Nutrients needed, to be able to grow algae…

[Magnum Man]

To quote The Rolling Stones, “you can’t always get what you wanted”… most people are not trying to grow algae in their tanks, but I have one , that is really resistant to growing algae, of course, it’s my Hillstream tank, and they all consume biofilms, including algae… I have a monster 2 year old Pothos vine, that is growing out of my South American Tetra tank ( which also has no algae ) on that tank, I allow the Pothos vine to completely shade the aquarium… and so far, I’ve contained it to 3 tanks, when it grows across another tank, it drops “foot roots” down into the tank ( it's also dropped roots into several of my 10 gallons as well )… so my Hillstream tank, has 4-5 foot roots the vine has dropped into that tank, however, I have all the leaves trimmed off the vine stems, so that tank is unshaded… my main tank lights come on at 6:00 am, and stay on until 10:00 pm, around my schedule… main tank lights are all full length LED lights, in this case 48 inches on full brightness… I have additional lights that come on before, and after, so it isn’t an instant on and off, for the fish, and on the Hillstream tank I have additional lights just to grow more algae for the fish, yet this tank is nearly devoid of algae… I don’t fertilize, as I don’t believe in adding what amounts to additional fish waste to my tanks, just to grow plants… I probably have 50 to 60 feet of vine, looped around these 3 tanks, and starting to try to grow out into a darkened room… so I have to assume the very large and aggressive growing Pothos, is pulling all the nutrients out of the water, and thus it’s too “sterile” to grow algae, even though the tank is heavily stocked, and has abundant light…

So, I think if you are having algae trouble, aggressive growing plants, can help with that… the only plants, actually in my Hillstream tank, are many ( between 30 and 40 lucky bamboo ) which are not an aggressive grower, and the roots the Pothos vine has dropped down…

 

[Colin_T]

You can grow algae outside and bring it in for the hillstream loaches. We used to have a bunch or smooth rover rocks and ornaments that we kept outdoors in a plastic container with water and fertiliser. The water was green and the rocks and ornaments got covered in algae within a week. Each week we took a few rocks or ornaments out of the container and put them in the tank. The ornaments/ rocks that were in the tank got put in the container outside to get covered in algae again.

If you live in a cold climate you can have the container indoors under artificial lights and just add some garden plant fertiliser (liquid form).