Hey everyone!

Just a few questions if you could help out.

My tanks algae growth is more than my snails, shrimps and hillstream loaches can keep up with at the moment. It grows on the rocks mainly, a Small amount on the glass, but not a lot really.

I can't use, say, algaefix as it will kill my shrimps. Is there any other way of getting the algae down a bit more?

The lights are on timers to come on at 7am and off at 10pm. Is this too long of a period?

It doesn't get much sunlight so just presume this is normal.

Also, the tanks is about 400L, unheated.

After a water change the pH level was at 6.5 is this normal?

Cheers

:bounce:

pH of 6.5 is fine, so don't worry about that at all.

Algae growth is also normal to a certain extent but when it gets too much and unsightly it becomes a problem.

First of all, you mention that your tank doesn't get too much sunlight, but obviously it gets some. Direct sunlight is ambrosia for algae. so do what you can to cut that down. I used to have a small curtain velcro'd to the side of my tank where the sun got to it and this helped loads without really affecting me being able to view my aquarium. 15 hours of lighting will only help algae to grow as they feed off the light, as do plants.

Next - is your tank planted at all or just rocks and substrate? Plants and algae need virtually the same nutrients and plants will take up the nutrients faster than alge once established, so planting might help a little too.

Don't add Algaefix, it is too easy to overdose and your pets may well die. Clean regularly and scrape the algae off by hand weekly or more often if necessary and make sure your tank is siphoned regularly too.

Depending on which algae you have, there are other routes to ridding your tank of it. Some algae types hate Flourish Excel, which is a common plant food added to aquariums and is harmless to pets.

Thanks Naz_Nomad

Thats a great amount of help there.

It gets very little sun and only in the morning which I guess would affect it somewhat.

It is planted. I am using a bottle of Sera's verson of Flourish Excell atm, I have two bottles of Florish Excell I'm going to start using when I've used up the Sera bottle.

Should I cut back on the lights??

10 - 12 hours per day. See if that makes a difference.

I agree with Caryl, first thing I'd suggest is cut the lights way back. 15 hours a day is a long time. Cut it back to say 10am-10pm or whatever 12 hour period is convenient, then try cutting back to say 9 hours.

Ohk i'll try doing from 10am to 10pm

Thanks! :bounce: