# Green slime alage



## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

HELP! my planted is getting overrun by green slime alage. 
Its not BBA thats for sure it just seems to be a thin layer. couldbe green hair. But I dunno. It just coats whatever it is on. 
I know why I got it. It was from my CO2 running out. So I just upped the doasage of Excell to comp while the new reactor gets goin. Is there anything else I can do o fight it down?

I also uped my lights. So I have a 65w and a 36w over the tank.
Clean up crew is 2 oto's 
a SAE and a CAE
There were some ghost shrimp but I'm sure they are all gone now. there also might still be a couple trumpet snails in there too.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

argh, sorry to hear.. 
But any time you change anything in a planted tank, DIY co2 running out, changes in dosing, lighting times, and intensity--really anything, can mean you upset the delicate balance in there

I would remove all of it that I could manually, and try to adjust dosing slowly, steadily, and accordingly.

Hope that helps


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

welp reaching in the tank now... uggh.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

How did it go? I have 2 75g tanks to trim, scrub, and do a water change on today


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

I will be dealing with the tank tonight. 
I've upped the excell and the extra light will help curb the growth. hopefully my SAE will be able to keep up with it until I get home and time to deal with it. Stupid DIY bottles still not making any freaking CO2. I'm dropping more yeast in there tonight. 
I'm looking at a cheap way of getting CO2 there. I think I might go with one of those carbon blocks. I'll be the gunni pig. It a little cheaper then the pressurized system and more in my price range for the time being.

the whole thing is weird cause theres nothing growing in the 75 (other then the plants)
also one of the bulbs went out on that tank so I'm down to 2wpg. and thats working out well.


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

I wouldnt add more yeast, that will just make it worse. I would add more sugar.

This is your 20? That sounds like a butt-load of light man, and there is not near enough Co2 (DIY is only good to a point). I wouldnt go with a carbon system, but eh, Gunnea pigs are always great

Good luck bro!


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## flaredevil2 (Sep 3, 2006)

you could try adding a catfish or two and see if that works. Also, the snails should help, but not as well.


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

Why would I add a cat fish?

anyways the problem is solved the additional light and the correction of the CO2 reactor fixed everything. Adding yeast was the soloution to the CO2. there was plenty of sugar in the mix it was fresh. I think when I re did the mixture I activated the yeat in too high of temp so wound up killing most of it instead of activating it. I re did the mix and went over things again. actually went with a full tespoon. Was getting a staggering 3 bubbles per sec. that has slowed to 1 per. tanks doing great again.
Heres some updated pics


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

Your tank looks great bro! You made that 20 look big!

I got my yeast reactor doing about 2 bubbles per second for about the past 3 days









At first, I wasn't too fond with your aquascaping, but its really pulling together now, I'm generally not a fan of blue backgrounds either, but I can honestly say it looks quite good in your setup.

Even though what your doing I disagree with, it seems to work great, so all the props to you! Thats what I love about this hobby, there is no one right way to do things, with alot of creativity to be had (especially in reef setups). Kinda the reasoning behind my sig there.

Good luck!


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

yeah I'm not fond of flat blue either. But wanted somethign quick and this is actually one of those mirrored metalic blue BG's. Was better then those fake scape BG's. 
and yeah this tanks gone thru a couple overhauls to get where its at. Its gonna be a work in progress for a while. I wanna see how these plants do and maybe move a couple around to open up the entrance to the cave that is in the middle of the large rock formation. I have an apisto that has taken to hiding and I've only seen him a couple times since he's gone in there.

Sad thing is yesterday the tank broke out with Ich. Its not clearing up even tho I've hit it with salt. So today I am grabbing the meds to nuke the sh*t outta the ich.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

Tank looks great!
I love how when you first plant, you can't really tell what it will look like once it grows in.. Nice!!


BlackSunshine420 said:


> Sad thing is yesterday the tank broke out with Ich. Its not clearing up even tho I've hit it with salt. So today I am grabbing the meds to nuke the sh*t outta the ich.


hospital tank bro!!
those meds sometimes kill plants!


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

Yeah, I know salt isn't the best for plants.

