Algae Frustration

[Brandxn]

I’ve had this 20G tank for about a year now and for the last 4-5 months I’ve been dealing with some algae on my plants. Some I think is staghorn but some other algae I don’t know what it is. It’s just like green fuzz algae all over some of the leafs and it kills my Tiger Lotus…sad. Curious to know what you guys would think is the best course of action. I had some Amano Shrimp that slowly dwindled by jumping out but they never really ate anything. 3 Otos and Nerite snails that don’t touch it. I’m going to try and keep the Nitrates at 20 or below because they’ve been around 40-80 when I do water changes. Any help or advice would be very appreciated. Along with any help to improve my Tiger Lotus. Thanks 

[RockMongler]

One big thing you can do is reduce the amount of hours a day you have your light running.  I know we all like to have the light in our tank on when we are awake, but too much light, not enough nutrients/CO2 for your big plants, means that algae will likely outcompete your plants.  Another option, depending on the settings your light has, could be to reduce the intensity of your light (I have a Nicrew from Amazon I've had for ~2 years now and I have a timer/dimmer).  I run the light in m 20L for ~10 hours a day at 40% intensity.  If I go much more, the algae starts to outcompete my plants, but after messing around with it for a while, I've gotten it fixed in well to not have all that much algae, but plenty of growth on my desired plants.

[Odd Duck]

Looks like it might be a mix of staghorn and hair algae.  Staghorn is coarser, very branchy, and feels very “gritty” between your fingers.  Hair algae feels much softer, can be branched, and feels very soft, even silky, and sometimes slimy between your fingers.  Some of it looks like it could even be Marimo ball algae - stays very short, very dark green, doesn’t noticeably branch but will form well-attached mats, and feels more velvety to touch.

Hair and staghorn respond well to reverse respiration if you have plants or hardscape you can remove and soak.  Or 3% peroxide treatment but be VERY CAREFUL to not overdose!  You MUST carefully measure how much you use - no more than 3 mls per gallon, some say start at 1 ml/10 gallons but that’s much lower than I go.  I shut down all filters/pumps to get still water and squirt the peroxide directly over the affected area.  It is heavier than water and will flow down onto the plants and whatever is below them.  I start at the highest spot I want to treat.  Sometimes you will already see the lower ares bubbling before you get to them.  I don’t bother treating those areas again if they are already bubbling.  You may need to treat more than once for some areas.  If it hasn’t turned white, gray, or pink within 3 days, treat again.

There are some who drop the water level and spray the peroxide directly onto the affected areas, but for me, that’s very risky since the peroxide is much more concentrated that way and much higher risk for killing plants or livestock that you don’t want harmed.  Maybe that’s where using only 1 - 3 mls/10 gallons comes from when spraying directly.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Odd Duck

[Darax]

If you have a larger home for its retirement, a juvenile siamese algae eater might nom that up. They do great work for me. Once they are full size I'd think they appreciate at least four feet to dart across.