Planted 20g

[Kageshi17]

So my planted 20g is not doing so great. I have a light on it, cost me $115, that I adore and it outputs about 80 watts. It has a fan and 4 bulbs. Two are blue and 2 are just white. Not florescent though. Should I have all of these on for the plants? Or just certain ones at certain times? So far I have had all 4 of them on for 12 hours a day with their fan plugged in to keep them cool. My plants have been doing fine...but the algae is incredible. It's not really sticking to the glass at all (that might be with the help of the 2 rubber nosed plecos I have) but it gets thick and looks like spider webs. It clings to all the plants and pulls them in the direction it wants them to go. It's really cool to see and adds oxygen to the water, I'm told, but I would rather have just some algae or an algae free tank.

Any suggestions on how to keep this algae growth down? It's literally taking over my tank.

[jones57742]

Kageshi17:

Do you have a link which exemplifies your lighting and which you can post?

Do you have a photograph of your tank which you can post?

TR

[JustOneMore20]

The blue bulbs may be actinic (used for SW tanks), so that should cut down on the watts per gallon because actinic lighting doesn't do much for plants. But if they are around 10000K or so in temperature, you would have 4 watts per gallon over the tank and I'm assuming you don't have CO2 injection. That's a recipe for algae.

I'd try just running 2 of the lamps if you can and cutting back you photoperiod (time the lights are on) to 8 hours.

Remove all the algae you can, even if you have to cut off some plant leaves.

How heavily planted is the tank? You might want to get more stem plants if you don't have many. Fast growers like Bacopa, Rotala, Anacharis, Hornwort, and some Ludwigias will be good for your tank.

If you want to run all 4 bulbs and they blue ones are not actinic (cuts down on the wpg), then you'll have to get some carbon dioxide injection. If you can't do pressurized, then setup a DIY CO2 setup.

I would also be interested in seeing the fixture you have....just to see what type of bulbs the blue ones are.

[Kageshi17]

Ok I have a feeling you guys are right and the blue bulbs ARE for salt water. Hahaha wow. Well I will turn those off. And no I do not do C02 injections. I don't know if I want to do that... And whats even more sad is I do not know the names of my plants. But I do know that almost all of them have new starts on them. I have 2 java fern with babies growing and let me see if I can find the names...ok well I googled all of those plants and I haven't tried any of them except for the Hornwort. That one really didnt do well. It turned brown and got so covered in algae it fell over . But the ones that are doing good are https://www.pondsplantsandmore.com/E...sagittaria.jpg and something else with a lacy texture. But I am going to try those other plants out as soon as possible. Do you think water changes would have something to do with this algae? I could do a test and we could find out! Also do my plecos just not eat this type of algae? Its thick, green, and spiderwebs all over the tank.

[emc7]

Try flourish Excel. Its more money than DIY CO2, but easier and if carbon is the one thing limiting the plants growth, it should help the plants outgrow the algae. There are definitely "algaes" that plecos won't touch so you may need to feed sinking wafers for the pleco to eat. Both more water changes (to reduce nitrate) and less light should slow the algae's growth, but also the plants' growth.

[JustOneMore20]

The algae sounds like hair algae. Plecos won't eat that. Its usually caused by too many nutrients/too much light....which water changes and cutting back on the light will definitely help.

Try Flourish Excel, like emc7 stated. Its a good carbon source when you can't do DIY. With only watts over the tank, you shouldn't have as much algae.......especially if you get some of the fast growing plants I listed. They will take in some of the extra nutrients.......but you'll still need to do water changes.

Can you get a pic of the algae for a good ID? If not, you can take a look at this site and try to ID it yourself. If you click any of the names to the right, you will see pics. And, you'll see more options if you click any of them. I think hair algae is on the second page, so you'll need to click a name on the first page to get the hair algae picture.