shrimp tank got algae

[loupgarou]

Hi, I've got some algae, not sure what kind is it. it forms long filiaments though.

the tank literally just have 9 dwarf shrimp and 2 otos. its a 2ft tank 50 liters thereabouts.

lighted and fertilized with seachem excel and fluorish according to the dose for 50 liters.

Gi3p7V1l.jpg

gDIUrrgl.jpg

Jwyj4nCl.jpg

tA1PF4kl.jpg

larger pictures imgur gallery http://imgur.com/a/40pT9

[loupgarou]

temp = 24/25
gh/kh = not measured
ph = 6.8 to 7 unknown (can't read the seachem indicator very well)
lighting hours are 6am-10am, 6pm to 2am (so 4hrs on, 4hrs off, 8hours on, 8 hours off)

[loupgarou]

http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.sg/

seems to be hair algae and/or thread algae. maybe I should stop fluorish altogether until more established. (tank is like 2 weeks old)

since thread algae is "Excess iron is a possible reason."

I will manually remove with a brush for now

[AQMS]

You need to reduce your lighting hours..
your total light hours is 12. Reduce it to 8.
4hr on and 4hr off. You also need good water
flow to reduce dead spot in the tank.Excess iron is possible
but that will be last on the list, get the lighting hrs reduce first.

[WingCher]

If it's a new tank it could be too much nutrients in water. The nutrients could have leeched out from new plants, as they are still adapting thus the old leaves are leeching nutrients when growing new leaves. If it's an stabilized matured tank, it could be high light intensity/duration without enough CO2, which is same as my case. My timer for CO2 solenoid was spoilt and I didn't realize that the whole tank was overwhelmed by this green fuzzy algae. After replacing the timer all is well now.

[loupgarou]

tank is new. I'm considering doing a blackout or teardown completely , should i or should i just ignore it for now. basically plants aren't growing fast enough. although I do have floating duckweed now.

a) was using some soil from c328 (some taiwan brand), maybe should reconsider ada soil or something more reputable (but soil is soil)

b) using seachem fluorish = wrong ratio or too much fert (allegedly flourish is for gravel only tank?)

c) right now the hair/thread algae grows long enough in a single day (like 7cm). I use a bristle brush to pull plenty off.. . doing 50% water water change like every 3 days at the moment.

no loss of lifestock yet.

http://imgur.com/a/a4yH6

[Urban Aquaria]

I notice your tank has no Co2 injection, so even if you have lots of lights and fertilizer dosing, the plant growth is still restricted by limited carbon supply. The excel solution you are dosing does help improve plant growth, but they still can't be expected to grow as fast as tanks with Co2 injection.

The algae growth you are seeing indicates that you have excess light and nutrients that the plants are not able to use up, so algae use it to grow instead.

Is your tank fully cycled? If not and you have not measured the parameters (the parameters you posted don't show if the tank is cycled), the water condition could be fluctuating alot and creating spikes in nutrient levels, which encourage algae growth.

The plant density in your tank is still very low and sparse, so light is basically shining on lots of bare substrate. Perhaps look at doing more water changes to flush out the excess nutrients, reduce the light photoperiod during this initial period, and add more plants (like alot more to cover as much of the substrate as possible), that will help re-balance the tank to favor plant growth over algae.

At this stage, its not really necessary for you to switch to ADA Amazonia aquasoil, would be quite a hassle to overhaul the whole tank... but from my own experience with various soil brands, ADA aquasoil does tend to have more beneficial nutrients and buffers the water parameters better compared to cheaper/unknown soil substrates, i've found plants growing noticeably better in tanks using ADA aquasoil (of course it doesn't mean that ADA soil will solve everything, you'll still get tons of algae issues if the tank is not balanced, but if maintained well, the soil does help make growing plants alot easier). There is a reason why most competition aquascapes use ADA aquasoil.

[Sleepy_lancs]

How much light are you putting on this tank. Too much light without sufficient co2 is a recipe for disaster. But again its only 2week, plants takes time to adjust so are your filtration system.. let's wait and see first but do sort out your lights.