"Eric Schreiber" eric at ericschreiber dot com wrote in message ...
Troy Bruder wrote:

Anyone got any good remedies for black slime algae covering
everything in my tank?? I keep cleaning it out, and doing massive
water changes, but it still keeps growing!! Arrrgghh!

It might actually be blue-green algae which 1) can be a variety of
colors, and 2) isn't actually an algae, but rather a bacteria.

I've been struggling with an algae that fits the descriotion you gave -
black slime - and I'm giving serious thought to medicating the tank
with a general anti-bacterial agent of some sort.

See blackout method, this will help your plants and take less time, is
certainly the cheapest method and the easiest, fastest etc.

Remove the algae that's there, do a 50% water change, add 1/4 teaspoon
of KNO3 per 80 liters of tank. Clean filter before water change.
Turn off CO2/lights and cover so that no light gets in with trash bag,
towels etc.

Wait three days, remove the bags and turn light/CO2 back on, do
another 50% water change and add the KNO3 back and thereafter 2x a
week.

You do this, you will not have the BGA come back.

But you can try the other methods which are not free nor address the
root cause.
This method has nothing to lose and is 100% effective if you follow
the directions.

If you do a controlled mid day sieta, you will find it does not do
anything. If you have slightly poor.insufficent CO2, this gives a
chance for your unpowered CO2 diffuser set up to catch up since plants
stop taking in CO2 when the lights are off.

The light itself does not cause the algae to go away and the 3
blackout makes algae die fast, not weeks later and also helps to grow
the plants by adding what caused the plants not to grow well(lack of
NO3), which is why you have the algae in the first place.

Regards,
Tom Barr