Lots Of Algae

[Jallen]

I have a 56 Litre tank with some tiger barbs, some rainbow fish and some corydoras. I've had it for about a month now, and i do a 15% water change every saturday. The tank is not in direct sunlight, i open my wardrobe door in the day so that no sunlight gets to it from the window. I have the light on for 12 hours a day and i feed the fish twice a day. I have a pretty good filter with fresh carbon foams and i use interpet filter start (skips the process of cycling).

I get brown algae on everything -
The rocks
The plastic tree root thing that they like to hide under
The plastic plant
The gravel substrate

And i get some brownish algae on the tank glass.

I also get some green algae which is sort of strand/hair based. I mainly get that on the gravel but i get it sometimes on the tank sides.

Any advice? I'd like to avoid putting chemicals in as much as possible, as the fish appear perfectly healthy.

 

[Corleone]

Ok, few things, first off, Interpet makes two filter start products that I know of. One of them is complete junk, the bacteria are freeze dried and thus entirely dead. The other is just mostly junk, it's a standard unrefrigerated bottled product with unlisted bacterial content, which doesn't claim to skip the cycle, but to aid it by some sort of enzymatic process.

One way or another, you need to test your water regularly, cycle or not. The water stats alone may give a cause.

Second, since you have fake plants, limit your light. You'll want fairly weak light, and for limited time per day. Fish don't need much light, without plants it's really just there for your benefit when looking at them.

Two feedings a day is also fairly heavy - I don't feed any of my adult fish more than once a day, and some of them every other day. More feeding means more nutrients in the water which in turn means more algae potential.

Brown algae in a new tank is common, and there's not much you can do about it except clean it. Over time it generally clears or gives way to other forms, which it sounds like it's on the process of doing in your tank.

 

[Jallen]

I've seen people daying about feeding fish once a day or even less, but i'm almost afraid of doing it.
I have my Corydoras who never come to the top to eat flakes, and i want some food to actually reach the bottom so that they can eat it. The Tiger barbs and rainbow fish are pretty enthusiastic eaters too, at both times of the day.
They seem healthy and i don't want them to starve

The light is fairly dim anyway, but i will limit the time it's on i think. I guess it's just a matter of waiting and seeing what happens with the brown algae.
Thanks.

 

[jonnyf84]

use algae wafers and sinking pellets for your cory's. Not that you need any more algae

So this is a new setup? That on its own could be enough to explain the algae bloom as the system is un stable and not well stablished, this ca throw all kinds of random problems at you. Add some plants, reduce feeding slighly, reduce lighting a bit and give it some time. Water parametres would be good if pos.

Good Luck

Jonny.

 

[Corleone]

Don't worry about the fish starving - use sinking foods for the corys, as said (they're not good at rooting fine bits of flake out of the gravel, and IME if you get enough flake to them, you're also getting enough down there to foul the water or fuel a snail apocalypse). Fish are cold blooded - humans and the bulk of our popular pets are warm blooded, and burn most of what they eat to maintain their body temperature, and we're generally used to animals doing the same. Fish don't do this, their food all goes to growth and movement. Well fed fish can go weeks without food, in fact, if I'm ever unsure if I fed a tank or not, I skip the day entirely.

 

[jonnyf84]

Well fed fish can go weeks without food, in fact, if I'm ever unsure if I fed a tank or not, I skip the day entirely.

I'm glad you brought this up Corleone, every two weeks in my community tank i have a 'starve day', occasionally a 'starve weekend' if i go away, i haven't heard of many people mentioning this on the forum but it is a age old technique - i find my fish seem healthier in the long run, however i think my parrot fish cheats as the odd neon always goes missing . This is probably another topic all together though so i'll stop there.

 

[Jallen]

Alright, cool. I'll feed them once a day and get algae wafers/ pellets for my corydoras.
I've also been thinking about getting some sort of algae eater and i think that plecos look absolutely awesome, but i don't want a 50cm fish in my little tank
Do you have any suggestions for algae eaters that don't grow any larger than ~4 inches?

 

[Corleone]

Bristlenose plecs stay quite small, topping out at 4-5 inches depending on the species. There's a few other small plecs, but bristlenose are the best bet - active, peaceful (will sometimes get feisty with their food - mine will claim the biggest piece of algae wafer he can find and defend it, even if he has no intention of eating it. Scatter food for the corys and they'll be fine), and great algae eaters.

Bulldog/rubberlip plecs are less active, clown plecs l wilbarely eat algae, and zebra plecs are ridiculously expensive, but all are in the 3-6 inch range.

 

[OldMan47]

For the cories, you want more than algae wafers. Although they and most of the other fish will eat some algae wafer, the corydoras is more of an omnivore and algae wafers are for strict vegetarians. There are plenty of sinking pellets that are made for bottom feeders and would be better for the corydoras.

 

[aaronnorth]

More feeding means more nutrients in the water which in turn means more algae potential.

only an imbalance or low amount of nutrients cause algae, not excess.

diatoms are common in new tanks due to the silicates and you will probably have it for the next month at least.

