I saw some fizz tablets at PetCo called No More Algae Tank Buddies. These are tablets that you drop in the water. The box says that the tablets make the water clear, remove existing algae, and prevent and control the formation of new algae. The ingredients are Diuron (dichlorophenyl and dimethylurea) and copper sulfate pentahydrate. You can't use the product if there are live plants, snails, or other invertebrates. I was wondering if this would be a good thing or not. I was considering just adding a couple of live plants but it is tempting. Any recommendations?

Normal hard chems like that can be harmful to the fish in the long run. If your talking about the brown algae their is many ways of dealing with this.

1. More water changes and look at your Nitrates and keep them down around the 40 ppm mark.

2. Bristle Nose or Rubber Nose plecos are great for this.....No other kind of pleco though can be placed with a goldfish since they will eat the slim coat and they get to about 18" long.

3. Live plants like you said

The algae removers are herbecides. They will kill green plants, or greatly inhibit their growth. I have never used the fizz tablets, but in a few tanks I have, on occasion, used Algae Destroyer liquid. It does a fair job and does not seem to bother the fish much. NEVER add it to the tank straight, for it can produce pockets of concentrated herbacide the fish can swim through. Fizz it or mix it with water that you are adding to the tank.

Personally I do not like to use herbecides except in extreme situations. Elbow grease works far better and is guaranteed not to be harmful to anything. I also like to have a nice growth of fuzzy green algae in places in the tank - the fish love to munch on it - it is salad!

Yes - I decided not to use them. Something tells me that if they kill algae they can't be good for the fish. Thanks!

I tried that stuff back in the day when I only had 1 ten gallon tank and it was a big waste of money. Didn't do a darn thing on that algae. Plus like you said, in the long term, it can't be good for the fish.

Loads of chemicals which can be particularly damaging to your fish, are in products like that and can be very dangerous to use if you don't know what you're doing and you don't follow solid directions. In most considerations even if you do think you know what you're doing, you may want to look to the help of a specialist who knows more about your fish and what chemicals are good for your fish, than you do. come to think about it, almost always you'll want to reconsider buying a certain product because of it's chemical composition; which can be partially harmful to fish in longrun. Most algacides are.

...that's kind of frightening, when I think about how much algacide I've allowed to go in our pond...