Algae 101 open discussion

[Will Billy]

I have seen quite a few threads concerning a wide variety of algae, namely black beard algae (bba) and green spot algae (gsa). So i wanted to open up a discussion of algae, what are the positives and negatives of having algae in your tank. Why is bba and gsa so hard to get rid of. What causes and cures it. In my opinion algae is sorta like a bonus critter, akin to pest snails ( who wouldnt want a free, bonus  algae eating invertebrate that tagged along for the ride when purchasing an aquarium plant ). Or the lowly yet somewhat disgusting detritus worms squiggling around the bucket from your water change. They are a bonus critter completely harmless to fish and plants that eat detritus, that stuff you spend time sucking up and out of your tank. I see them as a bonus, just like algae, all of these so called pests help complete and maintain your ecosystem in a box. Which is what an aquarium actually is, a small self contained ecosystem. If however you are set to fight the good fight against algae, or curb the growth of a particular strain of algae. The best to pieces of general advice i can give is #1 dont panic. Algae is a natural organism that helps remove nitrates and other organic waste in your ecosystem. It will not directly harm fish or plants, but if left unchecked can indirectly harm plants by covering leaves to the point of not receiving light. Basically do not go so far as to harm your existing ecosystem of fish and plants in an attempt to rid yourself of it. Algae is a part of life in an aquarium. #2 when combating algae be patient. As you apply treatments and make adjustments to your water chemistries it will take time to see results. Dont expect 24 hour miracles. I have fought with a bba explosion before, and it took nearly 2 weeks to see the results from some of the adjustments i made. The stuff grows quickly it seems, but dies very slowly. Give time for treatments to work before you decide it isnt working and move on to more extreme measures that could harm your ecosystem. Those are my thoughts, please add content to this thread to help everyone enjoy this wonderful hobby, instead of fretting the sometimes unavoidable but curable factors involved. Thank you for you time. 

[gardenman]

As anyone who's seen my tanks can confirm, I like algae. It doesn't bother me at all. It helps remove nitrates, serves as a food source for many fish, and can even host little stuff for fry to munch on. Algae is good stuff. At least to me. Algae is everywhere in nature, so you'll never defeat it. It's far better to opt to live with it. You could start a marine tank in middle America, hundreds of miles from the nearest body of saltwater. Put a light on the tank and before long you'll have marine algae growing in the tank. How does it get there? Danged if I know, but algae is everywhere. There's even sea ice algae that can travel through microscopic channels in the ice seeking food. It's a tiny little algae that's adapted to a unique environment, but there's no real competition for it so it thrives. You could spend your lifetime studying algae and still learn new stuff everyday. 

[Jennifer V]

@Will Billy thank you for opening up the discussion. I live in fear that I'm going to get some kind of nasty algae I won't know how to deal with. I literally ran out of a LFS because I caught a glimpse of some bba! But you're right, as I look at my tank, I'm happy to see the brown algae I have and think about it as a food source for the critters I plan to add to my very first tank. I think I had this unrealistic expectation that I needed to have a pristine-looking tank, when the reality is, like you said, algae is a good thing. 

[RockMongler]

Algae is a part of life in a fish tank.  The trick is controlling it to reasonable levels.

In my tank, I keep the front glass clean with an old credit card/small piece of co-op coarse filter sponge every other water change or so, and let the spot algae go to town on the sides/back of the tank.  The biggest problem I had was I started to get a little bit of BBA on a few of my plants, along with some staghorn and a bunch of hair algae just growing everywhere. (FYI, my tank is a 20 gallon wide hillstream setup)

I'm currently in a pretty good spot, making use of less hours of light per day at a lower intensity to make sure I'm not getting an excess of algae growth. (~10 hours a day at 60% with the 30 inch Nicrew vs 12 hours at 100% when I first set up the tank).  I have enough lighting to keep some of the cobbles in my hardscape covered in algae for my bottom feeders to chow down (and a thin layer of algae on a rock does look pretty natural and authentic).  The BBA and staghorn eventually died off my plants under the lower light conditions and the once prolific green hair algae, I mostly removed the excess daily with a dedicated tank toothbrush and paper towel.  I'd dig into the algae with the toothbrush and twist it to pull out a bunch (occasionally pulling some of my java moss with it), and I'm now in a place with minimal excess algae, and what algae remains is mostly under control of my bottom feeding crew (hillstream loaches, otocinclus, cherry shrimp, and bladder/malaysian trumpet snails).  Its now to the point where I don't think it's negatively affecting the growth of my plants, so I'm happy with the results.  I should be able to update later with an up to date picture of the tank!