 

[Corleone]

You keep saying that and yet every science I can find says otherwise, and that eutrophication (excess nutrients either entering the environment, or insufficient nutrients being consumed from the environment) is sufficient. I grow algae to feed my plec in a tanks just by dosing it by the EI method with no plants present. Is there some element by which tanks are different than natural environments in respect to what algae needs to grow?

 

[aaronnorth]

You keep saying that and yet every science I can find says otherwise, and that eutrophication (excess nutrients either entering the environment, or insufficient nutrients being consumed from the environment) is sufficient. I grow algae to feed my plec in a tanks just by dosing it by the EI method with no plants present. Is there some element by which tanks are different than natural environments in respect to what algae needs to grow?

do you inject CO2 with the EI method? if not then yes you will get algae because of the imbalance (CO2 is also a nutrient for plants), but in natural environments where eutrophication occurs there is always enough CO2 available, it is the NH3/ NH4 entering the water (usually from farmers using NH4NO3 on their crops). NH3 causing algae is overlooked,

Also with this tank, i am presuming that s/he is using the standard lighting with the hood which for a 54l will be most likley a 15-19w tube, given the low light, these excess nutrients wont make a difference,

Excess nutrients do not cause algae, otherwise high light tanks will not work.

Thanks, aaron

 

[petertr]

Excess nutrients do not cause algae, otherwise high light tanks will not work.

Surely excees nutrients break down into Ammonia, and have the effect of a running higher level of Nitrate (at the end of the cycle).

This must encourage aglae growth?

 

[aaronnorth]

Surely excees nutrients break down into Ammonia, and have the effect of a running higher level of Nitrate (at the end of the cycle).

This must encourage aglae growth?

plants uptake ammonia much more quickly than NO3, the following quote is from Diana Walstad:

the 'turnover time' for ammonium (at 0.4ppm) in Pistia Stratiotes was found to be just 4 hours, while nitrate turnover required a full 20 hours.

Plants & the nitrifying bacteria are constantly fighting over NH3 & NH4 as they prefer the source of N from these 2 elements rather than the element of NO3. Plants also store these excess nutrients for the next day, this is why you only dose 3x a week for EI because these nutrients are stored in the plant which allows them to continue growing.

Plants when they uptake NO3 convert it back to NH4, here is the process:

nitrification:

NH4 + 2 O2 <---> NO3- + H2O + 2H+

then the plants use the energy stored to convert it back:

NO3- + H2O 2H+ <---> NH4 + 2 O2

When you say running higher level of NO3 at the end of the cycle with EI, you do a 50% w/c weekly to put a cap on the nutrients & 'reset' the water to stop this from happening.

does that help in any way lol.

 

[Dave Spencer]

The phrase "excess nutrients do not cause algae" is one that is a bit general and in need of clarification.

I feel that the phrase is fundamentally flawed, but OK to use for own purposes because we look upon ammonia in the tank as a toxin to fish, rather than the primary source of nitrogen for algae and plants. So if we take the flawed view that ammonia is not a nutrient (along with light, for that matter), then excess nutrients do not cause algae. Note that a lot of the fertilisers we add do contain ammonia for a source of N in the form of urea. One or two planted people have been known to experiment with adding urea as a fertiliser.

As for using EI to grow algae, and thus making the connection between algae growth and excess nutrients, consider this. Add EI dosing to a tank receiving light, and add the same ferts to another tank that is in total darkness. The tank with no light will have no algae bloom. Add light to this tank and something is going to grow. Light is the trigger to this growth, not the "excess nutrients". How much is excess nutrients, anyway? Carry out the same experiment with RO water and the results will be the same, albeit with the likelihood of a less virulent algae bloom.

The key point to understanding why we get algae is understanding that nitrates and phosphates feed algae, they do not cause it. Light causes algae. Ammonia causes algae, and in levels undetectable by our test kits. This hardly a nutrient in excess.

A lot of testing has been carried out in various water ways throughout the US where adding phosphates has resulted in an algae bloom. These results have since been shown to be invalid, since the phosphates were to added to systems where the algae was already blooming, but at relatively unnoticed levels. Tom Barr has witnessed how adding phosphates to a system where weeds are dominant, more weeds grow.

Excess nutrients cause algae no more than they cause plants.

In order to be able to get to grips with preventing algae and curing algae, we need to realise what causes it. What feeds it is largely irrelevant in the context that algae thrives in excess nutrient environments as well as nutrient deficient environments. This is something we can all prove to ourselves with a little experimenting. Stick a glass full of RO water in sunlight and see what grows. Do the same with a glass full of nutrients and you will get the same results, only more quickly and with a larger algae bloom. Leave either glass in the dark and there will be no algae. Light is the trigger, not the nutrient levels.

I hear nitrates and phosphtes being blamed time after time, yet with zero evidence to back it up.

I can also "trigger" algae using CO2.

If you have algae, look at your light levels, potential sources of ammonia and low or fluctuating CO2 levels. Not nitrates or phosphates.

Dave.