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Well I was gone with my dad for a week and my guppy tank looks terrible. EVERYTHING is covered with a thick coat of green algae. I think Mom left the light on the whole week. I know she didn't do any water changes (it's only been a week and a half since I did one)... hopefully the mayaca and brazilian pennywort will survive! I think I'm going to do some water changes today and leave the lights off for a couple days... I think I'm going to have to wait a month or two for the plants to grow past the parts that are covered with algae now

EDIT: I'll have to put the W/C on hold (which I hate to do especially when things are this bad) because we're having a new sink installed and the water is turned off for the whole house (nobody told me, I found out when I tried to wash my hands)...

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Ehh, that sucks.

I have all of my tank lights on timers so I don't have to worry about lights. They work great and are fairly cheap if you can find them on sale. A hardware store here had 2 packs of 'em on sale for $2... so $1/each. Individually and not on sale they can cost up to $10/each o.O

See if you can rub the algae off of the plants... hopefully you can...

Good luck, and let us know how things turn out

I will fully agree a timer is a must with any aquarium tank. In fact I have always used them for more years than I can remember.

Is the tank big enough to add some algae eaters. Putting a new sink in should only turn the water off for a very short time no more than a hr or so. I would do as many water changes as possible. Seachem Flourish Excel will slow the algae growth a lot. If you have any Val remove it other wise the Flourish could easily kill it.

What ever you do dont try to kill the algae with the so called algae killers this can cause more problems that what it is worth.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info
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Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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I have a timer on the tank next to it, but it's on the last outlet I have on the power strip. What I need is something to plug in to the timer so I can run both lights through it. I've been looking for something like that because I was sure I already had one in a box somewhere. I may end up getting a short extension cord that has two outlets on it.

I will be trying to pull some of the algae off the plants when I clean, and see how much I can get off. This is the hairy green algae that's a big pain in the backside to get off though. With all the fine plants in the tank, I'm liable to be working on it for several hours.

It's a 10 gallon tank with 6 male guppies (which nibble the algae), four ottos (which get fat on the algae, but this is just way more than they can handle), MTS, and some other small snails, but this is way more than they can handle. They'd just be eating off the new growth and not making a dent in it if I just put it on a timer.

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See if I have this correct you have a timer that you want to run two lights off?

OK plug the timer into the power board then from that plug in a two outlet plug and plug one light into each outlet. Other than that buy two timers one for each outlet.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info
Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

The only trouble is I haven't been able to find a two outlet plug... I've looked in the boxes of electrical supplies at home and at the hardware store. All I've been able to find are extension cords.

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Hi,
There are several ways to do this.
Basically, you plug the timer into the bottom section
of the duplex wall outlet. Depending upon the style
of the timer, that should/could leave the upper section
free for other use.
Then you attach something like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100595804 to the
switched output of the timer.

Or, you could plug this into the switched outlet of the
timer:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100078229 and plug
your lights into it.

Use a quality timer, one that will handle the current
and wattages involved with the lights and any fans in
the light housings.
I use these timers:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100026919
These will easily handle most of the aquarium lighting
setups.

Frank




-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Thanks for the detailed reply Frank, I'm sure someone else could find this information useful too. I need to get out to get crickets for my gecko and mail something tomorrow, so maybe I'll stop by a hardware store and look for one of those splitters.

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