API AlgaeFix Algae Control 16-Ounce Bottle

For some reason I got an algae bloom in my fish tank. The ease of use all I had to do was use the cap and place the liquid in the tank it was good value for my money and made the water have clarity. I k is this product is safe for my fish and its performance left my tank clear. It came in a durable container which was a help.

I picked this stuff up after going through 3 algae blooms in my 10-gallon tank (including one really bad one, couldn’t see two inches past it, and the other two being much more tame).

Now, I’ve read MANY mixed reviews on this product before making my purchase, and I have one thing to say. This is basically Weed-B-Gone for aquatic environments. It’s made to kill algae. It’s safe for fish IF USED RESPONSIBLY.

We’ve treated two tanks with this stuff: a 60 gallon, and 10 gallon. No fish died.

The 60 gallon: heavily infested with algae, specifically the brown hair algae. Applied the recommended dose (1 tsp per 50 gallons, we did a full dose). In the tank live two Convict Ciclids, two loaches, two kissing gourami, one minnow, and one otocinclus catfish. The tank itself is very well established bacteria wise, and has an appropriate canister filter going with four sponges and bacteria media. The lights on it are low-light, with one low-light grower. NONE of the fish were affected in any way shape or form.

The 10 gallon: houses my one Oranda goldfish, along with 7-8 trumpet snails. Previously had ghost shrimp in it, but took them out prior to treatment, then ended up dying from separate causes (put three in a bowl, two died, the rest were killed by the stress of my goldfish chasing them and trying to eat them, I don’t plan on getting any more, lol). As I stated above, went through three algae blooms/cycles before I bought this, and has an AquaClear 30gal. filter going with two sponges and bacteria media. The light on this one is a 96wat four tube grow light. The light penetrates a solid inch into the gravel, it’s intense.

WHEN I DOSED MY 10 GALLON: bottle says 1ml/10 gallons. From what I’VE been personally taught from my boyfriend (his 60 gallon has been running for 10+ years with absolutely no problems), the more gravel that is in the tank, less water; resulting in a smaller dose. I put HALF of 1 ML in the tank. My goldfish is UNAFFECTED, and my snails are as happy as could be cruising around. After repeated dosages, and even one dose being a full dose, my fish is fine. And now after about two weeks, I’ve seen NO new algae growth, AT ALL. I’m going to continue treating the tank, as it is planted and the algae has taken a liking to the plants, but as far as I can say, nothing has perished in my tank using this product, other than algae.

With more heavily infested tanks: from the 60 gallon, it’s petrifying to watch. When you treat it, the water will cloud up almost IMMEDIATELY. And it is and was scary to see it happen so fast. It was back to normal clarity overnight.

Further research into this also relieved that the chemical diminishes in 24 hours, being completely gone by 48 hours. Example: I haven’t changed the water in my 10 gallon since I’ve started using it. By the amount of chemical I’ve put in, I’m positive my fish would’ve been long gone by now. But he’s still in perfect shape and health.

Everything being said: use this with CAUTION! This is not a magical algae fix (well, was for us….), this is made to kill algae, and I’m sure with inappropriate usage, will kill a lot more than algae, including what is printed on the label. When you put this in your tank, the amount used is VERY important. Algae is still a living plant, living plants produce oxygen, if you have enough algae and do a large enough dose of this stuff it will have such an immediate impact that you will BASICALLY suffocate all of your fish.

If you have any doubts about getting this product, find something else. And if you get it, use your brain. It’s easy to over-dose, and some things just don’t work with some people. In my case, I began with a half dose, because my tank is one of the fairly smaller ones, and I wanted to see just how my fish reacted to it. I gave it a day, then repeated the half dose, waited, continued with a full dose over the course of a week and a half. It’s not the products fault, as it’s working BEAUTIFULLY for our own tanks and MANY others.