[Will Billy]

I would also like to mention that keeping a healthy amount of beneficial algae that my algae eaters love to munch on is a great holistic approach to keeping more annoying strains of algae at bay. By not scraping away all my yummy algae, they are using up the same nutrients any unwanted algae would use, and thereby putting the unwanted algae in direct competition with my more desired algae. 

[Kirsten]

Yeah, I felt so ashamed of all the brown algae I got in my first tank, but was lucky enough to read that it happens to almost any new tank. Now I understand algae better and realize it's part of the food chain and helps correct any imbalance in light and nutrients, and now I'm leaving my livebearer tank lights on like 12 hours a day to TRY to grow enough algae for all these little hungry mouths.

And like many forum members, I fully embrace the power of inverts to fill the hole in the food chain between fish, plants, and algae.

[Will Billy]

I found this video by our very own Irene. I really like how she lays out tank balancing in a simple, easy to follow, yet informative method. I recommend giving it a view. Im sure it is posted somewhere else on the forum, but i just wanted to take a minute to re-post it for others to see. Thank you Irene. 

 

[Rita]

Thank you for posting this... I have had my tank set up for 3 months and am going through all the phases of algae... and much to my dismay I’m still struggling to find this mystical creature called “balance” that everyone speaks so fondly of. 😉

I let my 20 gal long planted tank cycle for a month and grew TONS of diatom algae... I then picked up 3 nerite snails and 6 amano shrimp and this algae was nearly gone in a month’s time. I added 7 ember tetras, and a couple weeks after I got the dreaded blue green algae which I treated with Maracyn. That treatment worked and the fish and invertebrates seemed non the wiser. I then added 7 panda corydoras that decided they did not want to live in my tank, so the remaining pandas have been removed. Now I am battling green hair algae, which I agree can look lovely... but it is thickly coating my plants, and largely not touching my decor. In addition, the diatom algae seems to be returning.
 

Throughout this process my lighting has remained the same (FluvalSmart aqua sky) 8hr at 100% with 1 hour ramp up and down. The inconsistent part is I have been altering my dose of easy green dependent on my stock... when the pandas were at full peak I was a achieving 20ppm nitrates with dosing easy green 1x /week. With only the embers and inverts I have to dose easy green at least twice a week to even get close to 20ppm, and my plants start turning translucent and the tips start rotting away to make up for the new growth. So right now is tough because I have the algae, and my plants are starting to suffer as I need to increase my easy green dosage until I can stock more fish. At least that is what I am assuming needs to happen since I am a novice. Thanks for letting me rant guys!

[Maggie]

I love and want algae in my main tank for the otocats, and today when filming the rasboras eating baby brine shrimp, I could see the "lovely" brownish green algae on the back of the tank, with lines through it where the cats have been feasting. I'll take that trade for otocats and their amazing cleanup abilities (they've cleared off many of the plants). I also have black beard algae in the danio tank, mostly on the Java fern and water sprite, and I'm treating it with Easy Carbon along with being more consistent with fertilizing. 

[mouseturd13]

I like some algae in my tank. Especially because I have ottos. I have recently noticed some BBA growing and I think some of the algae struggle comes with adapting to your tanks needs. I noticed that it became present when I started leaving blue light on overnight at 1% on my Fluval 3.0 plant light. My tank just doesn’t need overnight light. I initially thought my issue was too many nutrients but I did a little research and think my actual issue was that I had too much light for my tank and plants but I had cut back on nutrients. My plants couldn’t grow enough for that amount of light and that’s where the BBA might be thriving. I really think algae is great in a lot of ways. It’s a wonderful indicator of what is going on in your tank when you aren’t watching. It can be stubborn and ugly sometimes but it’s kind of like a little helper. It lets you know when you need to start adapting to change in your tank. 

[morphy1701]

I don't have a planted tank so my issues are limited to GSA on the tank glass. Well, it's on the driftwood and ornaments, too, but that looks natural. I do occasionally pull the ornaments out and scrub them just so they stand out more, but never the wood. I scrape the front of the aquarium because that is what we look through and I do want it to look nice. But I don't really worry about the rest unless it gets too unsightly, then I just use my old driver's license to scrape which I saved for that very purpose. Beyond that, the algae is just free food for my snails and pleco. And believe me, a Bristlenose Pleco can do some damage to algae blooms!

Put me in the pro algae camp!