Well it can happen to anyone. Major out break of algae. What would you do first if this was your tank? How would you go about getting it back in balance?

IT seem to be green spot algae on the glass and green hair algae every where else.

This is the way the tank looked 11-10-04. I will post new pics tomorrow to show how it have regained control of my tank and why and how it got so out of control.

So how would you fix the problem?

update 12/30/04
post by BenC:
truthfully, i would take out the fish, change about 80% of the water, bleach treat the plants and start again. Everything but the substrate, that is. Remember, after you've taken the fish out, and before you drain the water, clean the class with a toothbrush, so that the algae falls into the water, then change the water. I would let the tank sit for a couple of days, then add the fish back. I would then change about 30% of the water every day for a few days, and get my CO2 and lighting back under control. Don't dose anything just yet. Give it a week or so.

the only reason i say this, is that i did it a couple of days ago (after my CO2 ran out!!) and am praying it was the right thing!! it looks fine now.. but they always do after a clean out, don't they!!!

Good luck and happy new year,

BEN

I was hoping to have more feed back on this. Its seems like allot of questions have been ask on what to do when algae takes over so I thought I would share what I did.

Well Ben it looks like you have come really close to what I did to reclaimed my tank from the algae grasp.

Here is my tank as of 12-29-04

Its a big difference.
As Ben said I took every thing out but I left the fish in the tank. I tossed all my stem plants. I didn't do the bleach thing right away. I put the rest of the plants in 5gal buckets, blacked out for a week.

While the plants where in a black out I cleaned the tank glass and did a gravel suck. Then I started water change at 50% for three days then every other day for four days. I all so turned off the CO2 and stopped dosing.

At the end of cleaning and water changes I did the bleach thing to the larger plants but not the hairgrass. All most all the algae was gone now. I left the sword plants in buckets with open tops so they could get low light. This really killed off the algae. I did a major trimming on them a replanted them in another tank. I didn't bleach the hairgrass. It doesn't do well when bleached but the black out killed off the algae. All I did was use a toothbrush to comb out the dead algae as best I could. The only problem was my Angle Fish. They seen to love eating the dead algae and ripping up the hairgrass as they did. As you can see every thing is on the come back excepted the foreground.

Once replanted I started up the CO2 and did a water tests to know what to and how much to does. My fish where glad to have the plants back!

Now how did things get so bad. Well it was a combination of several things.
1) I was trying to get more color out of my plants by adding more iron. I don't think this played a big part but at the same time I increased my Flourish to three ml every other day.

2) I hate test kits!!! this is the second time I have had SeaChem PO4 kits get me out of balance. They seem not to be able to read very low PO4. The color is a dark blue green instead of the shades of green according to the color chart. By double checking with a Hagen PO4 test kit, I found the false reading. So while I thought I had high PO4 levels I really had less then .25 closer to 0. At the same time I was dosing NO3 to increase to try to keep the 1/10 ratio. I think this is what caused the out break of algae.

3) At the same time my daughter got married. We where in charge of every thing including wedding pictures. SO my tanks got neglected for about two weeks. By the time I had the time to do water changes it was to late.

Hey Robert!! Here is one of the Kbar swords I got from you. I think you could say its fully grown now!! HEHE

Here is some thing I am trying to keep hairgrass from taking over. I cut plastic milk jugs up to make a fence to fence it in. Then I put some small rocks in front to hide it. As the foreground grows in it should hide it all. Now if I can get my angles from ripping it all out.

I hope this helps answer some of the question about major algae problems. Some times you just have to start over.

update 1/17/05
Post by ressell:
why did you toss out all of the stem plants? also, will it not hurt the plants to black them out for so long?

post by FISA:
Wowzers..Thanks for sharing Hawk...I remember you mentioning this tank before when your daughter got married...

Well as for the hairgrass....Ive tried the bleach method on them...and so far they look fine...will see what happens....I had no choice...I had such a bad outbreak of BBA on them...that the only other choice was to start over with a new batch...so i was like what the heck...I would just try out the bleach method...
it pretty much wiped out any other kind of algae growing on it...and the BBA turned white...lol could barely see it anymore...

I dunno what happened after that...as they are not on the hairgrass anymore...either they decomposed away or the flying fox ate the dead remains of the algae..

Thanks for your milk bottle technique again..I will try burying a lil piece just to stop the hairgrass roots...

I tossed the stem plants because it was easier to replace them. I grow stem plants 4"/week easy. With all my other tanks its easy to just replace them.

The hairgrass is delicate and some times a bleach bath will hurt hairgrass. If you use a weak solution and don't leave it in long it will come back. As for what I did, the algae I had here is easy to remove with a toothbrush but there was just so much of it I did a black out of the hairgrass along with some other plants. After a week or so the algae gets mushy and comes off easy with the toothbrush. I have blacked out plants in buckets for a week and most of them come back. These are plants are strong plants like Ferns, Anubias, Crypts ( all thou some people have melt downs with these plants I never have) Sword plants. Think about it. When you order plant by mail, the plants are packed up the day before mailing in most cases. Then it takes two to three days to get to you. That makes it about 3-5 days in black out so its not a stretch to think that healthy plants all thou covered in algae can with stand up to 5-6 days in black outs or longer in a very low light condition. Then what algae is left is in such a weaken state that a mild bleach bath wipes is out. As for what I do at this stage is put the plants in a tanks with a bunch of juvenile mollies. After a bleach bath the algae is like candy to these guys. It only takes a week for them to clean off all the algae.

update 1/20/05
post by BenC:
Hawkeye..
the reason i suggested taking the fish out as well, is that (learning from past experience) you can stir up a lot of nasties from within the substrate when you start ripping out lots of plants. These can be LETHAL to fish. I'm sure i don't need to tell you this Hawk! But people should be aware of the risks. I presume you had no ill effects?

BEN

Sorry Ben I should have been more clear. When I do a tank redo like this I add as many filters as I have laying around to help get the crud out of the water plus as I take out large heavy root feeding type plants I have my Python at the ready to start sucking the gravel right away. This is a habit I got into when I use to use allot of root tabs in plain gravel. By doing so I could move plants around without having a algae bloom form letting the tabs getting into the water column. If you don't take precautions yes you should remove your fish. Doing tank redo's like I have mentioned, I have never lost any fish. All thou I have found fish that I didn't think I had any more. LOLOL!! Have you ever noticed more Otto's in your tank then you put in?

Hawk