Green Algae

Debo

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Hi,
Any info on where this green algae junk comes from that contantly gets on my glass would be appreciated. What can I do to prevent it from re-appearing? It just took me 2 hours to clean the glass. My water levels are perfect and i light my tank 10 hours a day as recommended.
Deb
 
Debo said:
Hi,
Any info on where this green algae junk comes from that contantly gets on my glass would be appreciated. What can I do to prevent it from re-appearing? It just took me 2 hours to clean the glass. My water levels are perfect and i light my tank 10 hours a day as recommended.
Deb
Algea will grow on all the hard surfaces on the tank including rocks, glass etc.

You could try an algea eating fish such as a plec to do some of the hard work for you?
 
I have thought about a Pleco, but I don't think my tank is big enough. It is a 60 gallon Hex tank and has the following in it:
1 clown loach-2 more waiting to go in{they are in a holding tank}
4 cherry barbs
1 red tail shark
7 tiger barbs
2 jilli corys
2 green corys
2 ottos
1 elegance cory

Do you think I have space for a pleco?
Deb
 
>>> 2 ottos

You have algae eating fish right here.
 
Debo said:
I have thought about a Pleco, but I don't think my tank is big enough. It is a 60 gallon Hex tank and has the following in it:
1 clown loach-2 more waiting to go in{they are in a holding tank}
4 cherry barbs
1 red tail shark
7 tiger barbs
2 jilli corys
2 green corys
2 ottos
1 elegance cory

Do you think I have space for a pleco?
Deb
Hmm, probably not (although can I talk - see my sig!!).

I'm not sure whether [fully grown] plexs are suited to hex tanks?
 
>>> ] plexs are suited to hex tanks?

The little ones. Problem with hex tanks is they hold quite a lot of water, but have relatively little surface area. You cannot stock a 60 hex to the same level as a 60 rectangular.

I do wish people would stop trying to calculate their stocking level by volume, always causes problems.
 
>>> 2 ottos

You have algae eating fish right here.

These guys do NOTHING for the glass. They are always hogging down the bottom feeder foods and hiding on the rocks and plants. I need something to heavy duty clean the algae. What kind of pleco do you recommend? I will go get one in the am.
Deb
 
Debo said:
>>> 2 ottos

You have algae eating fish right here.

These guys do NOTHING for the glass. They are always hogging down the bottom feeder foods and hiding on the rocks and plants. I need something to heavy duty clean the algae. What kind of pleco do you recommend? I will go get one in the am.
Deb
I'm not sure - some sub species don't reach the size of others and top out at 6-8cm - I'd try one of them (can't recall their proper name though).
 
Bristle nose pleco is what you want. I have 2 and love the job they do on the algae I have. They get to 5" full grown.

Rose
 
To answer the original question - of where the algae comes from originally, there are green algae spores in the air all the time. They grow in damp soil or still water (leave a jam jar of water in the window for a couple of weeks and it'll grow green algae).
 
About algae.

The algae are many, by the way, but a single one is an "alga" (with a hard g, like "Olga"). Saying "algaes" is like saying "feetses."

"Algae" is a convenient "Other" category that resulted when early biologists threw together as "plants" all the photosynthesizing organisms that made their own food from light, and then removed all the mosses and liverworts and vascular plants, calling the remainder "algae." In the residue were lumped together various photosynthesizers that had no common genealogy, no shared evolutionary history. But "algae" is still a useful working category, like "invertebrates," that other familiar miscellaneous "everything else" pigeonhole.

Biologists identify and set apart the broadest algal groups by the characteristic sets of photosynthetic pigment types each group has in common. Algae use photosynthesizing pigments that are much more various than the narrow selection the "higher" plants inherited from their green algal ancestors. The various chlorophylls are the energy-trapping pigments we're most familiar with, but there are other, auxiliary photosynthetic pigments, like carotenoids. The universally-used photosynthetic chemistry is powered by chlorophyll a. The green algae (Chlorophytes) use chlorophyll b in addition to a. The completely unrelated red algae (Rhodophytes) use no chlorophyll b but manufacture instead some chlorophyll c in addition to their chlorophyll a. So those Rhodophytes are as distinct in their metabolism--— and most probably as unrelated in their genetic history--— from green algae or from Chrysophytes (diatoms) as a Sequoia is from the fungus that grows on its trunk. There's no overlap in the chlorophyll chemistries that identify each group... and probably no shared family history, either. So the algae vary in their most basic biochemistry and the compounds they use for building cell walls and storing energy. Conveniently, the various morphological types of algae divide up pretty much the same way as their differing photosynthetic apparatus suggests.

Why should such biology trivia be of interest to you? Well, for one thing these various chlorophylls each have a slightly different absorption spectrum. So it strikes me that, if one of your tanks has chronic trouble with black brush algae or with cyanobacteria, a fresh fluorescent bulb with a slightly different spectrum might be just enough to tip the scales in favor of the higher plants. Or, fishkeepers have found, sometimes all it takes is switching the lighting in its reflectors between two tanks, without changing a tube, to set back the algae in each tank. If you want to outwit your enemy, it pays to know your enemy.

And now you know algae's dirty secret: algae are not a related group of organisms after all, just a convenient designation for photosynthesizing eucaryotes with cellulose cell walls, whether they are single-celled or form colonial filaments, sheets or spheres, or even the huge multicellular structures (called "thalli") of kelp.

Courtesy of the Skeptical Aquarist.
 

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