Ridiculous algae problem

**PhillipOrigami** · 07-01-2012, 09:18 PM

My tank is BLANKETED in nothing but what essentially hair algae- but its brown. Along with diatoms. Nitrate spike due to my dad messing with it and overfeeding. Right now I am doing multiple water changes to siphon as much as I can right now, and short of taking everything out of the tank and meticulously cleaning and bleaching while fish are in QT, I don't see much to do.
I was thinking adding some otos as they would work with planned stock and there is absolutely no way they can starve from lack of algae. I have good luck with a sort of thing- my lfs had lots of otos come in 2 weeks ago. I don't know if they have them b/c they are closed. The problem is quarantine. I'm not sure if I can keep them alive in the qt and I don't think I can wait two weeks. I'm not sure if skipping qt is the best idea, but in theory they would have spended 2 weeks at the lfs. -.-

Do I have any other options? I will dose some excel and see if that will help.

**Aeonflame** · 07-01-2012, 09:23 PM

Your best bet would be to simply cut back on feedings and reduce your light for a while. Starve the algae.

**PhillipOrigami** · 07-01-2012, 09:47 PM

Thats exactly what I have been doing. But if its dead it won't really magically disappear(Yay! More w/cs! My moms plants are lucky). I am sort of doubtful of that though, the amount of it is incredible.

**Lady Hobbs** · 07-01-2012, 10:15 PM

I would not have removed the fish. The diatoms are ugly but not deadly. You can use a scrubbie and clean the sides of the tank, remove decorations and give them a bleach dip (air dry to remove chlorine smell after) and get after those water changes. Also, rinse the filter media out. Dirty filter media also helps diatoms go nuts.

**PhillipOrigami** · 07-01-2012, 10:35 PM

Removed the fish?
I have nothing to "bleach dip" them in.
and the diatoms I'm not incredibly worried about, its this disgusting unknown brown algae.
unless diatoms can take hair-like form. Then I'll just do some w/cs.

**Goes to 11!** · 07-01-2012, 11:56 PM

+1 to Aeon.

RE Dipping:
It's not a complicated problem to fix: Buy a 5$ 3G plastic bucket from the dollar store, Or if you need to go bigger get a rubbermaid tub or trashcan and dip away.

**Lady Hobbs** · 07-02-2012, 12:19 AM

Originally Posted by PhillipOrigami

Removed the fish?

POOP. I read your post too fast. I thought you had removed the fish and put them in quarantine.

I used to just put one part bleach and 19 parts water in my kitchen sink and dipped my plants in that and then into dechlorinatored water.

Rocks and other decorations also but for longer. Food contains phosphates and over feeding the fish most likely raised the phosphates causing the algaes. Aeon says it best........starve it out.

**PhillipOrigami** · 07-02-2012, 01:46 AM

That sucks.
My mom threw away the bleach a day or 2 ago. !@#$
I'll starve it out if I can... I made it to a mere 7 hours a day for lights and feed very lightly. I'll do another w/c to siphon some more out.

**ryann** · 07-02-2012, 03:17 PM

I would cut down the lighting even more for 2 or 3 days. Down to maybe 2 or 3 hours. If you cut it down for more days than that I could affect your plants as well but that short amount of time your plants will be fine and it should help kill some of the algae.