few things at lowes anyways, so it's a good time to check!