Brichardi and Antibiotics??

[Buddy09]

I have an outbreak of cyanobacteria in one of my tanks, the green slimey stuff. Research indicates that antibiotics will kill it, specifically erithromycin....Any experience with this med and synos?? I also have a pseudacanthicus leopardus in this tank. I know that cats can be sensitive to some meds and I don't want to harm my fish.....It's a 40 USG breeder tank with sponge filtration and two maxi jet 1200 power heads. I do frequent heavy water changes, 50%+ and I don't know where this green slime is coming from...please advise!!

[RickE]

Hi Buddy. First thing - this isn't going to be cyanobacter. Cyanobacter is a distinct blue (hence the name)/ green colour, causes anoxic conditions, and is largely toxic to aquatic organisms. You almost certainly have just slimy green algae. Can you post any pics?

Don't go chucking antibiotics in your tank. You can probably get rid of it or vastly reduce the amount by changing feeding, lighting, etc.

[Buddy09]

Hi Ricke. Yeah, this stuff is blue-green I guess you'd call it and forms a slimey film on my driftwood and plants. I keep my tanks clean, but perhaps I'm overfeeding a bit. I'll hold off on the antibiotics for a few days and just clean things good again...scrape or vacuum as much of this crap off as I can.

[MatsP]

Algae in almost all forms is a "balance" problem - the balance between nutrition, CO2 and light determines whether plants or algae or nothing grows in the tank - and with plant nutrition, certain compounds can be missing to make plants stop growing and if algae is growing quickly it may take over.

You can also get algae from having old fluorescent tubes or "bad" tubes (wrong colour, not giving the right energy to the plants)

Usually it's sufficient to stop algae by reducing the photo-period (the time lights are on) by a bit - for example give the fish a "siesta" by swithcing lights off during the middle of the day.

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Mats