I've had aquariums off and on over the years. Always smaller sized freshwater tanks as Saltwater was out of my budget. The last 10 years, give or take, I've maintained a 55 Gallon tank that I inherited from a relative that got tired of maintaining it

The past 2 years or so, Algae has been harder and harder to deal with.

It seemed to start when I bought live plants to replace my shoddy looking plastic ones. I got this fine, hair-like algae growing all over everything almost overnight. This was new to me, had never seen anything like it before.

I tried water changes up to a 70% new water ratio, followed up with algae treatments but the problem persisted, i used an old net to pull it off of everything as well as I could, but it just grew back seemingly worse. Finally, out of frustration, I pulled everything out and cleaned it thoroughly, got rid of the live plants (just in case) and purchased new gravel. I thought I was good to go but the "hair" came back!  I discovered I did not clean my pump thoroughly as it seemed to originate from that area on the water intake tube and the glass it was placed near.

I decided to treat again as the amount was more manageable this time (I also cleaned that pump again) and for a bit all seemed fine.. but then one day I notice these odd little pollops popping up everywhere. They started tiny, I didn't notice them at first, but suddenly they are everywhere and they are blooming! the millions of little pollops opened up into these growths that reminded me a little bit of the spiky outer hull of chestnuts. Again, something I had never seen or experienced before in this aquarium or all the past tanks I've ran.

And so I played the same games, replaced and treated the water... it just seemed to make it worse. Fished out the blooms... only for a hundred more to pop up a few days later. And finally pulled out the last ditch effort again and fully emptied and scrubbed everything, starting over with clean accessories and pump and new gravel and water.

It looked really nice once again, my two fish (A giant Angel Fish and an almost as big Silver Dollar) that had somehow survived all the algae shenanigans lived through their 3rd "restart" and I was in the process of letting the tank get acclimated so I could introduce some new fish.

And then.... I encountered The Blob! About 2 weeks ago I discovered this odd, gelatinous, growth slowly creeping from behind my center piece ornament in the tank. It had slowly started to inch it's way into one of my plastic plants, one of those small short kind made to look like a sea urchin. The way it has slowly began to envelope it, it looks exactly like the Outer Space creature from that Steve McQueen flick.

The Blob is slowly growing and taking over the center of the tank. He resembles a giant loogie in color and texture. I haven't tried to  extract him as I'm worried it will break apart and go all over infecting other areas, or worse, that it might crawl up the net and devour my flesh :)

My 2 fish are moving to a relatives tank soon. I think I'm done with being an Aquarist , at least for a little while.

Haha, my post was exaggerated  for comedic effect. Sadly.... I'm obviously not as funny in print as I think I am in my head though :)

But it has been a struggle with algae last couple years. I've had a tank off and on since I was a kid and had never seen these 'exotic'  types of algae before, just the regular mossy stuff that grows on the ornaments.

You're right, live plants don't cause algae, I wasn't overly explained in that area.. I bought the plants from a (new to me) fish store I had heard about which was a fish hobbyist couple with a few dozen tanks set up in their garage. I later discovered they closed suddenly due to a large number of complaints from customers for selling diseased fish.

I knew plants actually help with algae so while I didn't see how they would 'cause' it I did read where it's possible that a live plant (just like a plastic one or any ornament) that is infected with algae can contaminate a tank quickly if the conditions are right. Since all the fish I had purchased from them had died within 2 months I figured their plants could be sickly/infected in some way also. Since the problem didn't exist before their plants and fish were added, I got rid of them partly for that reason, but also because the algae had done a real number on them in the meantime and they no longer looked healthy.

My Chinese Algae eaters I had owned for several years up to then didn't touch the new (to me) varieties of algae. They still cleaned the sides of the tank and the ornaments but just ignored the hair, and later when I put them back in after the first scrub down when algae moss began to appear again for them to feed on, they avoided the chestnuts as well, nudging either kind out of the way to get the moss growth. Eventually they passed away from old age or possibly shock from the algae treatments right before the second scrub down. My intention was to replace them but was waiting for my tank to condition, just as I was waiting on that to get other new fish, but never came about due to the blob.

You're also right in that a scrub down like that isn't the way to go for all of those reasons mentioned, I knew this then. But since all my efforts had proved fruitless and most of my fish population had died off it was out of desperation.

I'd never heard of The Green Killing Machine, that's really cool, I'm keeping it in mind for future tanks. I have to move soon and that's a big  part of closing down the tank as well. I know in a year or two, after I'm settled I'll likely miss it and want it back again.

 Thanks for that!

When my back problems along with my current illness made talking care of my small aquarium too difficult, it turned into cube of green Jello. The only thing left in there were catfish. Occasionally I'd see some near the glass. Friends said "just dump the whole thing in the trash" but I couldn't do that. 2 catfish had turned into 20 after one (obviously a nymphomaniac) went on an egg-laying spree. I just didn't have the heart to dump them despite people saying "what, you think you'd be the first person to flush fish down the toilet?' I ordered a little 5 gallon aquarium from Amazon that I can manage. They're a little cramped but happy. I saw eggs on the glass last week. I think I'll put a NO VACANCY sign reversed on the glass. 

That's so beautiful you almost don't need fish.

Wow.  Great looking tank, both plants and fish.  Nice mix of both.