I have just set up a new planted tank, low light and low tech. It has a gravel covered soil substrate and is currently planted with 2 dwarf hygro and then a mixture of ludwigia repens cuttings (from my othe tank) and hygrophila "big leaf", again as cuttings from my other tank, and 2 bunches of java moss (which are just starting to show fresh green "buds"). It also has bunches of elodea and hornwort floating in there to mop up early excess nutrients before the plants et established. The tank has a small filter (fluval mini) but since this is a tank for plants only, it is mainly for water movement. Nonetheless, I put a small piece of cycled sponge in (about 1/3 of the total sponge) as I thought it couldn't hurt, given the shrimps presence.
It has been set up for only 3 days now but I have noticed that there is algae growing in there. The elodea is the plant that is most targetted it seems, but the other cuttings have little bits on too. I will describe the algae in a minute, but first where it came from... It obviously came in on the elodea that I took from the other tank. I never paid too mucha ttention to that plant as I only use it as floating cover for a dwarf gourami, but in the OLD tank it also has a covering of this short algae on it. Despite my best efforts to thoroughly clean the cuttings, it seems to have got in there. It has definitely hitch hiked in on the elodea, which I just plonked in.
Anyway, onto the algae itself. I am not sure what kind of algae it is. At first I thought hair algae, as it is whispy and thin, but then I noticed it wasn't green, even when out of the water. In fact, it is a sort of dark grey colour. The pieces are short and branched, and under the microscope they retain the grey colour. The strands do not have nodes, and there doesn't even appear to be any segmentation at the branches. Each whispy strand is around 2-5mm long, and branches multiple time, and evn the brances also branch. It looks very different microscopically to green hair algae (of which I got a sample from a friend). I was thinking maybe it is staghorn algae, although all pictures on the internet make it hard to differentiate between pictures of hair algae, and staghorn. Also, the pictures don't look like the algae I have!
I have manually removed (it comes off leaves OK, it isn't easy, but if you pull the algae comes off before the leaf does) it from the ludiwigia and hygro as best I can, but there is so much on the elodea it is a losing battle!
Here are my questions. What kind of algae might this be? How can it be controlled? Since I am dumping the elodea as soon as the cuttings have settled in and started growing, should I not even worry? Will the growing cuttings outcompete the algae eventually?
Finally, there are 3 amano shrimps in the tank, which seem to ignore this algae, and the water paramaters are as follows (this is all I can test for with the test kit I have, API master test) pH - 7.4, ammonia - 0-0.25 (or very close to zero, maybe a VERY slight green tint?), nitrite - 0.25 and nitrate - 10ppm. These readings are for the new tank, where this is a bad problem! The tank has not been fertilised.
Any help would be much appreciated!
It has been set up for only 3 days now but I have noticed that there is algae growing in there. The elodea is the plant that is most targetted it seems, but the other cuttings have little bits on too. I will describe the algae in a minute, but first where it came from... It obviously came in on the elodea that I took from the other tank. I never paid too mucha ttention to that plant as I only use it as floating cover for a dwarf gourami, but in the OLD tank it also has a covering of this short algae on it. Despite my best efforts to thoroughly clean the cuttings, it seems to have got in there. It has definitely hitch hiked in on the elodea, which I just plonked in.
Anyway, onto the algae itself. I am not sure what kind of algae it is. At first I thought hair algae, as it is whispy and thin, but then I noticed it wasn't green, even when out of the water. In fact, it is a sort of dark grey colour. The pieces are short and branched, and under the microscope they retain the grey colour. The strands do not have nodes, and there doesn't even appear to be any segmentation at the branches. Each whispy strand is around 2-5mm long, and branches multiple time, and evn the brances also branch. It looks very different microscopically to green hair algae (of which I got a sample from a friend). I was thinking maybe it is staghorn algae, although all pictures on the internet make it hard to differentiate between pictures of hair algae, and staghorn. Also, the pictures don't look like the algae I have!
I have manually removed (it comes off leaves OK, it isn't easy, but if you pull the algae comes off before the leaf does) it from the ludiwigia and hygro as best I can, but there is so much on the elodea it is a losing battle!
Here are my questions. What kind of algae might this be? How can it be controlled? Since I am dumping the elodea as soon as the cuttings have settled in and started growing, should I not even worry? Will the growing cuttings outcompete the algae eventually?
Finally, there are 3 amano shrimps in the tank, which seem to ignore this algae, and the water paramaters are as follows (this is all I can test for with the test kit I have, API master test) pH - 7.4, ammonia - 0-0.25 (or very close to zero, maybe a VERY slight green tint?), nitrite - 0.25 and nitrate - 10ppm. These readings are for the new tank, where this is a bad problem! The tank has not been fertilised.
Any help would be much appreciated!
