algae in my little tank.

[tommysmith]

The tank has been running fine for weeks now, but the rock I have in the middle Hasan bit of stringy algae on it, I only have a beta in it at the mo, any advice or help please.

 

[My toddlers tank]

Do u have any live plants?

 

[tommysmith]

No live plants, it's only a 6g as well, not changed anything so don't know why it's appeared.

 

[Autumnsky]

How long is your light on for? and what type and W is it?

 

[My toddlers tank]

I have some otocinclus, they cleaned up all the visible algae in a matter of days in my 20g.

But they like live plants and driftwood as well. And some algae wafers. I didn't even know about them until last weekend, they only get to be 2 inches and like groups of three.

I hope this helps.

 

[Rivercats]

Oto's don't like thread/hair algae which sounds like what you have. But this is only a guess without seeing an actual picture of the algae. You need to cut your light down to 6 hours a day and if you have any Flourish Excel you can spot treat the algae. Also what are your nitrate and phosphate readings? How often do you do water changes and how much do you change out?

 

[tommysmith]

The lights are on at night for about 9 hours, they are led ones that have 4 settings for the white ones and 2 settings for blue lights as well, strength wise, and you can mix and match the settings.

Would I be ok with 3 in and my beta, I could always put live plants in instead.

 

[tommysmith]

Water change once a week and approx 10%, maybe lights on to much then?

 

[Rivercats]

You need to be doing a 50% WC weekly as dissolved organics, nitrates and such build up very quickly in a small tank. And with there not being any live plants to help use up excess nutrients it's giving algae all the nutrients it needs, plus add running lighting too long and you get algae.

 

[Rivercats]

You could add 3 oto's in a tank that size. Adding something like a small water sprite would be ideal, plus betta's love water sprite.

 

[tommysmith]

Ok, so should I do 50% always or just till it's gone, and I'll look at the sprites now.

 

[tommysmith]

Is a sprite a plant, sorry for being simple, just googled it and it showed plants and fairys, assume you don't mean a fairy

 

[Rivercats]

Ok, so should I do 50% always or just till it's gone, and I'll look at the sprites now.

That should be your weekly WC amount. Water sprite the aquarium plant, never even thought about fairies until you said that

 

[tommysmith]

Ha ha, I'll look at getting one tomoro, and 50% from now on, thank you so much for the advice.