Algae problem.

[benkk]

hi...

i have a 3 foot tank which contain about 200L... i've got 2 adult Discus and 5 2.5' Discus in that tank.... and i got several plants in there ...

at the moment i do not have any co2 unit running in it..... and i am having the lights on for about 12h from 9am till 9pm...


at the moment i found there are huge amount of "algae" growing on my plants almost all of the leaves....


can anyone please help me how to prevent those algae and how can i try to get rid of them ???



thanks very much

[ILLUSN]

Co2 will give the plants the edge they need to outgrow the algae, you could also try a double dose of florish excell for 3 days.

you might have too much light for the plants your growing? what plants are you keeping, how much light do you have over the tank?

[JamezMan]

What is your water change schedule like?

[benkk]

i only got some moss and some Sword plants.
i got 3 tubes running at the same time... about 25W each.

because i have Discus in that tank... i normally do about 35$ - 40% water change every 3 days....

[JamezMan]

I think you may have too much light for the plants you are growing. Sword plants are quite slow growing and don't use up alot of nitrates in comparison to something that grows very fast.

An option could be to decrease your nitrate levels by doing more water changes if possible. I'm having similar problems with one of my tanks and I'm trialing doing bigger water changes.

[DIY]

Sounds like too much light to me.

I suggest cutting it back to 2 lights and/or reducing the lighting period, a lot of planted tanks are on 8-10 hours lighting periods because of algae.

Adding some fast growing stem plants to compete with the algae and soak up nutrients will help too.

As the others have suggested more water changes may help, or if you're leaning towards heavier planting adding co2 will make a big difference.

[benkk]

ok thanks to everyone.

i will try to reduce my light to about 8 - 9 h a day
and also install a CO2 unit..

and i'l see how my plant tank go...

[TW]

I agree that 12 hours is too long for your lights to be on. Reduce to between 8-10 hours. Having lots of fast growers in there can help too eg. wisteria.

Good luck with beating the algae.