Green Algae Bad or just Look Bad?

[wolfohawk]

Hello all, I recently returned to the hobby about 3 or so months ago after a 5 year hiatus after moving killed everything.  My ten gallon tank sits by a window that while it has a curtain has one of those that you can sort of see through. In any case over the last two or three weeks I've had an explosion of green algae that texturally is somewhat slimy.  I only really have a light on first thing in the morning and some in the evening as no one is home to enjoy them during the day except on the weekends and with the window I feel they get enough light otherwise, however I do have one of those hydroponic farms sitting relatively close to the tank and think it might be causing the sudden bloom. I was having a bloom of the brown kind, but I just moved my Otto into the tank for about a week and that was all taken care of. I have in there a water sprite that I am having to cut back about once every week and a half, two medium plants that I'm not every sure what they are as I bought them at a chain store and the name was literally red plant, but they have some red and green leaf structures and the only thing I can say is they definitely aren't crypts, and I have a small pink flamingo crypt, other than that I have a medium sponge filter, a small sponge filter (getting it ready for a 5 gallon shrimp tank I want to try out), a betta, 5 danios, 4 shrimp, and a black mystery snail.  I'm going to try to include a picture if I can get the picture transferred from my phone to this computer.  This tank was set up specifically for the betta that I got very small and wasn't even sure what kind of fin/tail structure he was going to have (he was so small when I got him, he couldn't even eat betta pellets). 

So finally to the question, is this algae good or bad, ecologically? I know it kinda looks bad, but before I try to totally clean it up when I do my weekly maintenance tomorrow, I want to make sure I'm not going to cause the tank to crash. Also, any idea how to minimize it so it doesn't look so bad or if worse and its bad kind of algae how to eradicate it? Keep in mind that my fish are acting normally and my numbers are running normal 0, 0, 20. Hopefully these pictures will allow you to see.

 

Thanks,

[PineSong]

Welcome back into the hobby. Algae seems to be a natural part of that starting out process, so you fit right in!

It's great that you have plants in the tank, that will help to protect from too much algae.

I also have a couple of tanks in front of windows, and they have green hair algae in them as well as green spot algae on the front and back glass. I don't mind 'some' algae because it is consuming fish waste, but don't want it to crowd out other plants, so I remove some. In general, I keep the front glass clean, leave the back and sides alone. I do remove algae that is collecting on or around my plants but when it's on my driftwood I leave it alone or just trim it down to make it more tidy.

You don't mention your water change schedule, so I can't say whether that's a factor  but if you wanted to reduce your algae your choices are: add plants, reduce light, reduce fish food/waste, increase water changes.

I chose to reduce feeding and make my "lights on" times shorter on my window tanks because water changes in that location are more of a pain. On my kitchen tank when I had black hair algae, I chose to increase water changes and add plants. 

I hope you can find a solution you like.

 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Hi @wolfohawk welcome back to the hobby and this forum. 

To me algae is a friend especially when you have algae eaters like Otos and Snails. I did have a bit of a concern when you said something in your post. You said that the algae was slimy....does it also smell bad and/or come up in sheets if you stir it or vacuum it up? I'm hoping you don't have blue green algae, which is not actually algae it's bacteria and no, it isn't stuff you want in your tank- it also photosynthesizes so the light from the window would only help it. If it is you may need to treat the tank, Maracyn is what I'm told works better than most of the other methods mentioned online. I'm hoping for your sake it's not (because I hear it's a real pain to get rid of sometimes).

Otherwise, I agree with below:

On 3/25/2022 at 7:15 PM, PineSong said:

don't mind 'some' algae because it is consuming fish waste, but don't want it to crowd out other plants, so I remove some. In general, I keep the front glass clean, leave the back and sides alone. I do remove algae that is collecting on or around my plants but when it's on my driftwood I leave it alone or just trim it down to make it more tidy.

You don't mention how big this tank is but I'd consider getting at least 1 Nerite snail- they are incredible members of any clean up crew. 

[wolfohawk]

On 3/25/2022 at 9:15 PM, PineSong said:

Welcome back into the hobby. Algae seems to be a natural part of that starting out process, so you fit right in!