Hopefully if you get it grown out enough as to not see the background much. Even though I'm a huge fan of black backgrounds, they show algae very well, and even still I have very little algae (get a small sparse and spotty dusting of green algae on my glass one a month) it showes up very well.

Off topic, but can you get a good direct shot of that shultz? I have been thinking when I go to setup another tank I'm going to use that, but I hear its an odd colour.


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

heheh well its too late. I already dropped the Rid ich in. So. We will see what happens. The salt wasen't doing anything it was just getting worse. once it spread to the betta I decided that something needed to be done. All the fish are effected so it is the hospital tank now.

the alage is still fighting to keep itself in the tank. So i'm taking off the 36W and hopefully I will find my "balance" this is going to piss me off tho. I need to get one of those sludge removers I hate doing a full on water change just to get some gunk out of the tank.


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## Malok (Mar 26, 2006)

very nice tank

is the reactor your talking about the yeast bottle or does the yeast bottle lead to the reactor and whats your method of getting the co2 in the tank like just an air hose with a bubble coming out a bell or what


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

the bottle is the reactor. I have it piped into a "catch can" so to keep any of the mixture from going into the tank. And then from there the line goes to the bottom of my AC30 and it gets chopped up and dispersed into the water from there. works pretty well so long as the water level in the tank dosen't get too low and create to large of surface agatation.


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

Ok. so the problems not as gone as I had hoped. It just subsided for a couple days. Now I have fish dieing. I've lost 5 fish in the last few days. A/N/N are all fine. Perhaps parisite. I don't know. But I don't care about the fish so much as this "alage" that is actually Cyanobacteria (Oscillitoria splendens) BGA. so now I have to go get some antibiotics to kill this sh*t. Goddamn this is annoying. I think I need to up my nitrates as well. so I will be ordering some from GW. Is there a flourish line fert that upps nitrates?


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

BlackSunshine420 said:


> Ok. so the problems not as gone as I had hoped. It just subsided for a couple days. Now I have fish dieing. I've lost 5 fish in the last few days. A/N/N are all fine. Perhaps parisite. I don't know. But I don't care about the fish so much as this "alage" that is actually Cyanobacteria (Oscillitoria splendens) BGA. so now I have to go get some antibiotics to kill this sh*t. Goddamn this is annoying. I think I need to up my nitrates as well. so I will be ordering some from GW. Is there a flourish line fert that upps nitrates?


F. nitrogen

Sorry to hear, I've lost a number of small fishes too in my attempts to grow plants..lol I lost a great pair of blue rams..


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

I'll grab some of that just to try and fight the problem for now untill I have time and cash to drop placing an order on the GW stuff. 
As well I may be looking at a black out peirod for the tank. 
in addition to the antibios.

Yeah lost the betta yesterday. He was so happy in his home......


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## Ex0dus (Jun 29, 2005)

BlackSunshine420 said:


> I'll grab some of that just to try and fight the problem for now untill I have time and cash to drop placing an order on the GW stuff.
> As well I may be looking at a black out peirod for the tank.
> in addition to the antibios.
> 
> Yeah lost the betta yesterday. He was so happy in his home......


dude... email me your address and ill see about sending you a few tbs of each GW fert I have. 1tbs = 250ml bottle of liquid fert. All i ask is like 3$ for shipping? In the mean time... get some ferts before what I give you runs out


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

Ex0dus said:


> I'll grab some of that just to try and fight the problem for now untill I have time and cash to drop placing an order on the GW stuff.
> As well I may be looking at a black out peirod for the tank.
> in addition to the antibios.
> 
> Yeah lost the betta yesterday. He was so happy in his home......


dude... email me your address and ill see about sending you a few tbs of each GW fert I have. 1tbs = 250ml bottle of liquid fert. All i ask is like 3$ for shipping? In the mean time... get some ferts before what I give you runs out
[/quote]

Hey man thats solid of ya! I appreciate that. I will be getting some soon. I had expected to pick some up about a month ago. and was just about to press the order button till I realized I didn't know what the hell I was doing. heh.


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

Lighting schedules-
Whats everyones take on having short duration lighting schedules?
Say 2 hr on 2 off 2 on etc etc etc. Do you think that would be long enough for the plants to make use of the light for photosynthisis. basically I'm trying to give the plants enough time to synth and not give the alege enough time to do so since it takes longer for them to be able to make use of light then it does plants.


