I need Help getting rid of Algae please!

[Dsudnick]

I’ve had the tank (55 gallons) tank for 2-3 months now. The algae started forming early this week so I vacuumed the gravel and flipped as much rock as I could and it’s still growing.

Is this normal? How do I get rid of the green algae on the white rocks?

PH: 7ish
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10-20 ppm
Water Temp: 78-80 Fahrenheit

[Aiken Drum]

If you have lights for any appreciable length of time you will have some algae. You have to find the balance between the amount of light needed to keep plants healthy and the amount of algae you are prepared to accept and manually clean up. This balance is usually 6 to 8 hours of lights on per day. Some people swear by splitting their lighting period, say 4 hours on, 4 hours off, 4 hours on, then off for 12 hours. Apparently algae growth only takes off after 4 or 5 hours of lighting, so shortening the period below this reduces algae growth. Plants on the other hand react to the lighting much quicker.

Why not just get Thanos to snap away half of the algae?

[Dsudnick]

Originally Posted by Aiken Drum

If you have lights for any appreciable length of time you will have some algae. You have to find the balance between the amount of light needed to keep plants healthy and the amount of algae you are prepared to accept and manually clean up. This balance is usually 6 to 8 hours of lights on per day. Some people swear by splitting their lighting period, say 4 hours on, 4 hours off, 4 hours on, then off for 12 hours. Apparently algae growth only takes off after 4 or 5 hours of lighting, so shortening the period below this reduces algae growth. Plants on the other hand react to the lighting much quicker.

Why not just get Thanos to snap away half of the algae?

HAHA That thanks comment is awesome! But okay thank you, I’ll try splitting the light up and see if that works!

[Aiken Drum]

I do think white gravel will always have some greenness about them. Unless you have very minimal lighting you will always have some algae and it will just show up more on white surfaces.

[Jackamo]

Best way to keep algae away is to get snails. The best nails for this are Ramshorn snails but Malaysian trumpet snails work well for gravel as well. You can try nerite snails but those are large and create a lot of waste. Be warned once you add snails you will never get rid of them. But your Gravel and your glass will never look better

[Dsudnick]

Originally Posted by Jackamo

Best way to keep algae away is to get snails. The best nails for this are Ramshorn snails but Malaysian trumpet snails work well for gravel as well. You can try nerite snails but those are large and create a lot of waste. Be warned once you add snails you will never get rid of them. But your Gravel and your glass will never look better

Okay awesome!! How many would you recommend for a 55 gallons tank with 12 fish already in it?

[Jackamo]

I’d put about 10 in for a tank that size, if they are rams horn snails or Malaysian trumpet snails as they are pretty small. They will multiply eventually. If it’s a nerite snail or a larger type of snail I’d only put 1. I advise against nerite snails and larger snails as they produce a fair amount of waste.

[Danio8]

I have 2 Nerites in my 20 gallon tank and they did wonders removing my diatoms. Plus, the nerites don’t reproduce easily.

[ColdKoi]

Nerites won’t produce any viable offspring but they have been known to pollute tanks with eggs trying!

Just like anything there’s always 2 sides to a story. Some people say it’s just a short period of time that the female will lay her eggs then it’s done, others make it sound like the things will fill the tank to the brim with eggs lol

I recently purchased some nerites so I guess I’ll see how that goes.

I currently have a handful of mystery snails and they’ve been good. Not the greatest algae remover compared to what everyone says nerites are, but they’re ok and you can let them reproduce if you want. If not, they lay a cluster of eggs above the water line you can easily remove instead of having to scrape them off everything in the tank.

Not sure why jackamo is saying nerites are large. They’re only appx 1” full grown on the high side, I’d throw a handful in a 55g at least. Mystery snails on the other hand can be fairly large at 2” or so, a couple of those will crowd up the scenery of a 55 if you’re not intending for them to be a visual piece

[Jackamo]

I just meant they are large in comparison to Ramshorns. Ive had both Nerite and Ramshorn snails and ive found ramshorns to control algae more affectively. Some people dont like them because of how quickly they reproduce. But Ive grown to love the look of snails ajd even keep two dedicated snail tanks.

[Coryking]

Another option is getting floating plants or more plants in general. Plants help remove nutrients from the water which starves out algae. Floating plants or fast growing stem are the best. Your tank seems quite new and algae is common at this stage. From the pictures it seems like the algae is on the gravel if this is still the case I would highly recommend cory catfish to stir up the algae. I do agree with snails for algae on the glass or ornaments but if its on the gravel I would get some cory. You can never go wrong with them.