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green on glass

1508 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Homer_Simpson
i seem to have green spotted algae on my glass in the back of my tank.is it due to the sunlight that it gets because my tank sits infront of the windows and i try to cover the window with my blinds as much as possible so it doesnt get direct sunlight. but how can i remove it? can i just scrape it? or use magfloat?
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Yea, direct sunlight can cause GSA (as can low phosphates). To remove it, just scrape it off. I have used razor blades and aquarium scrapers. Others have suggested an old credit or library card. Basically, anything that will take it off easily. Just try to find a way to limit the sunlight as much as possible. HTH
This is a picture of a bowl I have at work. It gets regular dosing of fluorish excel, dosing of ferts(including phosphates). 50% weekly water changes to purge and excess ferts as fert dosing is regular. The only light that it gets is from the fluorescent(which I have been told is full spectrum) and filtered sunlight from an adjacent window. The only inhabitant in there is a 9 year old peppered cory cat fish, that is otherwise healthy. As you can see there are significant amounts of algae, some on the older anubias leaves but mostly Green Spot Algae on the Glass. Where the Green Spot Algae is the most prominant is on the side that gets hit with the filtered sunlight. Plant growth is good and I guess you can argue that some snails, shrimp or algae eating fish added would help clean the algae(excluding green spot unless I stick a big nerite zebra snail in there). Keep in mind though that this is only a 2.5 gallon tank, so I don't believe overcrowding the tank is a good idea, given the limited space. And the option of packing it with more plants is not practical. Believe it or not, it is already has packed as it can get without interfering with the Cory's ability to move around. As far as lighting, total light is about 8 hours and the bowl gets covered with a paper bag overnight as the fluorescent lighting is on all night. It also gets a blackout on the weekend. This is insufficient to compensate for the effects of the sunlight in allowing to algae to grow and thrive. Again, just my own observations, make of it whatever you want. Regardless, I will be giving the peppered cory, named George, a bigger home and will be address some of the issues re: more plants, adding shrimp. The new home will be low tech low maintenance and I plan to run the background paper around the new tank to avoid sunlight hitting the tank, just for experimental purposes.
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One way to help control light infestation of this aglae is by introducing nerite snail. They stick to surfaces, including glass and scrape it with their teeth (looks more like alien beak).

Heavy problem still needs razor interference though.

It will go away to very low problem if you take care and have the tank matured.
are all these methods of getting gsa off safe to use on acrylic too?

i have the marineland 5 gallon corner tank and i have gsa ;)
are all these methods of getting gsa off safe to use on acrylic too?

i have the marineland 5 gallon corner tank and i have gsa ;)
Sh*t No!! I have a 5 gallon Marineland Hex that had the worst case of Green Spot Algae that you could imagine. I was helpless to do anything as trying to scrape it off would have seriously scratched the acrylic. Luckily, my attempts to convert the tank to a high tank c02 injected planted tank failed miserably and the tank turned into a dog's breakfast. This gave me a good reason to tear it down, disinfect it with some bleach(which got rid of the Green Spot Algae). I will be converting the tank to a natural planted non-C02 tank.

There are some algae removal pads that are marketed as safe for acrylic aquariums. I don't know if this would be safe for marineland tanks which are all notorius for having acrylic known to scratch way too easily if you are not careful.
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