How to kill algae in Apisto tank: Use chemicals or barley extract?

[Bekateen]

Hi All,
I have a well-planted 36 gal community aquarium (heavily-filtered) that houses about 40 small fish, including four Apistogramma agassizii (1 m, 3 f). The aquarium is generally healthy, so much so that the apistos spawn regularly in the tank, as do my 3-lined Corys, albino Corys, banjo cats and white clouds. But my problem is this: the aquarium plants are getting covered with algae and I'd like to kill the algae. I've heard that using barley extract, as found in the algae control products for outdoor ponds, is safer than using the chemical-based algae control products available for aquariums. Does anybody have any experience using either or both of these treatments with Apistos in a planted tank? I don't know all of the plants I have, but they include lots of banana plants, a Madagascar lace leaf plant, a couple of Vallisneria, one or two Amazon swords, some micro swords and pygmy chain swords. Thank you for any advice you can offer.
P.S. Other fish in tank include hatchetfish, cherry barbs, glow-light tetras, upside-down catfishes, a clown pleco, Panda garras, dwarf African frogs, a flying fox, and a black kuhli loach. The tank also gets a 30-40% water change weekly.

 

[Linus_Cello]

Any idea what type of algae? You may want to reduce the light amount. If black beard algae, another suggestion is to use Seachem Flourish Excel to treat your plants, but it does cause Vallisneria melt. If you can, remove the plant and put it in the bucket with some of the Excel. Also, up your water changes, and maybe add some floating plants to block light and to absorb excess nutrients.

 

[merlin]

I was looking forward to hearing about this extract as I have suffered this problem for a long time now in my show tank. I added floating plants added Ioaches increased water flow still got the problem. I heard there may be a corrolation between feeding brine shrimp and I think it was phosphates which may feed the algae. I tend to feed often with freeze dried brine shrimp, frozen brine shrimp with various additives. Perhaps someone knows the science.

 

[Mike Wise]

Higher plants (evolutionarily more advanced) are always more successful at taking up nutrients than algae. If your higher plants are doing well and you still have an algae problem then it is an indication that there are too many nutrients in the aquarium. In this case, one can either reduce the nutrient load (increase water changes/reduce amount of food fed to fish), the decrease light intensity/length, or increase the number of plants. Killing off the algae will only temporarily remove the problem. If nothing else changes, the algae will return.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

or increase the number of plants.

Always works for me.

cheers Darrel

 

[Bekateen]

So from most of your entries, I'm inferring that you don't recommend using anything to kill the algae, but rather you suggest I reduce nutrients, reduce lighting and/or add more plants. Part of the problem in my tank is that the plants are what get covered with algae. Will decreasing light or adding more plants (along with efforts to keep the water cleaner by better filtration or reduced feedings) really control the algae and at the same time allow the plants to thrive? I always believed that the plants needed the same nutrients (and light) as the algae. And two of my local fish stores (and I don't mean chains like Petco/Petsmart) led me to believe that I need intense light to really get the plants thriving. Can there be too much light for the plants?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

led me to believe that I need intense light to really get the plants thriving. Can there be too much light for the plants?

Yes, there can definitely be too much light. Aquascapers who use intense light, have a short photo-period (4 - 6 hours) add CO2 to give 30ppm CO2, and use a fertiliser regime like "Estimative Index" <http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/EI.htm>. This means that plant always has CO2 and nutrients available during the photo-period. As soon as you start reducing the CO2 and nutrients, you need to reduce the light intensity as well, otherwise the excess light energy from the photon bombardment can't be used by the plants chlorophyll and begins to damage the photo-systems within the leaf. The larger tank has light from a N. facing window and 2 x 24W T5 lamps, but it has a lot of plants

If I have a lot of light (I use whatever lights I have to hand, and always have a 12 hour day) I add more plants, including crucially floaters and emergents with access to aerial CO2 (~400 ppm). I also use the colour and condition of the floating plants as an indicator of tank nutrient status. Have a look a these links <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/low-maintainence-long-term-sustrate.14400/> , <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/daphnia.12707/> (posts toward end).

cheers Darrel

 

[ChuckinMA]

I had, and to some extent still do, a similar algae issue. For me, cutting back on the number of hours of the LED (8000 kelvin) lighting helped significantly without any visible adverse impact to the plants. Is your tank getting direct sunlight?

Depending upon the type of algae, otocinculus and amano shrimp can help too, but the best approach is determining what's driving the algae growth. Plants will definitely out compete algae so that's an option for many but you described your tank as well-planted already.

 

[Bekateen]

No, the tank does not get much direct sunlight - very little actually. But it does get 14+ hours of fluorescent light per day (usually on at about 7am; off between 9-11pm). I don't know the exact output of the fluorescent bulb, but the hood is a standard Aqueon hood for the Aqueon 36 gal bow-front tank, and the bulb is a LFS-bought plant-growth bulb.

As for sucker-mouthed cats, I have one clown pleco and a flying fox in the tank (I think they are kinda useless in terms of algae eating). I've had Oto cats before but they don't do well in the tank - on two occasions I've bought 2 or 3 Otos, and each time they died off. While most of the fish in the tank like the conditions, apparently Otos do not. Alas.

I think the comments from all of you above about excess nutrients is quite likely the culprit, combined with the long photoperiod on the fluorescent bulb. I am now cutting back on the light to see what effect that has. Unfortunately, I've valued the long photoperiod because I think that it is one of the stimulating factors for all of the fish that spawn regularly in the tank. Maybe I'm wrong there, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see if the shorter photoperiod leads to fewer spawns by the Corys, banjos, and Apistos (the white clouds are so cheap and easy to breed that I don't really care if they stop spawning - they are almost as bad as guppies in that regard).

 

[krudolph]

+1 I would agree the photo period is way too long. I try to avoid all natural light. I had some algae issues and added floating plants and reduced the light. Algae disappeared. I would reduce light until you find the ideal period (probably closer to 10 hours).

 

[Bekateen]

Hi All,
As a follow up to these posts, I'm changing the water more frequently and I reduced the artificial photoperiod slightly (but it's still over 12 hr/day, since the tank is yielding lots of baby Corys, and banjo cats, and a decent number of A. agassizii - they seem to like spawning when exposed to this long photoperiod, so I'm hesitant to shorten it below 12 hr).

But what I really want to report is that I went ahead and I am testing the Tetra brand Barley and Peat extract in my tank and it seems to be helping. It has slowed the growth of algae in the tank (okay, in fairness, some of this could be due to cleaner water and less light, but read on...). Also, and perhaps more importantly, it makes the water a little softer and more acidic compared to what I get straight out of the tap (with the extract, the pH is just above 6). Also, I've bee able to take some of the broad leaf plants from the tank and wipe the black beard algae off of the leaves after two weeks of treatment, which is something I couldn't do before the treatment. Finally, the product gives the water a slight tea color, which simulates the black water effect that many people with So. American biotope aquaria desire. I've read a couple of articles which state that peat extract can act like a fertilizer to improve plant growth, but I haven't used the product long enough to report any changes in that regard.

I follow the exact dosing instructions on the bottle (I believe it's 1 ml extract per 10 gallons of water - sorry for the metric/SAE crossover there on measuring volumes). I add the extract every time I change the water. So far, I've seen no harmful side effects on any of the animals or plants in the tank and the Corys are still spawning about weekly, so hopefully the extract doesn't impair the other fish from spawning too.