Algacide Recommendations?

[DarthRevan]

I have a huge bloom of green hair algae in my tank (and by huge I mean it’s completely taken over my entire tank). I’ve tried reducing the light and feeding less but my tank is overcrowded with platy’s and I can’t get rid of enough of them to get the nitrates down. They’re not at toxic levels but the algae is outcompeting my other plants for the excess. 
 

I’ve kind of let the tank go lately due to being busy and general laziness, so I’m just looking for a quick fix if possible to keep it under control until I have time to work on the tank. I see API and some others make algaecides, has anyone ever used these and if so did they harm your fish or plants? I’ve seen some horror stories on YouTube so I’m hesitant to try it. 

[Cory]

I recommend manual removal. Also what plants do you have, are they getting enough to eat? healthy plants will help fight off the algae by denying them nutrients. The problem with an algaecide, you'll kill the algae, create a bunch of ammonia, which fuels more algae to grow unless you do big water changes. Which if you are doing the big water changes anyway, you wouldn't have as much algae growin.. So there isn't really a product that is just add this and you won't have algae, it's product + work = less algae. But work without product also = less algae.

[DarthRevan]

On 10/28/2022 at 1:58 PM, Cory said:

I recommend manual removal. Also what plants do you have, are they getting enough to eat? healthy plants will help fight off the algae by denying them nutrients. The problem with an algaecide, you'll kill the algae, create a bunch of ammonia, which fuels more algae to grow unless you do big water changes. Which if you are doing the big water changes anyway, you wouldn't have as much algae growin.. So there isn't really a product that is just add this and you won't have algae, it's product + work = less algae. But work without product also = less algae.

Thank you for the advice sir!

I have a ton of bacopa, a few pogostemmen octopus, some crypt parva, a big crypt that I don’t remember what it’s called, and a few epiphyte plants (not sure if I spelled some of them correctly). The tank is pretty overgrown even with the regular plants, do you think trimming them and replanting would help them suck up more nitrates? 
 

And my biggest problem with manual removal is that it’s so entwined with the plants I’m not sure I can get it all. Should I remove as much as possible and then use an algaecide for the bits that are left? And then do a couple big water changes once it’s dead?
 

[DarthRevan]

On 11/3/2022 at 3:12 AM, Pepere said:

If I had a tank where the plants were choked with Algae, one consideration would be to simply remove them and replace with new if they were terribly choked.  If they are highly choked their viability might be reduced anyway.

Alternatively. Plants can be pulled and soaked 12 hours in carbonated water without additives in the dark. This can kill off the remaining Algae on the plants while giving the plants themselves a tonic of co2. I would remove the algae from it that you can first.

 

Once the plants are out, removing remaining Algae becomes easier.

I would also remove all fixtures such as filters, heaters, airlines etc.  scrub them well, and spray them with hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle after scrubbing, let set for 10 minutes and then rinse before returning to tank.

 

Hang On Backs I dissassemble and scrub and spray all parts with hydrogen peroxide after putting the media in tank water.  I find spraying the technical parts with Hydrogen Peroxide does a better job at slowing regrowth rather than just scrubbing esp with hair algae.

 

a good water change after cleaning helps to remove fragments broken off after cleaning in addition to reducing nutrient levels.

adding a large box filter with enough gravel in the bottom to weigh it down and the rest with polyfill running strongly with an air stone will go a long way to providing mechanical filtration to help pull fragments floating in the water column.

 

following up in a day or two with another water change, with deep gravel vaccing will remove fragments that settled, and reduce waste that will cause nitrate production.

 

going forward, the overstocking makes extra work due to waste production. Either extra water changes or algae fighting… I avoid live bearers as I dont want to deal with excess reproduction and do not find the idea of feeding the offspring to predator fish appealing.

 

But if you are keeping livebearers the choice becomes do you cull in some sort either giving away, humanely euthanizing, allowing fry to be consumed by larger fish or feeding juveniles to predator fish in a larger tank, or do you allow the entire colony to suffer from excess nitrate levels etc…

 

floating plants help to reduce nitrates as well better than submerged plants as they get their co2 from the atmosphere. They also reduce light to the tank due to shading… and fish seem delighted to swim among the roots of floating plants and forage for food among them..

