Algae problems

[Mississippi fish guy]

I have been having algae problems in my 55 red wolf fish tank lately. There has been some algae in the tank for most of the time it has been set up but mostly just on the driftwood and glass. I don’t mind it on the driftwood so I leave it there. 
recently after adding a large piece of drift wood I found, the brown algae started to take of on the wood, the last remaining java fernlet and my Pogostemmon. My banana plant is mostly untouched, my Amazon sword has a couple leaves with algae but is doing fine. The Java fernlet has died. The Pogostemmon is almost gone. My crypts don’t have much algae but have what looks like small bites taken out of them (there is a longear sunfish but I don’t know if they eat plants). Also there is a dark green algae (I don’t think it is bga) growing on the glass. I started dosing easy green at 1 pump per ten gallons. After about two weeks of dosing easy green the tank developed green water. It has also had green water for a long time but never enough to tell it was green unless you looked from the surface.

I have around an inch of Fluval stratum as my substrate and I don’t vacuum much of the mulm that accumulates. I have an aco light that I run at 60% but my homemade lid blocks quite a bit of light so it probably only gets about half of that.

I currently have 3 crypts, 1 sword, 1 banana plant, 1 Pogostemmon, and some mayaca fluviatillis floating around. I intend on adding more plants when my lava rock caves are done.

how can I get rid of the algae?

[Tlindsey]

On 9/11/2024 at 7:35 PM, Mississippi fish guy said:

how can I get rid of the algae

Reduce the amount of fertilizer and do larger water changes. Also less lighting time.

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 9/12/2024 at 7:23 AM, Tlindsey said:

Reduce the amount of fertilizer

By how much?

 

On 9/12/2024 at 7:23 AM, Tlindsey said:

Also less lighting time

About how many hours would be good?

[JoeQ]

A lot of Issues here, most algae issues can be solved with improved maintenance/horticulture practices, improving water quality and adding healthy plant mass, ideally lots of fast growing plants.

Below is a link that will help in your efforts.

https://nilocg.com/blogs/news/algae-common-causes-and-solutions-for-different-types

[Tony s]

On 9/12/2024 at 11:59 AM, JoeQ said:

and adding healthy plant mass, ideally lots of fast growing plants.

So, I've been wondering this for a while. How do you keep algae at bay in an unplanted or lightly planted tank. Would love at some point to keep things like oscars and severums. Which have been described as lawnmowers with fins. Or possibly even goldfish, which eat everything too.

[JoeQ]

I'm actually currently trying to add plants to my brothers unplanted/lightly planted child tank to improve water quality. So far I've had success with bolbitis, narrow leaf java fern & pennywort (floating). Other ideas I have are growing emersed plants with roots submerged, protected behind a cage. As well as floating plants (duckweed included)  within a protective cage

[Retrophyllum_minus]

On 9/12/2024 at 8:38 AM, Mississippi fish guy said:

About how many hours would be good?

That depends on what kind of light you have and what intensity it is at. If it has different intensity settings I'd turn it down a few notches and cut it back a couple hours and see how that does after a couple weeks. 
 

realistically, it might take a combination of things but you should still just do them one at a time so reducing fertilizer, or increasing depending on what your levels are, reducing light intensity and time, etc.

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 9/15/2024 at 7:31 PM, Retrophyllum_minus said:

realistically, it might take a combination of things but you should still just do them one at a time so reducing fertilizer, or increasing depending on what your levels are, reducing light intensity and time, etc

I am stopping fertilizer for now since I rarely dosed it before. Would less light intensity be better before or after less time with the light on? Also I’m considering turning the light off for an hour in the day since I did that before.

[Retrophyllum_minus]

On 9/15/2024 at 9:33 PM, Mississippi fish guy said:

Would less light intensity be better before or after less time with the light on?

What kind of light do you have? I'd reduce intensity and time if possible. So if you had it on for 10 hours try 8, and if it was set at 70% reduce it to 40%. 
 

The dark green algae on your glass may be green spot algae. Hard to say without photos. See the second link below. 
 

Here's some links from the Aquarium co-op blog that may be useful 

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/blue-green-algae

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-algae

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 9/15/2024 at 9:22 PM, Retrophyllum_minus said:

What kind of light do you have? I'd reduce intensity and time if possible. So if you had it on for 10 hours try 8, and if it was set at 70% reduce it to 40%. 

I have an aco light. It is set at 60 but my lid blocks quite a bit because of the material I used to make it.

[Retrophyllum_minus]

On 9/15/2024 at 11:09 PM, Mississippi fish guy said:

I have an aco light. It is set at 60 but my lid blocks quite a bit because of the material I used to make it.

So yeah, I would still try reducing it to like 40 and aiming for having the light on for less time every day. Just my suggestion as something to try. 

[MWilk]

Are you against adding floating plants? Your aqua soil is going to be adding a not insignificant amount of nutrients to the water column. 

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 9/17/2024 at 1:05 PM, MWilk said:

Are you against adding floating plants? Your aqua soil is going to be adding a not insignificant amount of nutrients to the water column. 

I haven’t yet. when I order plants next time I plan to get some pearl weed and let it float since I think my red wolf fish would like that. I’m not sure when I will be ordering plants though.