ETA: After moving twice and unfortunately losing my entire colony of snails, I’ve finally got only my 10 gal up and running as a snail tank right now. (It did have a Beta in it, but he passed away.) It was having some problems with Algae, so I slapped some of this in it, with previous encounters working just fine I didn’t have a second thought.

When I had lost my Malaysian Trumpet snail colony, I searched high and low to get some more and restart. I did, but the Malaysians I have now are…. different from the other Malaysians I had preciously (these are longer, have a sharper pointed shell, and are overall lighter–my previous ones were darker, larger in width, and had a more blunt pointed shell)–my new Trumpets reacted to this product, and after monitoring them for about 20 minutes and quick reacting, was able to save most of them and get the Algaefix out of the water.

I don’t know if these snails are just a slightly different variety of Malaysian Trumpets (the physical appearance tells me they DEFIANTLY are, but I haven’t researched deep enough to be sure) but they are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE to this, and WILL kill them. So if you have ANY kind of crustacean/snail, USE WITH CAUTION! I can safely say that if you have my first “variety” of MTS, they’re cool with it, but this second colony threw me for a huge loop.

ETA 1/5/2015

My 10 gal planted became heavily infested with pest snails that came with a Banana plant, and I can safely say, large doses of this promptly got rid of all of them. (One large initial dose with filter off, then two more large doses after that 2 ~ 3 days apart!)

I just want to start by saying that I am an experienced fish keeper and that I am in no way, shape, or form new to the fish keeping hobby. That being said; I purchased this product to clear up an algae problem that I was having in one of my tanks. I’ve had this particular tank for a year now and all of it’s inhabitants are the original fish that I had purchased when I set up the tank, everyone was happy and healthy in the thank & I’ve literally never had any issues with illness etc. (aside from the occasional algae bloom). This tank has 7 neon tetras, 1 cory cat, 1 crown tail betta, 2 adult balloon mollies, and about 20 of their fry (who were approximately 4 months old, big & healthy, & about to be transferred to another tank).

When the item arrived I carefully read the instructions and verified that the label indicated that this product was safe for fish and plants. I also made sure to look at the label to see if there were any specific fish species that were listed that could not tolerate the treatment and none were listed. I did water changes on all of my tanks Saturday morning and treated this specific tank with the appropriate dose for my tank size as indicated on the label. I spent the day running errands with my family and then later that night I turned all my tank lights off for the night ( not paying too close attention to the fish while doing so). I woke up on Sunday morning and flipped on my tank light and every…single…molly in my tank was dead. Both adults and ALL of my fry, it was awful! I spent my morning fishing dead fish out of the tank before my 3 year old could get up and see what had happened. My tetras were lethargic and my cory cat was barely moving (the only fish that didn’t appear to be affected was the betta). I figured that I had lost them all and just turned the tank light off and left the tank alone. Monday came along and my tetras were completely transparent but still alive so I did a 98% water change and by Tuesday the tetras had their color back but my cory cat had died. Today the tetras are almost all the way back to normal (aside for one which is for sure dying) and my betta is fine.

This product had some good reviews on here and I like to think that I am a well informed buyer when purchasing products for my pets but this is the absolute WORST purchase I’ve ever made. I would give it -5 stars if i could. After disaster stuck I did some research on the product and it indicated that I am not the only one that this is happened to. This is the 2nd review that I’ve left on anything ever but I wanted to take the time out to share my experience with this product and urge you to pass this one up and keep looking. I feel like if just one person has had this experience with this product (and I know i’m not the only one) that it’s not worth risking putting this in your fish tank, so hit the back button and find something else for your algae problem because this isn’t it!

It clean the water and don’t let the algea to come out

Amazing results… Cleared my tank of string algae breakout… In 4 doses only…
Very satisfied with the performance

My 4 years Fish was happily swimming untill I decide to USE API products…its the worst ever true it cleaned the water and make it clear even from the Fish it self…the Fish will start to have hard breathing and start to sit on the ground of the Tank with in first 6 hours..of using API product..CHECK YouTube API product have alot of bad review for Killing the FISH..