Another algae question

[giffmastaflex]

I have a 55 gallon tank with current satellite led plus light fixture. I put the light in about a month ago and now I have some sort of algae. I started using excel about two weeks ago and I do 5 gallon water changes every week. The lights are on from 4pm to 10pm so 6 hours a day. I use my own mixture of fertilizer (used by lfs, which they use on all tanks including discus), I put in a 1/4 cup per 5 gallons that I take out. I put 18 teaspoons of miracle grow all purpose plant food in a gallon of distilled water. I also use root tabs. The plants and fish are healthy but I have algae on some plants as shown below. I've heard that one solution is to add plants to the tank that way all the nutrients are being used by the plants, therefore there won't be anything for the algae. What are some other solutions?

 

[Super_Blueberry]

You say you do a 10% pwc weekly.... Do you know what your nitrate reading are? Sounds like they might be the culprit...

 

[giffmastaflex]

I do not, should I just start doing 20% water change and see what it looks like in a month? I really don't want to buy the testing kit for 20 bucks because I know I will only use it like 2 times every few months

 

[ClearVision94]

You should try doing 25% weekly and 50% monthly water changes. An otocinclus cat fish is a very nice and very active algae eater. I've also heard that red cherry shrimp are good algae eaters. You should look into those...

 

[giffmastaflex]

My fish will eat the shrimp and I know that the catfish like to be in groups of like 6, I don't have enough room for those but I'll do larger water changes

 

[Scottyhorse]

My fish will eat the shrimp and I know that the catfish like to be in groups of like 6, I don't have enough room for those but I'll do larger water changes

The Otos are very tiny and a group of 10 would hardly have an impact on the bio load. Look into Amano shrimp as well. They are a bit larger. You should also buy the API nitrate test kit and test your nitrates once a week before each water change. It's five or six dollars only.

 

[giffmastaflex]

I'll look into the ottos but I want to have more hiding places just incase they get picked on. That way they won't get too stressed.