gold spot Plecostomus

[juzzo_5913]

I have a gold spot Plecostomus but it wont eat the green algie starting to grow on my cichlid tank glass, any ideas of a way to get rid of this green algie growth or how to stop it, i have cut my light time down from 8-9 hrs to about 5-6 hrs a day. i dont want to use my algie stop product as it has effects on the fish and as i have eggs and fry starting to grow i dont want to effect that.

[Maskedman]

Algae is caused by having bright light for too long, (sounds like you have that covered) but this alone shouldn't be enough to give you an algae problem unless the tank is getting direct sunlight on it for a portiion of the day. Algae thrive in waters that are high in Nitrates or Phosphates or both. To lower nitrates you need to do more frequent or larger water changes, (preferably more frequent). Excess phosphates are usually caused by over feeding as fish food contains phosphate for proper development of your fishes. Most aquarium products steer well away from phosphates so excess food & decaying vegtable matter is the most likely source of high phosphate levels. Some brands of activated carbon have also been known to contain phosphates so check the box it comes in to see if it says its got phosphates in it. It could be worth doing a test on your carbon if you use any & the box tells you nothing. Over dosing of plant fertilisers is also a good way to get the algae growing well but I'm assuming you have african cichlids & no plants? & are therefore not using plant fertilisers.

In all the above cases (except excessive light), more frequent water changes will help fix the problem up given a bit of time. If the problem is very bad you might want to consider reseting the tank by doing two or three 40-50% water changes over a week, adding nothing but dechlorinator & the necessary GH & KH adjustments. Hope it helps.