Planted tank Recurring Algae Bloom

[JZK]

Hi All.....

First time poster, lurker for a while.

I have a 16 gallon tank.... about 3 months old. I have 3 Rasboras, 3 Danios, 2 Otos, and 1 Netrite snail. I have just plastic plants until about 4 days ago, then I added 1 Wisteria, then yesterday added 3 more live plants. My problem is that I have been battling an algae bloom for about 2 weeks now. Chemistry has not changed that I can tell... 0-.25% ammonia, 0 nitrites, minimal nitrates. I do a water change, which gets rid of the algae but the water is cloudy... then the next day the algae returns.

Obviously, with the plants, leaving the lights off isn't an option but they are only on for about 8 hours anyway, except that I could move them to the 5 gallon tank I am cycling to use as a Betta tank.

The only changes are using Seachem Prime as the water conditioner now and adding blood worms as a treat.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Fresh2o]

First thing I would do is to reduce the lighting period to 5-6 hours. The plants should be fine. Then once you have it under control, you can slowly increase the light duration.


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[TheSnailMan]

You can also try adding some live floating plants. These will reduce the amount of light entering the water and absorb excess nutrients from the water.