Algae ID

[MrGrieves]

Had diatoms for a while in this tank, am I still dealing with them? Taking on more of a greenish colour now so I'm not sure if this is something else. Please let me know what this is and if nerites, amanos or otos are my best defense!

[Odd Duck]

Looks like hair algae.  The next step on your aquarium adventure!  Welcome to planted tanks.  There are many fish, snails, and shrimp that will eat it, but the key is in preventing it.  Lighter feeding, possibly shorter times on the lights, lower intensity on the lights, or any number of other things.  Telling us more about your set up, water parameters, current tank inhabitants, type of lights, how long they’re on, are they adjustable, fertilizers, how often and how much you feed, etc, etc, etc, will help us offer better advice.

[MrGrieves]

There is definitely a bit of hair algae around but none of this is diatom?

It is a 5g Aquatop Pisces. A few CPD and blue diamond neocaridinia and sone horned nerite snails. Light came with the kit, seems fairly strong, only have it on 6hrs per day. I feed the fish twice a day. They are somewhat picky, eat only food floating mid-water so I generally slowly sprinkle in small amounts over a few minutes until they seem less interested. 

pH 7.4

Ammonia 0

Nitrite 0

Nitrate 10

Kh 4

Gh 9

TDS 300

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/22/2023 at 10:00 AM, MrGrieves said:

Just as a sidenote...

Hygro Pinnatifida is a pretty slow growing plant, so you sort of want to treat it a little bit like anubias.  (enough light to grow, but just keep an eye on algae taking hold of it and the plant struggling.   Given that you have a smaller tank, intense light, hopefully you're able to adjust down the light or raise it up in some way.

 

[Odd Duck]

If you feed until fish are no longer interested in eating they are getting more than they need.  Fish will pretty much always overeat if given the chance.  Cut back by at least 25% or more.

In the mean time, you can spot treat with hydrogen peroxide, 3%.  Use no more than 3 mls per gallon absolute max and I use less than that, usually.  DON’T GUESS, you MUST measure since this can kill your shrimp, fish, snails, and your biomedia!  Turn off any pumps or filters until the water is still.  Trickle the peroxide over the highest areas of algae you want to treat.  It will flow down over lower areas.  Try not to flow it over any livestock.  Wait about 10 minutes, then restart filters / pumps.  You can treat daily if you want (I usually do weekly when having difficult spots), re-treating the worst areas if you don’t see the algae turning grey, white, or pink.  Hair algae isn’t usually very tough to treat, but it’s persistent in the water and will restart if you don’t control the overfeeding.  More plants can also help outcompete the algae.  The wood can be treated as many times as you need to until it clears.

If you can remove plants or hardscape, you can soak them in seltzer water in the dark for 12 hours and kill nearly any algae.  Follow this link to some very thorough information on how to do this and information on plants that may be more sensitive to treatment.  More sensitive plants can still be treated but might need multiple, shorter treatments.  The pinnatifida has been a bit sensitive for me (several red plants appear to be more sensitive in general).

[MrGrieves]

Ok I will try to cut back on feeding. Lighting cant be adjusted but I will try putting a bit of electrical tape on it to decrease the intensity a bit. There are a ton of floating plants in this tank so I'm a bit surprised I'm having so much algae issues. I assumed the floaters would manage the excess nutrients and the excess light. 

The horned nerites seem to be doing a good job on the wood, rock and glass but I am most annoyed by the algae on the hygrophila and crypt parva. It doesn't look nice and its starting to harm the plants and difficult to clean off. I will try using some more hydrogen peroxide.

For this type of algae would otocinclus or an amano shrimp be the better option? If otos I would just put a pair in this 5g, let them clean it up and then rehome them to a larger tank. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/23/2023 at 8:24 AM, MrGrieves said:

The horned nerites seem to be doing a good job on the wood, rock and glass but I am most annoyed by the algae on the hygrophila and crypt parva.

This is one of the more difficult things here.... any algae eater needs to be able to support itself for the sake of eating algae on the surface. I don't think I've ever seen the otos on my hygro, especially smaller leaves, but the shrimp might.  If the snails try to go up the leaf and it's can't support them, then they likely avoid it.

[Odd Duck]

I would expect shrimp to clean leaves better but you’ll need to kill the algae first with the peroxide.