Algae problem

[lohpaul9]

Hi guys, had an algae problem for a few weeks now. Not sure what kind it is and how to get rid of it. It's sort of growing on my plants and Java moss and even the glass. Hoping you guys can help me identify and tell me how to get rid of it. The photoperiod is 7.5 hrs, no ferts/co2 added. Plz help, thanks!

[genki89]

Reduce your photoperiod to 6.
What are the funa you gonna keep?

If its pure shrimp, then adding snails will help to clear.

If its fish, snails, otto, yamato shrimp and also sae will do the job.


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[lohpaul9]

There are shrimps and one nerite snail, yeah I'll try reducing photoperiod

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[Urban Aquaria]

Look like a bad case of black beard algae (BBA) on the plant leaves and moss. Usually introduced in on plants that were not treated or quarantined beforehand. BBA grows mainly with excess light and nutrients (there are many other side factors too but they are not consistent causes). BBA is difficult to remove, very few livestock will eat it as its tough to consume. Siamese algae eaters (SAE) can help to eat some of the BBA (if they are the real SAE), but usually they end up just eating fish food instead, so at the end of the day not really that effective.

You can do spot treatment with chemicals like H202 or Seachem Excel. Switch off the filter and use a syringe to squirt the chemicals directly onto the BBA affected leaves and mosses, it can kill the algae. The problem with this method is the chemicals will also tend to burn the plant leaves and mosses too (and can be toxic to some sensitive livestock if overdosed too much). In the case of your plants, its better to just cut off all the badly affected leaves and moss and toss them out.

Dosing anti-algae chemicals (ie. EasyLife AlgExit) can help to weaken the BBA, so that algae eaters can consume it more easily. This process takes time though and depends on the intensity of the algae and number of algae eaters, so you have to experiment abit.

In the meantime, manually remove as much of the algae as possible and trim off all badly affected leaves and plants. Reduce light photo-period and do more water changes to flush out excess nutrients to slow down the algae growth. Introduce more algae eaters like shrimps to help eat the weakened algae.

For the brown diatoms algae on the tank glass, can just scrape or clean off. Algae eaters like otocinclus, plecos, shrimps and nerite snails will eat those soft diatoms algae. If too much algae and too few algae eaters, it'll naturally appear more, so either manually clear it or stock more algae eaters.