Fighting Green Dust Algae: sharing my experience

[cheeboonyong]

Wanted to share my own experience fighting the Green Dust Algae. Spent more than 6 months fighting this algae.

What doesn't work:
1. Excel
2. Blackout (3 days)
3. UV light
4. Chemicals

What ultimately worked:
Do nothing. Wait. Be patient. It will just disappear by itself. Do not scrap it off the glass. I waited >6 weeks for it to slowly disappear by itself. Other posts on the net suggests waiting 2-3 weeks, then scrapping it off. Didn't work for me; I had to wait >6 weeks.

I had yamato, otos, SAE, nerite snails. Doubt they made the difference because I had them throughout the 6 months and the algae kept coming back until I left it alone.

[ivantan]

hi can you share why doing nothing is better?
Normally i scrap it off the glass

[Shadow]

Are you using fluorescence light, t5, t5ho, pl or t8? Does the tank facing window and receive morning light?

[cheeboonyong]

hi can you share why doing nothing is better?
Normally i scrap it off the glass

I used to scrap it off as well. But all it does is that it sends the algae free-floating in the water and it'll just re-attach back to the glass the following day. I don't like the idea of scrapping it every other day.

As I mentioned earlier, other posts on the net suggests scrapping it off after 2-3 weeks. Didn't work for me though. It just re-activated the free-floating stage and re-start the loop. I had to wait a much longer time and no scrapping at all. No idea why. But I'm just happy to be rid of it.

[cheeboonyong]

I'm using LED. And the sides get hit by about an hour of morning sun. But the algae is most prevalent where the front glass is, not the side. No noticeable difference between the side with sun and the other side without sun.

Don't know what conclusion (if any) I can draw from this though.

[thebaldingaquarist]

I have a similar experience to share.
I had green dust and green spot algae.
My tank receives sunlight in the morning.

tried nearly everything, except for blackout. to see no short term results.

What i did at the end, is to plant alot of fast growing plants. Ludwigia, water wisteria and dwarf sagi.
at the end of the month, after my single nerite snail cleaned up the 3ft tank, i don't see anymore algae on the glass.

I did
1. plant alot
2. maintain 0.5bps
3. 10% water change every week
4. add lushgro macros every 3 weeks.
5. trim every week..

results in approx 4 weeks!

*results varies with individual applications*

[Jungle-mania]

Quick solution: Nerite snails, floating plants
Long term solution: Plant more.

[felix_fx2]

Quick solution: Nerite snails, floating plants
Long term solution: Plant more.

+1 to Plant more.

what i would do. (not in order)
Limit light souces, add plants, add floaters, add algae eaters, check water flow.

[Shadow]

I hate snail, I hate floating plants also because it blocking light. The only thing left is plant more

One thing I'm experience from my tank is green spot algae only attack this time of the year, it will last for about half a year. Reason because around this year my tank received direct sun light in the morning.

[cheeboonyong]

hmm...I have tons of green dust algae but absolutely NO green spot algae. Like I said, my tank gets hit by sunlight too. And I have no green spot algae on that side of the glass (and the rest of the tank for that matter)

I've read that adding enough phosphate (in addition to other nutrients, good lighting, good CO2, etc) is important in preventing growth of green spot algae. I would tend to agree with that simply based off my own personal experience.

[jamesneo]

My experience:

1) Use a old phone/credit card to scrub off the algae
2) Change 20% water
3) Stop all fert dosage and minimum feeding to the fishes/shrimps
4) Paste black oyama paper at the side of the tank (where they get sunlight) - Of course cannot paste the front view glass
5) Monitor for the next 3 weeks. Repeat water changes 20% every 3 days.