Algae question

[Duddits]

Ok so I've had my tank up and running for a good while. It's been cycled and about a week ago I added a few danios and tiger barbs for my test run. All are alive and happy but all of the sudden I have algae. It's a 55g with a wet/dry sump capable for a 75g. Lights are pc's, 220w with blue led moon glow. Also added a power head for circulation. My question is what's causing the algae so soon? Fish waste? Lack of water flow? Its a small amount of green algae on the rocks and some brown spots on the artificial plants and on the surface of the sand as well. Lights are on roughly 8-10 hours a day

[abrahamavelar]

ill try to reduce the lights 6-8 hours

[epiphysis]

Your not maybe overfeeding?

You have a lot of lighting so just look out for that.

[abrahamavelar]

i have had my tank running for a while over a year it was a cichlid tank then just recently changed things around and turned it into a community tank/planted tank and ive got the brown algae on my plants and i dont think its due to the lack of water movement i have a powerhead rated for 300 gph and ive read here and on google that the newer tanks even if cycled they get blooms of diatoms due to silician or whatever they r called and also extra nutrients and it will all die off on its own ive read that time its the key so just wait or get some nerite snails (i think thats how u spell its name)

[BBradbury]

Hello Duddits...

Every healthy tank will have some algae, so it's not necessarily a bad thing. If it grows too quickly it means you have too many fish and not enough plants.

You can plant fast growing plants in the tank to use up the excess nutrients. Varieties of Hygrophila, Pennywort, Hornwort, Water sprite and Water wisteria attached to floating driftwood are some good ones to get started.

Also, if you aren't already doing this, you need to change half your tank water weekly. Once the new plants get going and you run a lot of fresh water through the tank, the algae will die back.

I have large, well planted tanks and change half the water weekly. Algae hasn't been a problem in my tanks for a long time.

B