This is all great advice! My only issue is time. I currently work 7 days/80 hours a week (I am working full time while doing my clinicals for MRI school, which is also full time but unpaid lol) which is why it got this bad to begin with. I’m mainly at this point looking for something quick to get me by until I finish school in 6 months. As for the overstocking, I had a betta in there but some of the more aggressive male platys beat him up and he didn’t make it. I also can’t find anyone to take them even for free lol, but I don’t want to just outright euthanize them. 

[DarthRevan]

Finally got a day off work and clinicals at the hospital lol. Here’s the result of a couple hours of maintenance! (Not sure why it’s posting upside down lol)

 

I would still like to get the bits of algae I couldn’t remove by hand with something like API algae fix. I’m also calling around to some local stores to see if they want any free platy’s to ease up on the bio load, they just keep breeding endlessly and none of the babies get eaten 😂

[Jennifer V]

Personally, I think the kind of green algae you have is pretty -- shout out to @JoeQ. I know, wild idea, but I don't think the perfect, pristine tank is possible to achieve in real life, contrary to what Google tells us. I would continue to remove as much as you can manually -- you've done an excellent job so far -- and add some more plants to the left side of the tank where it's bare as well as some floating plants. Cram as many plants as you can in the tank and feed them with Easy Green and Easy Root Tabs to keep them healthy and growing. 

I used to have a pretty substantial algae problem -- not the pretty kind -- and even though I reduced the lighting schedule I still had issues because my pea puffers are messy little buggers who keep the nitrates high. Eventually, the plants took off and the algae disappeared from most places. 

[DarthRevan]

On 11/27/2022 at 3:47 PM, Jennifer V said:

Personally, I think the kind of green algae you have is pretty -- shout out to @JoeQ. I know, wild idea, but I don't think the perfect, pristine tank is possible to achieve in real life, contrary to what Google tells us. I would continue to remove as much as you can manually -- you've done an excellent job so far -- and add some more plants to the left side of the tank where it's bare as well as some floating plants. Cram as many plants as you can in the tank and feed them with Easy Green and Easy Root Tabs to keep them healthy and growing. 

I used to have a pretty substantial algae problem -- not the pretty kind -- and even though I reduced the lighting schedule I still had issues because my pea puffers are messy little buggers who keep the nitrates high. Eventually, the plants took off and the algae disappeared from most places. 

 

Oh yeah I’m fine with some algae for my fish to graze on, but it had completely taken over my tank (see the before photo above). So I’m looking to keep that down as much as possible. I think the main issue was overstocking + not trimming my plants which allowed the algae to take over. 
 

The left side of the tank was supposed to be like a “bonsai garden” theme but all the Monte Carlo died and then the algae killed off the Java moss I had in the tree lol. I’m going to eventually take this all down, get rid of the livebearers, and redo the whole thing with less reproductive fish lol. 

[JoeQ]

On 11/27/2022 at 5:47 PM, Jennifer V said:

Personally, I think the kind of green algae you have is pretty -- shout out to @JoeQ. I know, wild idea, but I don't think the perfect, pristine tank is possible to achieve in real life, contrary to what Google tells us. I would continue to remove as much as you can manually -- you've done an excellent job so far -- and add some more plants to the left side of the tank where it's bare as well as some floating plants. Cram as many plants as you can in the tank and feed them with Easy Green and Easy Root Tabs to keep them healthy and growing. 

I used to have a pretty substantial algae problem -- not the pretty kind -- and even though I reduced the lighting schedule I still had issues because my pea puffers are messy little buggers who keep the nitrates high. Eventually, the plants took off and the algae disappeared from most places. 

 

I actually just ordered about 60 bucks worth of plants so a rescape will be in my future :) plants include:

Alternanthera Reineckii regular 

Ludwigia mini

Ludwigia Brevipes

Ludwigia Glandulosa

Ludwigia Arcuata

Can you tell i like Ludwigia? 🤣🤣

As for my hair algea im rather enjoying it,  it's not exploding and serves its purpose. Also if you look closely  in my Journal you'll also see some tufts of black hair algea waving on the substrate which im especially proud of since its only (errrr mostly)  on the substrate.

Edited November 27, 2022 by JoeQ
Auto correct fix