dpgibb0

Hello all,

i have a 125 that I've temporarily increased the photo period to about twenty hours a day to minimize the amount of damage my leopard pleco does when the lights are off. This was to be done until my new plants established and the pleco could no longer rip them up by swimming over them. Obviously, this led to some short black algae, which appears to be almost a really thin layer of sludge (in other words not BBA). Well it didn't take long to realize this method wasn't going to work. The pleco came out during the day and the plants weren't establishing fast enough. I decided to remove the pleco. Now that he's gone I am back to my normal photo period. 2x96 for four hours. 6x96 for two. Lights off for two. 6x96 for two. Then 2x96 for four. Basically twelve hours from start to finish, with two hours of darkness in the middle. Now that I am back to my original photo period (only for a day so far) is there anyway to speed up removal of the algae? It's not growing on my swords, anubias, onion plants, blyxa, etc. It is only on my Alternanthera reneckii (roseafolia; spelling?) and some hygrophila. I am unsure as the variety of hygrophila as I am unfamiliar with it and the lfs it was purchased from said it was merely hygrophila. It is green on one side, red on the other. I know it's not giant and I know it's not sunset. Any ideas? Anyway, I just want to know if there is any way to speed up the reduction of the algae, outside of cutting the plants back? Thanks.

Derrick

onemyndseye

A tank blackout might due the trick....

Cover the tank with a blanket and kill the lights for about 4 days followed by a large waterchange. Works well on many type of algae

Good Luck!,
-Justin
One Mynds Eye

hoppycalif

Once you get algae growing on plants, you just about have to prune away the infested leaves. Those leaves will die anyway, so why not sacrifice them in the interest of an algae free tank? Then, to avoid the return of the algae, jack up the CO2 bubble rate (You described a bad case of BBA), make sure you are fertilizing enough, and drop back the lighting to about 3 - 96 watt tubes, for only 10 or fewer hours a day. Once you get things under control you can try more light if you want, but 6 - 96 watt lights will always make controlling algae a difficult job. And, the lights off period hasn't been shown, to my knowledge, to do any good for an algae problem.