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## Malok (Mar 26, 2006)

hey if that works you could really be on to something but i have no clue


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

BlackSunshine420 said:


> Lighting schedules-
> Whats everyones take on having short duration lighting schedules?
> Say 2 hr on 2 off 2 on etc etc etc. Do you think that would be long enough for the plants to make use of the light for photosynthisis. basically I'm trying to give the plants enough time to synth and not give the alege enough time to do so since it takes longer for them to be able to make use of light then it does plants.


You can try it, but I won't. It takes your plants time to get into the photosynthesis process, and right when it gets in full swing, you will be turning the lights off. Then the whole process will have to happen again. This makes a plant work harder, so it probably won't be as good.. in fact it will probably help the algea, because it is a very simple plant form.

I run a 'siesta', where the first row of light comes on for 2hrs(110w) then the other kicks on(220w) 
-Then the light that comes on first goes off 1hr 30mins before the last.
I do that only because I have a piranha, so I can't have many algea eaters in the tank


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

I had read on APC that the alega actually takes longer to photosynthisize because of their simple structure. Wheres as plants that have a full system specifically for that dont take as long to get into the swing. 
I think I will up the on durations. You're right once they get in full swing I will be cutting them off. Maybe 4 hr segments. that or I will just do off durring the day and only on for a few hours every night while I'm actually there.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

BlackSunshine420 said:


> I had read on APC that the alega actually takes longer to photosynthisize because of their simple structure. Wheres as plants that have a full system specifically for that dont take as long to get into the swing.
> I think I will up the on durations. You're right once they get in full swing I will be cutting them off. Maybe 4 hr segments. that or I will just do off durring the day and only on for a few hours every night while I'm actually there.


Everyone that i have talked to that runs a planted tank goes at least 9-10 hrs for their photoperiod.

I know a lot go the full 12 hrs as well


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

yeah.. I think you're right it may simply not be long enough. 
I think I will match the lighting schedule that I have set on my 75gal. there have been no major outbreaks of alega there and thats the only thing I'm doin differently aside from the amount of plants. But I guess swords might also suck up alot more nutriants from the tank and that may be the real diff. 
For the big tank I have a 4hr break in the light in the middle of the day.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

I hope it works out for ya.

I never go under 10.5 hrs on my lights.


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

The tanks still getting about 10-12 Hr of light just broken up in to two segments. 
I'm at the point with the little tank I will try anything I can to get rid of that crap. Its destroying everything and is getting me ready to scrap the whole thing and toss the tank out the window on my stupid neighbors car.

Last night I treated the tank with Erythromycin and dropped in some nitrates.
As well I got a molly to hopefully eat the stuff that is already there.

If this dosen't do it, well we will give the black out a shot. If that dosen't kill this crap.... Well the neighbor may wind up with a cool hood ornament.

this also reminds me. I also have millions of these weird little white string looking things floating thru the tank. Its not planaria tho.At least dosen't look like planaria. And I had just done a water change the day before. 
I also got to wintess a snail or a pair of snails either mating or splitting yesterday. that was quite interesting.

I also got a moss ball in there now.


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

so I inadvertantly gave my tank a black out yesterday. forgot that I switched the light off before the timer shut it off. So in that it never came on yesterday. 
Got home and checked things out and the EM and nitrates added seemed to help as did the slight black out. the BGA is subsiding, Hopefully this will still be the case when I get home today. 
I will still run a second treatment of the EM just to make sure I get everything. the little stringy white things also seem to have dropped significantly. But I hit the tank with PraziPro and I think that was the thing that got rid of them.

Oh and my moss ball is in a different place of the tank every time I look at it. thats weird. A moving plant. 
Do those things spawn or multiply?


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

It sounds like you are having an issue with balance.. How much light do you have in there?
I know you are using DIY CO2, and Excell, but there has to be some sort of issue there.
As far as the BGA is concearned, it is normal in a new tank..Just take it out, and it will eventually go away.. I have to take it out of my tanks too. But it goes away.
I'm sure the Erythromycin isn't very good for your plants, so you will have to keep that in mind hopefully


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