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if yes, i will keep algae, because its good reaction, but if it doesnt, than i'm not.

It absorbs nitrate. I found when I had some serious algae growing in Ralph's tank, the nitrate levels were super low!

james - to Do you mean nitrite or nitrate??

oo sorry its nitrate, if nitrate broke down, than nitrite broke down to.. right??? than how about ammonia? is it raise? what cause algae, i know its because sunlight, i put my aquiarum in window, because there is a sunlight at morning, so my turtle enjoy basking.

Uneated food and waste -> ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate.

Ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate are caused by beneficial bacteria living
in the biomedia in the filtration system.

Algae "eats" nitrate, but too much algae won't make the tank look good. Otherwise,
nitrate needs to be released to the atmosphere so the nitrogen cycle can continue.
In an aquarium system, the fastest way to get rid of nitrate is water change.

I hope this helps. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

james-to & k-ul - This is one of the best discriptions of bilogical filtration by Jody Karlin http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/biologicalfiltrat.htm Give this a read and it will give you a short but good explination of the process. m.

Got [url] tags?

I think that algae can only help get rid of junk in the water. However, I think it is a sign that there is junk present.

Mikee,

Thanks for the good read about aquarium filtration by Jody Karlin.

However, it doesn't talk about where nitrate will go eventually. The original
question is "What's the effect of algae in a tank?" According to this article in
Wikipedia (where else would I go after searching Google ), something must "eat"
the nitrate in order for the nitrogen cycle to continue. From what I read,
that's the job of plants with chlorophyl, and I think algae has it because it blooms
with the availability of sunlight.

http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/biologicalfiltrat.htm <---this website work the best. kemul - mike - bulldog thanks
but i just curious what effect of nitrite and nitrate,
example : sam turtle have blood on his shell, and the water have high nitrate, is his turtle will rot?
Yes
am i right?
correct me

Kemul, you are correct, the plants use nitrate for food (fertilizer). Algae is a plant. I have aquatic plants in my pond outside and, even with several hundred minnows/mosquito fish in the pond during the summer along with Spot, the nitrate never builds up because the plants consume it all.

Most of the time there isn't enough plant life in a tank to consume all the nitrate produced by a turtle, so it tends to build up. The main reason to make partial water changes is to get rid of the built up nitrate along with other trace chemicals that build up over time as water evaporates. I think the nitrate is smelly and if there is a lot of it in the water algae will grow vigorously and most of us don't like that because it looks bad.

Fish are very sensitive to ammonia and nitrite and even a little kill them. I don't think nitrate will kill them directly but it's unhealthy to let it build up. Turtles are not as sensitive but a tank full of ammonia or nitrite is simply very unhealthy (as well as smelly and awful to look at) and a turtle will over time develop skin and shell infections that will kill him.

Think of it like this. A turtle's tank (where he has to swim around and drink the water) is also his bathroom.