Unsure what to do.

Byron said:

1. I would not advise cleaning the rock at all. Algae growing on rock and wood is not harmful to anything, in fact it is beneficial because fish love to graze/browse surfaces aand find microscopic food (live) in such mats. It also looks better, though that is a subjective aethestic point. The areas of substrate under rock should never be disturbed; they may be anaerobic to some extent, and this is part of a healthy biological system. You can poke into the substrate with the water changer, aruond the rock, but do not disturb it by moving it.

2. The plants are a very different issue. They are becoming covered in algae, this is not good for the plants. You will not have much (if any) luck removing algae from plant leaves, especially if it is black brush algae which seems to be present here. Algae in planted tanks is controlled by establishing or re-establishing the balance of light and nutrients. Light involves intensity and spectrum, and the nutrients must be sufficient in balance for the plants to use but no further. This takes a bit of juggling sometimes, but we need to know more about the light, and are you using any plant fertilizers.

The duration of the light can be adjusted, provided the initial balance involving intensity and spectrum are OK. Any data on the light will help us, and the duration it is on.

The pleco by the way will not eat "problem" algae such as what I see here. Nothing really will, though snails and some say shrimp can help. But this is minimal so the balance is the way to deal with this.

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Byron said:

OK, first the light. This looks like a good unit, I believe other members have liked it, so that leads us to the duration. It seems the "daylight" period (full light) is now 8:30 am to 5 pm (1700 hr). That is a very long period, 9 hours, considering the minimal plant load, so algae will be encouraged and get worse. I would reduce this daylight to 7 hours. Have it so it is on hen you are most often home to enjoy the aquarium.

As for the sunrise and sunset periods, shorten these to no more than an hour, or a bit less. These periods will not provide sufficient light for plants, but algae is not so fussy and it will benefit some. Even just 30 minutes would be fine.

Daylight does indeed play a significant role in this. I had my photoperiod worked out to 7 hours each day, and all was well except the black brush algae took off in the summer. The second year that this occurred I finally realized that it was the longer and brighter days with more light entering the room that was upsetting the balance. The tanks were in a fish room so it was no issue to completely block all daylight by covering the windows with aluminum foil. It worked. For the seven years since, no more problem algae.

The times are relative to the light intensity I used. With brighter light this would not have worked without tweaking it further. Duration does not make up for intensity, the intensity must be sufficient for the plants, and then you can tweak the duration and fertilizers. I think there is no issue with intensity or spectrum here. And the plant fertilizers I used factored in, so let's look at this aspect.

Plants need nutrients. These come from the fish being fed and water changes. Each species of plant do not have equal requirements when it comes to both light and nutrients. Slow growers need less of both, fast growers need more of both. I see Anubias I think, which are slow growing plants, another reason they are prone to algae because they need less light. I would get some more plants, especially floating like Water Sprite, Water Lettuce, Frogbit; some stem plants (these are fast growers) do well floating, like the pennyworts. These are not only incredibly fast growing, they also shade the tank, and use a lot of nutrients.

As for fertilizers, you only want to use a balanced comprehensive one. The goal is to supplement what may be lacking, not add everything including what is already there. This will feed algae. I have had brush algae appear and increase from too long a light period, from not using supplements, and from using too much of the supplement. You are in the UK so look for TNC Lite. A very small bottle, you do not use much. Once you have the light reduced, and some floating plants, this fertilizer should be all you need.

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DeBuGti said:

unfortunately they had no top plants

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Essjay said:

If you mean plants to float on the surface, in my experience most 'real' shops don't sell them. The nearest to a floating plant I've seen is stem plants like hornwort and elodea which can be left on the water surface.
However, on-line shops usually sell several species of floating plants

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