Algae slime won't go away?

Hi all,

My 10G betta tank constantly has a coating of slime on everything.
I do weekly water changes and take out and clean off all the sludge. Even on the leaves of the real plants.
Then like 3 days later, there's another coat on them. It starts thin then obviously becomes a mess.
Any ideas? Solutions?

 

1st thing that comes to mind is to shorten light hours. Maybe4-6 hours of light a day? Also dimming the lights as well as feeding less may help. Less nutrients + less light = no more algae(at least for me)

 

1st thing that comes to mind is to shorten light hours. Maybe4-6 hours of light a day? Also dimming the lights as well as feeding less may help. Less nutrients + less light = no more algae(at least for me)

Hmm he's also across the room from a window, so he gets natural light a lot of the day. Could that also be an issue?

 

Hmm he's also across the room from a window, so he gets natural light a lot of the day. Could that also be an issue?

Yeah, I would block the window so natural light can't get into the tank.

 

Sounds a lot like blue green algae/cyanobacteria. The first thing I would do is a 3 day total black out. Your plants may not like it but I am sure they are struggling more with this than they would from the blackout. This stuff needs light to grow so between the blackout and shortening the amount of time your lights are on should help you get a handle on it.

 

Hi all,

My 10G betta tank constantly has a coating of slime on everything.
I do weekly water changes and take out and clean off all the sludge. Even on the leaves of the real plants.
Then like 3 days later, there's another coat on them. It starts thin then obviously becomes a mess.
Any ideas? Solutions?

I have this on the back side of my driftwood.

 

If it is cyanobacteria (blue green); and the tank is new it might clear itself up in a few weeks. I had massive problems with the stuff for about 2 months and then one day it just went away and never returned. There were theories as to why it was happening but none of them seemed very conclusive though some made quite a bit of sense.
-
There is some stuff Chemi-Clean that will also work on the stuff but i would only use it as a last resort.
--
If it is not blue-green but more green then it might be algae and you might have too much phosphate (over feeding or poor quality tap) in your water. To be honest I just throw guppies at it and under feed them and they keep the tank clean (they love algae) but you might not like that solution.
-
If the tank is super new and it is more brownish it could be diatoms and that usually forms because of silica from a newly started tank and it will naturally vanish after 2 or 3 weeks (normally); just do a water change or two each week to help clean out the water.
-
Pictures always help esp pictures with large circles showing the issue of concern.
--
Looking at the picture you did provide i'm not sure what you are pointing towards - the part in focus in the first picture almost looks like bba.

 

If it is cyanobacteria (blue green); and the tank is new it might clear itself up in a few weeks. I had massive problems with the stuff for about 2 months and then one day it just went away and never returned. There were theories as to why it was happening but none of them seemed very conclusive though some made quite a bit of sense.
-
There is some stuff Chemi-Clean that will also work on the stuff but i would only use it as a last resort.
--
If it is not blue-green but more green then it might be algae and you might have too much phosphate (over feeding or poor quality tap) in your water. To be honest I just throw guppies at it and under feed them and they keep the tank clean (they love algae) but you might not like that solution.
-
If the tank is super new and it is more brownish it could be diatoms and that usually forms because of silica from a newly started tank and it will naturally vanish after 2 or 3 weeks (normally); just do a water change or two each week to help clean out the water.
-
Pictures always help esp pictures with large circles showing the issue of concern.
--
Looking at the picture you did provide i'm not sure what you are pointing towards - the part in focus in the first picture almost looks like bba.

Thanks for the advice! Sorry its hard to focus the camera, there's so many different light sources hitting the tank and the reflections are crazy.
But from what you stated - it's definitely the cyanobacteria.