I have a fluval flex 15 tank. the only mods I made were adding a heater, swapping in a low flow nozzle from lid propz, and swapping the carbon in the filter for seachem purigen (to remove tannins leaching from my logs). I have a black diamond blasting sand medium grit substrate with a stone and 2 logs I got from my local aquarium store. I added aquarium co-op root tabs and I dose with easy green weekly. I have well water with a softener so I dosed with seachem equilibrium to raise the hardness at the recommendation of my local aquarium store. I started cycling my first tank on 1/29 with plants (Brazilian waterweed, water wisteria, and American shore weed) by the end of February I was fully cycled and added the first tank inhabitants, 4 amano shrimp and 4 cardinal tetras. I do plan to get mare cardinal tetras but they only had 4 in the store when I got them. when I added the shrimp and fish I had a slight algal bloom but now things have gotten out of hand. I find myself pulling out clumps of it daily and it still looks like the picture below at the end of the day. light is on 8 hours a day. my water wisteria is doing great but the Brazilian water weed got choked out by the bloom and I had to take out a bunch of it that was beginning to rot. my American shore weed in the front is completely covered but still seems ok. all my water parameters are normal.
if I'm not mistaken this brown algae is actually diatoms and will eventually resolve itself but I was wondering if there is anything I should be doing differently. should I stop dosing with easy green? also I plan on adding more plants and I was wondering if I should add more root tabs or not before adding them as it might contribute to more brown algae.
pictured is the initial setup, the start of the brown algae bloom, and how it looks currently with tons of wispy brown algae everywhere
