2 Weeks into Plant Cycling - it's getting primal

[MattyM]

Hi all - 2 weeks into my plant-only cycle, and am getting a nice primordial ooze going with brown algae/diatoms and driftwood biofilm. I'm not sure if that's some sort of hair algae or just a mix if diatoms and biofilm.

Tanks are 10 and 20 gallons. No ammonia, around 20 nitrates and around 1ppm nitrite, 7.5-7.7ph. Fairly hard water, medium buffer. 

I'm wondering if it's time to chuck some snails in. Would love an Amono but am guessing they wouldn't do so well yet. 

Any tips/advise? Not sure if I should leave it be or not. 

[Katherine]

That is definitely some sort of algae, not just diatoms. They don't get stringy like that, they look like dust almost.

[lefty o]

the white fungusy looking stuff is normal on spider wood. that will go away with time. the stringy stuff is an algae. imo likely getting a bit too much light.

[Jennifer V]

IMHO, I would leave it be. All great signs that your tank is heading in the right direction! If you're really in need of some life in the tank, I would try bladder snails. Yes, they do reproduce quickly, but you can likely find some for free, they clean the tank beautifully and can live in just about any water conditions. Since your tank is still cycling, they can handle the fluctuations. And it's so much fun to see something cruising around the tank rather than staring at an empty one. Call me crazy, but I love those little guys! 

 

[MattyM]

@Jennifer V as luck would have it, my local big box pet store gave me 10 small bladder snails. I just acclimated them (prob not necessary), 4 went into the 10 and 6 into the 20. Evidently they eat all kinds of diatoms and algae - even hair algae. Bit nervous about their numbers growing too fast - but for now the experiment continues. 

Fun fact: If you want free snails from a box store, you may need to find the fish manager, or whoever - the first associate I asked said they couldn't do it, but then after I wandered the store I saw a different person as asked - he said sure, and noted they are actually not allowed to say they have "pest" snails much less sell them, so he couldn't charge anything and just asked how many I wanted. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/23/2022 at 10:04 AM, lefty o said:

the white fungusy looking stuff is normal on spider wood. that will go away with time. the stringy stuff is an algae. imo likely getting a bit too much light.

100%  The wood is closer to the light and centered under the light, so it's getting full force of that PAR.  Remove it manually and try to keep it off of there. I would highly suggest some moss or something similar in that spot.

Once the other stem plants get a bit taller, it will be less of an issue, but right now lean ferts, lower the light, and try to keep it centered on the plants and not just the wood.

Edited July 23, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Snails will eat the hair algae as well as the biofilm created by the driftwood. 🐌 

[Jennifer V]

On 7/23/2022 at 3:38 PM, MattyM said:

@Jennifer V as luck would have it, my local big box pet store gave me 10 small bladder snails. I just acclimated them (prob not necessary), 4 went into the 10 and 6 into the 20. Evidently they eat all kinds of diatoms and algae - even hair algae. Bit nervous about their numbers growing too fast - but for now the experiment continues. 

Fun fact: If you want free snails from a box store, you may need to find the fish manager, or whoever - the first associate I asked said they couldn't do it, but then after I wandered the store I saw a different person as asked - he said sure, and noted they are actually not allowed to say they have "pest" snails much less sell them, so he couldn't charge anything and just asked how many I wanted. 

That's great news! If the population gets to a place you don't like, you can always offer up the extra snails to other local people looking to feed them to their fish. The snail population directly relates to the amount of food available, so it will die back with less food present. For right now, nothing to worry about. Enjoy!! 

[MattyM]

Cheers @Brandon p -  the store prob had no idea what snails those were - I made those statements based on my own research. But true, I don't expect snails to just solve everything. That would be silly. I'm just looking for what help I can get.

I must disagree with your statement that "You can’t really add animals to Solve a problem" - that seems to go against much of what @Cory tries to teach about. The snails won't help as much as a small army of Amano's and algae loving fish - but I can't add those yet. 

As for Easy Carbon, if it's anything like Flourish it will harm BB's. This is based on an Amazon reviewer calling the company and asking about this b/c they were using it during their cycling and the cycle was taking forever. The company response was that Flourish has anti-bacterial properties that could kill BBs, so it should not be used during cycling. The ingredients are different between the 2, but I don't know enough about them to know what would kill BBs. Maybe I'll email AC and see. But if anybody has experience with using liquid carbon during cycling I'd love to hear it. 

What I did do though was remove as much of the hair algae as I could. I rinsed and gently brushed the driftwood with a toothbrush, and manually removed what I could from the tank b/c it was indeed getting on the plants, which are new and not all have established themselves. I also tweaked my lighting down to 3 hours on, 3 off, then 3 on. And I moved the lights so they are diffused by the black bar/hinge in the lid. I don't expect this to fix everything either - but will hopefully help establish some balance and move the tanks forward in a positive way. Only the coming weeks will tell 🙃

I think this is really fun!