# Algee, Diatom and Driftwood



## Corner (Feb 27, 2007)

Okay so in my pygo tank I have a lot of growth on the rocks, it's mostly green, fuzzy and it waves in the water, like so:









The lights I have are the lights that came with the tank, it's just 2 36" bulbs on my 125gallon tank. I have washed, and scrubbed... it comes off but just grows back. It won't come off just by rubbing it with your hand or the end of the python. I also get the same things growing on a filter intake and heater, but this comes off a lot easier with just a toothbrush.
















Pretty much everything gets covered in brown, diatom? This is easily handled, but is sometimes a pain to scrub the tank down everyday, and it turns my gravel a browny colour which looks bad.

Lastly I recently went to the beach and picked up some driftwood I have read that you boil it and change the water until it's clear?? By boil does that literally mean boil... like 100 C water, or just hot water? I have been wondering about all of the algae things, but would really like to have everything working okay with no ugly stuff before I put the driftwood in, so it doesn't look bad.

So basically my question is how can I stop the algae and diatom(possible without RO/DI?)? And how do I do the driftwood thing?


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## NegativeSpin (Aug 1, 2007)

As far as the driftwood goes you need to boil the hell out of it and let the most stubborn and viscous oil fractions diffuse out of the wood and into the water. Temperature not only makes the oils less viscous but speeds up the diffusion rate. You can boost up the speed by adding table salt to the boil since the water will boil at a higher temperature.


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2008)

Corner, thanks for posting pictures.

What you have there is a mix of organisms including filamentous algae and cyanobacteria. The brown stuff is sometimes called "grease algae", although that's not it's proper name. I don't know why some tanks can grow the stuff so easily and other tanks don't. Perhaps it has to do with how much light the aquarium receives and water parameters such as Nitrate content and pH.

What are your water parameters? Does the tank receive any daylight through the windows?

This is not usually an issue with community aquariums because most well-stocked community aquariums have fish such as rainbow sharks that can scrape all that stuff up. Small scavengers are not usually an option in a Piranha aquarium because the non-piranhas tends to get killed.

Perhaps you could reduce the amount of time the lights are on. If your nitrate is high, maybe reduce that with more water changes, too.

As far as adding wood that you collected yourself is concerned, this is always a risk. Some people have added wood to their aquariums and got beautiful centerpieces. Other people have ended up with a tank full of pulp slurry. It may even take along time for the wood to sink. You won't know what will happen until you add the wood.

I've never gone crazy cleaning wood that I buy in the pet store. I usually just stick it in a basin of hot tap water for a few days and change the water at least once a day. Then I search for soft spots and add it to the aquarium.


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## Corner (Feb 27, 2007)

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10 to 20, closer to 10 and it is jsut about time for a water change
pH - 8 to 8.2 (it is steady at this)

Firstly, how do I get a 3' piece of wood into boiling water?

The tank gets roughly 10 hours or light from the aquarium lights a day, but I have recently cut that back to see if it makes any difference. The tank also receives daylight through windows, usually the blinds are mostly down except on the west window which has no blind, so it gets light every night at least.


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## Guest (Jul 11, 2008)

It's definitely not from having too much Nitrate. Your water is very clean.

Maybe if you only used one of your two fluorescent lights, you'll grow less algae.


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## greenmonkey51 (Aug 16, 2004)

Do more and bigger water changes, reduce your lighting period, and look into a phosphate reactor.


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## Corner (Feb 27, 2007)

What exactly does a phosphate reactor do? I have cut the lighting down to almost nothing except daylight in the windows, I do about a 30-40% water change weekly... help?


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## greenmonkey51 (Aug 16, 2004)

A phosphate reactor runs water through a reactor with phosphate removing media in it. It removes phosphate more efficiently than having it in another filter. Also certain phosphate removers are delicate and need a slow flow through them to prevent the media from banging into each other and pulverizing the media.


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