Cycling Tank with algae

[MI Fish]

I have a 20g long and a 40-breeder set up that have been cycling for about 3 weeks now.  I have no ammonia, nitrite, or nitrates yet.  I am getting what looks like green hair algae in the 20g and the 40 breeder has green hair algae on my crypt and brown hair like algae on the sand.  I was using my lights for 6 hours each day and am turning them off every other day starting yesterday to try and help.  I am also running my lights, Hyggers, full power.  Would it be better to turn down the brightness?  Thanks.

[Fish Folk]

Several thoughts…

(1) Algae will appear and thrive wherever it has available resources. Those are essentially the same as other plants, with the exception that algae can typically make lighting or nitrate work for itself more readily than desired aquarium plants.

(2) One way to approach this is to eliminate “fuel” for algae by lowering lighting and keeping nitrates down. This may weaken your plants. Another approach is to add LOTS of plants, and thereby attempt to outcompete algae from the gate. Typically, this approach also has the benefit of speeding up your cycle.

(3) A third way of thinking is to embrace the reality of _some_ algae as a benefit to your overall ecosystem. Not exactly acceptable to a hard-core aquascaper; but for me, this works fine. 

 

[Patrick_G]

A new tank often generates some diatom algae. It's sort of soft and brownish green and can get stringy. It's very easy to brush off or siphon up

For me long term algae control means:

-not too much light 

-cleanup crew of Otocinclus and Amano Shrimp

-manual cleaning

-as much plant mass as possible. For whatever reason I find that plants grow better and algae is easier to control with a large plant mass. 

On 10/1/2022 at 11:43 AM, Fish Folk said:

3) A third way of thinking is to embrace the reality of _some_ algae as a benefit to your overall ecosystem. Not exactly acceptable to a hard-core aquascaper; but for me, this works fine. 

I agree, no long term tank is perfect. It’s totally cool to let some algae grow, in fact I have a few tanks where I think the hair algae actually stands in for plants in the de-nitrification process. 

[MI Fish]

Thanks for the help. Plants are growing well. Algae is not too bad as I am cleaning it up every few days. Now I just need to get it cycled. It has been a month and still getting no ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. 

[venzi]

On 10/7/2022 at 10:39 AM, MI Fish said:

It has been a month and still getting no ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. 

It might take a long while before your tank is "cycled" due to the plants competing for the ammonia/nitrites that the beneficial bacteria also needs plenty of.   Ideally, you'd cycle the tank w/o plants, but if you want/need the plants in the tank while cycling, then you might need to experiment w/ a very light stocking of fish (just enough bioload that the plants take care of it).  Also, there are challenges in measuring ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels b/c the plants consume those chemicals while the lights are on I believe.  So you'll want to measure them at a consistent time of day and ensuring the lights are on a constant amount of time.  Otherwise, I'd imagine there can be discpreancies in the readings.

[AndEEss]

What is your ammonia source?

Meaning, what are you adding to the tank to provide ammonia? 
 

Example: I dose 2ppm ammonia, via ammonium chloride, when I’m cycling a tank/filter. I’ll also add some organic compost.

 

https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/2-4-cycling-with-ammonia/

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by AndEEss

[Wrencher_Scott]

On 10/7/2022 at 11:23 AM, venzi said:

It might take a long while before your tank is "cycled" due to the plants competing for the ammonia/nitrites that the beneficial bacteria also needs plenty of.   Ideally, you'd cycle the tank w/o plants, but if you want/need the plants in the tank while cycling, then you might need to experiment w/ a very light stocking of fish (just enough bioload that the plants take care of it).  Also, there are challenges in measuring ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels b/c the plants consume those chemicals while the lights are on I believe.  So you'll want to measure them at a consistent time of day and ensuring the lights are on a constant amount of time.  Otherwise, I'd imagine there can be discpreancies in the readings.

this ^^^^

:)