"Racf" wrote in message
...

"Tom J. Pappas" wrote in message
om...
I have a question about my freshwater aquarium, that I'm hoping
someone can answer. I've had it up and going for 10 years. The last 3
or 4 months, I've had a problem with a slimy green algae. It grows on
the artificial plants, driftwood, rocks, and gravel. I have no real
plants.

I clean the tank once per month. I remove about 30% of the water. Then
I stir up the gravel and vacuum it. After that I wipe the glass. I
empty and clean the carbon container, add fresh charcoal, and replace
the foam sleeve. Water temp is a constant 78 degrees.

I just did all of the above 3 days ago and algae is already forming
again!!!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Tom

Sounds like cynobacyeria (I probably misspelled that) or BGA. Search
google for that or perhaps someone with expertise can comment on it from
the plant guys...so I will crosspost for you..... Its a nutrient issue.

PS. I would do a lot more water changes than you are to get the
build-up out of there.......Just 25% at a time about 6 times over a few
days......thats me though....



I've had this. The solution seemed to be a few days of total blackout to
knock back the BGA, repeated every week if it reappeared. Coupled with
that, I planted more plants, and let the duckweed cover more surface,
cutting down a bit of light. I have CO2 but not regular or high-volumes of
it (its manually injected into a bellchamber on a daily/as I remember
basis). Initially saw BGA a few weeks into tank life, lasted a couple of
months, been free of it ever since. It seems to dislike the exits of
filters, and to that end I ditched my (lovely) internal 3-stage filters (2
of) and moved to an external canister, but didn't see a recurrance down the
far end of the tank away from the filter exit.

Tank is fairly heavily stocked both fish and plant wise, but seems to be in
equilibrium - only get very occasional bit of black/green hair algae near
the filter exit.

Velvet