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I have some algae growing in my 29g tank. It is moderately planted with:
-Ludwigia repens
-E. tennellus
-Stargrass
-Alternantha
-Temple Hygro
-Rotala rotundifolia
-Crypt lutea
-Crypt wendtii red

The algae is growing on the Alternantha and the Ludwigia, probably because they grow slower.

I have ~2.24 wpg. I do water changes weekly of 40-50%. I use ferts (Tropica Master Grow, Excel, Flourish Potassium) once a week after the water changes.

I just did a 40% water change, so I am going to wait a few mins to check the parameters.

The algae is stringy and a grayish color. I am thinking it is either thread or staghorn algae, but I don't know the differece between them.

Here are pictures:

Little closer...

It looks a little greenish in this picture...but its gray and not green.


Any idea what type it is? And how to stop it?

Water parameters:
Ammonia-0
NitrIte-0
NitrAte-10ppm
pH-6.8
KH-4
GH-6

*Kristin*

Some sort of filamentous algae. Not sure exactly what causes it, because I have seen it growing in an extraordinarily wide range of conditions (most likely depends on the species), but it is hard to get rid of unless you have some aquatic assistence.

Siamese Algae Eaters and American Flag Killies are probably the most voracious eaters of filamentous algae you can find. I find that the killifish do a better job of ridding the tank of algae, but they will also eat soft/fragile plants.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I believe that this is Staghorn algae.

The reason you may have this is because it seems that your fertilizer routine is a little off (I don't see you mention feeding Nitrates and Phosphates).

In order to try to find out, can you provide more details on what you feed , when you feed it, and how much you feed (all plant foods, of course). Plus, given tetratech's recent thread on adding fish food, do you overfeed?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I feed either OSI Angel Flakes or Spirulina flakes once a day. I alternate every day between those too. I feed about 2 small pinches. I also feed a few (about 4) shrimp pellets and a half an algae wafer for my cories and ottos.

I don't add nitrates or phosphorus. My nitrates stay between 10ppm and 20ppm, so I didn't think I needed to be adding anymore. I also don't add phosphorus because my tanks have about 2-3ppm of phosphate.

I probably do overfeed on the flakes. My opaline gourami is a voracious eater, so I like to put enough flakes in the tank so that my slow neons and glowlights have a chance to get some.

I am also a little overstocked I think.

I have:
1 Opaline gourami
7 neons (well 6 now...one is in hospital)
7 glowlights
3 cherry barbs
6 panda cories
4 albino cories (about 1 inch...temporary residents)

Plant foods are: Flourish Excel, Tropica Master Grow, Flourish Potassium all once a week. I use the recommended amounts on the Excel and Potassium and about 10ml I think...of TMG. I'm not at home now so I can't look at the bottle to remember how much I use.

*Kristin*

I had the same stuff and bought a couple of siamese algae eaters and they cleaned the stuff right up.

James

Well SAE's would be a great option...except that I've never seen them in any of the LFS in my area. I mean never. I could order a couple online, but I don't like buying a couple of $4 fish and paying $25-30 for shipping. That's about $38 for 2 fish. Wow! I would have to be desperate for a solution to do that.

I guess I'll just manually remove it, cut back on the flakes, and keep doing water changes. Its not too bad right now, only on a couple plants, so I'll just see what happens.

Thanks everyone for the help.

*Kristin*

Hi Kristin,

I've had the same algae in my tank, twice. Currently, I have none of it in my tank, and between the two instances there was almost a year that I did not have staghorn algae. I got rid of it by reducing the light perdiod to a few hours and then slowly increasing it back up to 10 hours over a two week period, in combination with 30% water changes every three days. Give it a try, it may work for you as well.

Best,
Martin

Thanks Dr. Bonke. I will try the light trick. I just got a timer and I have been setting it for 10 hours a day, but with a 2 hour break in the middle of the day (totals out to 10 hours though). I will try only turning the lights on for a few hours a day and see if that helps.

*Kristin*