It's great that you have plants in the tank, that will help to protect from too much algae.

I also have a couple of tanks in front of windows, and they have green hair algae in them as well as green spot algae on the front and back glass. I don't mind 'some' algae because it is consuming fish waste, but don't want it to crowd out other plants, so I remove some. In general, I keep the front glass clean, leave the back and sides alone. I do remove algae that is collecting on or around my plants but when it's on my driftwood I leave it alone or just trim it down to make it more tidy.

You don't mention your water change schedule, so I can't say whether that's a factor  but if you wanted to reduce your algae your choices are: add plants, reduce light, reduce fish food/waste, increase water changes.

I chose to reduce feeding and make my "lights on" times shorter on my window tanks because water changes in that location are more of a pain. On my kitchen tank when I had black hair algae, I chose to increase water changes and add plants. 

I hope you can find a solution you like.

 

Typically I do about 20ish percent once a week on that tank.  I really need to find a better lighting schedule, but the incoming sun makes that a bit difficult. I know I need to reduce the feeding schedule which will be easier not that the baby betta got big enough to eat the pellets, I just wasn't sure if I needed to do anything else other than just cleaning the glass and didn't want to have the tank crash if I cleaned too much. Thank you!

[wolfohawk]

@xXInkedPhoenixX I do not believe it comes off in sheets or anything and I seriously hope that your concern isn't an issue. But just in case when I clean it tomorrow, I may be precautionary and dose it with Maricyn to be on the safe side.  As to the tank size, that particular tank is 10 gallons, and I was considering getting a nerite for it and one for my larger tank as well, but hadn't decided for sure. Do you like nerite's better than other snail species? It does not have any detectable bad smell, so hopefully its just regular old green algae and not the icky bacteria you mentioned because that would be horrible, but I do have a quarantine container set up if I end up needing to rehome my fish temporarily if does end up being something bad. Thanks for the warning.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Oh good, doesn't sound like it- I wouldn't treat the tank if it's not necessary. Don't overclean, @PineSong's advice to leave some about is a good thing. I have had Mystery, Bladder and Nerite snails. I love them all for different reasons but Nerites are by far my personal favorite. They are the best at keeping most algaes at bay (Mystery Snails aren't great algae eaters, but they clean up extra food- and they need supplemental feeding) and they don't reproduce (like bladder snails do). They come in a whole bunch of colors and patterns. I have Horned, Zebra, Racers, Olive- there are lots. For a 10 gallon I'd say you could potentially get 2. The only downside for some aquarists is the Nerite eggs. If you happen to get a female she'll lay eggs and they are small, white and random. People don't like them because they lay on anything and they can be hard to remove. It's never bothered me at all- the only ones I scrape off are on the viewing glass. Otherwise they fade with time. For the work they do for me it's a very small price to pay. And no, you don't know if you have a girl, until you know. 

[Brandon p]

I love it and many of my fish graze on it.

In the pics it looks almost brown in person it’s green the clearly greener stuff in the corner is moss. Sorry all the pic are framed wrong it’s been doing this lately for me. The stuff in the tank are BBS

Edited March 27, 2022 by Brandon p

[Widgets]

@Brandon p The image rotation issues are due to how the camera is storing the rotated image. If you crop the image before you upload it will get upload properly.

@wolfohawk Here is what my BGA looked like. You can see it on the gravel and plants. I treated it with some blue green slime stain remover that I read about. Afterwards, I read that it was better to use Maracyn.

[Brandon p]

Thank you

[anewbie]

My view is a little algae is ok but too much can be a problem. However if the algae is growing on your plants there is a real problem that needs to be fixed. Most new aquariums will go through a period of algae before they balance out and if there is a major change it can trigger an imbalance that cause algae. One problem I frequently run into is I allow the 'shade' (surface plants) to build up and then i remove a lot causing a sudden change in light output which triggers algae for example.

[wolfohawk]

We had a good clean yesterday. I didn't take it all, but I did take the worst of it off the glass. looks a lot better 🙂