What are your thoughts?

[Mvisum]

I love my pea puffer... pee wee is his name and yes it is a male.  I have this huge alge issue going on... and yes i am the left side of not right!  has anyone ever introduced bamboo shrimp into a puffer's enviroment?  Yes i realize they are "devils" and risky to introduce anything but i'm algae control desperate! 

[Patrick_G]

What kind of algae are you dealing with? Can you post a pic? 

[Mvisum]

green slime... yes it's cyno bateria!  water changes are not doing it! Tank is 5 gal, it's walstad... term used loosley.  I don't want to disrupt the substrate anymore than i have. Not my first tank i have MTS bad, this little nano cube has gotten away from me... any suggestions other than start over? 🙂

 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Erythromycin is the route that Cory takes for Cyanobacteria 

[Mvisum]

i guess what i'm looking for is a natural way around the issue, the MTS is all experimental, i just fell in love with the fish hahha.  Has anyone used barley straw to control this type of bacteria? in a home aquarium enviroment?   

 

and i'm asking about the bamboo shrimp because.... i think they can prevent this from happening again?  

 

[Flumpweesel]

I wouldn't have thought the bamboo shrimp (don't think anything eats that stuff) would fix cyno, best I can suggest is increase surface agitation (airstone). And manually remove as much of it as possible 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

To the best of my knowledge, nobody knows exactly how Cyanobacteria starts or exactly where it comes from. 
 

The only potential all natural “cure” I’ve ever heard of is to completely black out your tanks and hope for the best. However, even if you killed the bacteria with a black out, what would stop it from coming back?

[Patrick_G]

On 10/18/2022 at 1:54 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Erythromycin is the route that Cory takes for Cyanobacteria 

Luckily I haven’t had this problem, but several people I trust have used Erythromycin with success. 

[mynameisnobody]

I don’t believe bamboo shrimp will do anything to the algae other than lay on it if it’s near the water current. 

[nabokovfan87]

I would think that the puffer would really go after the shrimp.  They tend to be like sharks (sometimes) and test things with their teeth a bit to confirm whether it is or isn't food. 

[Flumpweesel]

Cyno lives in still water so flow does hamper it, I started to get it in my community tank when the stocking no longer required extra filtration. As I don't have access to antibiotics it was a case of manually cleaning it off anything and adding airstones keeps it out. 

I do still get patches on the damp places on the lid frame but wiping down with vinegar keeps that down.

Somewhere on you tube Dean creates an attachment for his python to make it easier to remove. 

[Damo.Lo]

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/blue-green-algae

[Fish Folk]

First off, Pea Puffers and shrimp are probably not a happy combination. Those shrimp are like fresh, hot pizza served up in a Mafia den. Maybe a slice will survive. Probably not.

Secondly, cyano bacteria needs to be treated at the source. It has gotten there because tank parameters are out of order. Over feeding, over stocking, and under cleaning are several typical causes why I've struggled with it in the past. You'll want to get to the root of your problem. Of course, once Cyano sets in you will have additional challenges.

Here is what I'd recommend: 

(1) Begin with a turkey baster, and suck up all that you can physically see. Do this religiously for a month.

(2) Step up maintenance. Do 20% water changes weekly.

(3) Carefully trim back on feeding. Puffers are tough, because they are messy eaters. Remove decaying foods from the tank promptly.

(4) Turn down or filter your lighting. Perhaps also narrow down photoperiod. Cyano can be beaten with a tank black-out. Just realize that more lighting = more cyano.

(4) IF these steps do _not_ resolve your problem after a month of vigilience, then treat the tank with an antibiotic. But please be advised:

     --- (Pardon me here . . . I am going to NERM out for a moment) Beneficial bacteria in aquariums come in two colonies: Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter. Nitrosomonas essentially converts ammonia released by fish and decay into nitrite, and Nitrobacter converts nitrite over to nitrate. Both are gram-negative bacteria. Gram negative bacteria has two cell wall layers -- an outer lipid+polysaccaride, and then a thin, inner polysaccharide cell wall. Both must be broken down to eliminate the bacteria. Gram-positive bacteria just have an extra thick outer layer of peptidoglycan (polysaccharide). Different antibacterial meds are designed to treat either gram-negative or gram-positive bacteria. Erythromycin and Maricyn are primarily designed to treat _gram-positive_ bacteria. But Maricyn 2 targets gram-negative bacteria. Cyano bacteria is also technically gram negative, but its outer layers of peptidoglycan (polysaccharide) are remarkably thick. All of which is to say: if you treat Cyano with Maricyn 2, you will need to stay the course and use a full dose cycle or two. Most  likely, you will decimate your Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter colonies. Personally, I have learned the hard way to always, always, always have a primed sponge filter ready to put into tanks that I treat heavily with gram-negative antibacterial meds. ---

[Mvisum]

So VERY grateful for your input! Yes it's been months since i have visited forum....   total NERM is cool!  Understand the break down... i'm a soil/plant nerd going aquatic.  got it and yes puffers are tough except the one i have LOL.  I did beat the cyno without the meds, Won't say how because i don't want anyone to take off the cuff info from a personal experiment as gospel so to speak!   The bamboo shrimp idea was stupid... i'll agree, although i did throw in a couple guppy, an NO he does not bother them or vice versa. He even has a borneo loach now, all is good (i see your eyeballs rolling lol).   I  Can say peewee (dwarf) puffer is healthy and fit.... so is his tank now, with minor effort actually, i panicked and didn't think it through. The addition of a certain wood, some soil/plant derived acids,  with water changes did the trick..  Will say... this will be the ONLY 5 gal tank i will ever own!  my larger tanks give me no trouble.  Thank You again,  wouldn't mind conversing on occasion... Nerm world is new to me, not the science but certainly the fish are!   

[Stef]

I’ve successfully used the Fritz Slime Out product for my 6 gallon cube betta tank. First tank I treated was in December and it hasn’t returned. I had been keeping it at bay by manual removal and additional flow but it wouldn’t go away. I got tired of the smell. Tank is in my kitchen. I did two doses and knock on wood it is gone. The tank only has a betta and a mystery snail and I do weekly water changes.