OP
OP
I’m also dealing with hair algae. It started a few weeks ago because I neglected to clean the tank for too long. It got pretty bad but I ripped out as much as I could last week and thought I was done with it. The annoying thing is all the bits that are stuck to the gravel. My siphon isn’t strong enough to pull them up and my hands can only do so much; I actually had to straight-up remove a small amount of gravel.
Well now it’s coming back at double speed. I can keep pulling it out, but I would like to address the root cause if it can. I’ve reduced the daylight hours of the tank, and I really don’t think I’m overfeeding (which means I probably am lol) but I’m gonna try to feed less anyway.
Among all the doom and gloom, one bit of good news(!): I figured out how to apply the repashy onto my driftwood, and all the fish loved it. I don’t think my shrimp got to it because it was too out in the open, BUT I finally got confirmation that the otos understand the repashy! I bought it for them in the first place but I could never tell if they were actually getting any. This time I could clearly see them munching on it in broad daylight, alongside the other fish. I think it helped that I had it spread over a larger surface, so the fish didn’t crowd each other.
I have to be careful with feeding because my danios (and platies, but at least THEY’RE supposed to like algae) are pigs and will devour any kind of food I put in there, even if it’s something clearly not theirs, like an algae wafer.
Well now it’s coming back at double speed. I can keep pulling it out, but I would like to address the root cause if it can. I’ve reduced the daylight hours of the tank, and I really don’t think I’m overfeeding (which means I probably am lol) but I’m gonna try to feed less anyway.
Among all the doom and gloom, one bit of good news(!): I figured out how to apply the repashy onto my driftwood, and all the fish loved it. I don’t think my shrimp got to it because it was too out in the open, BUT I finally got confirmation that the otos understand the repashy! I bought it for them in the first place but I could never tell if they were actually getting any. This time I could clearly see them munching on it in broad daylight, alongside the other fish. I think it helped that I had it spread over a larger surface, so the fish didn’t crowd each other.
I have to be careful with feeding because my danios (and platies, but at least THEY’RE supposed to like algae) are pigs and will devour any kind of food I put in there, even if it’s something clearly not theirs, like an algae wafer.
. I’ve realized that my nitrates have been sitting pretty high in general (20ppm, which my test marks as “fine” but I’m learning is NOT), and that that could probably explain the various one-off fish deaths I’ve had over the course of owning the tank. I did a water change two days in a row trying to get it down, and it’s back down to 20 at least now. It’s annoying because I can’t change TOO much water or I’ll throw off the pH, since my tap is at 6.8 and crushed-coral-treated tank water is at 8+.
