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algae problem!

2K views 9 replies 6 participants last post by  iamntbatman 
#1 ·
Hey everybody. I've had a 55 gallon south American cichlid grow out tank for about 3 months now. I have 2 jack Dempseys, 1 midas, 1 green terror, and 1 jaguar. sizes range from two to three and a half inches. I've also had a cascade canister filter running on the tank for about a month. (it's rated for 100 gal) everythings pretty good so far. i know how to take care of the fish and manage their aggression levels. the problem is that i've got this gross looking algae growing everywhere. It starts of as a dark green but slowly turns black. it looks really awful. does anybody have any suggestions on how to make this algae go away?
 
#2 ·
Sometimes tanks restart a mini cycle either because of overcleaning or overstocking,Despite having plants to out compete algea for nutrients sometimes the cause is in our tap water. Please post your tank set up, water parameters, is it near a window? lighting,feesing, do you overfeed? how do you clean it, has anything helped?
 
#4 ·
Does it get really long and gross? I had this crap all over my 20 gallon. It's because you have to much lighting and not enough co2. If you install a co2 system or get a lower wattage light you shouldn't have a problem.
 
#5 ·
I had a really bad BBA infection in my tank before. It is caused by excess nutrients in the water but it is also caused by a lack of CO2. Dosing Flourish excel to help your plants out-compete the algae worked for me. Otherwise, get a big SAE. After using Flourish excel, i got a SAE to keep the rest of the algae in check. You could also pull up your plants and ornaments and scrub them under hot water. This gets rid of teh amtured BBA and slows down their growth.
 
#8 ·
I wouldn't recommend a Siamese algae eater. I can picture a 3.5" jaguar cichlid with a 3" SAE sticking out of its mouth. Your best bet for algae control is manual removal of the algae you've got, and coming up with some other solution (such as changing your lighting levels or schedule) for dealing with it long-term.
 
#10 ·
Maybe, but then again a big fat 5" SAE is as big as it's ever going to get, whereas a 3.5" jaguar cichlid is going to be an 8" jaguar cichlid in a matter of months, and is probably going to break a foot after a year. Plus, they're simply mean fish, so they could attack an SAE even if they aren't intent on eating it. Hence why armored plecos are usually a better choice in American cichlid tanks. However, they aren't usually the best at eating beard algae, so non-fish methods of algae control are preferable.
 
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