New Planted tank

[vassilios]

Hello to all,

Ok I have a 55g glass tank with two pairs of german blue rams a male kribensis two platies, and two zebra danios. Fish are doing fine minus the few macho shows i get from my males. I decided to put in plants again, but this time I started slow. I put in two bunches of amazon swords and on a piece of rootwood i have some java moss growing. I only have the light on for 7 hours, but i manage to get the worse algae all the time. I mean I cant even enjoy looking at my fish tank by the end of the week. I end up now doing a water change every saturday with a scrub down of algae off the tank. I bought this solution now which is a blackwater conditioner which dude at LFS told me will help. Anybody please got any tips for this algae i cant get rid of. Its like a messy divorce and the algae wants everything : ) Thank you to all who will help and read this.

 

[Discomafia]

any natural sunlight facing the tank? Can you specify wt kind of algea you are suffering from?

This site provides some basic tips,

http/www.aquamaniacs.net/algae.html

This site has pics and helpful remedies...

http/www.otocinclus.com/articles/algae.html

And here's some advice which I took from a member of this forum, that has really helped rid my tank of algea

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=60010&hl=

HTH

 

[smithrc]

your water changes might be causing problems... there are more phosphates in the tap water your adding. this may cause the algea problem.

you very lightly stocked so water changes in there could be very low indeed (6-8 weeks, maybe more)

what are your nitrate levels like before you do a water change?

and as a bonus the more plants you have, the more nitrates that are used.

water changes might not be needed at all (to control nitrates anyway)

 

[Da_Oz]

More plants less water. If algae is growing you got more room for plants. Also algae can live on about a hour of light a day and plants can't. Algae is a plant in it simplest form. So if a sword needs 12 x's to live that same algae can live off 1 x. So what your goal should be is to get all the x's out to the point where you need to add them and seeing how the swords are there waiting for it the algae can't start to grow to get it. But if you ever see a tank without any algae at all and is over 2 months old ask that person how they do it and tell me. All tanks get algae some just worse than others.

Another thing to do is get something that eats algae. Fish, snail, or shrimp.

 

[vassilios]

Thank you to all you have been such a great help and it means a lot to me

 

[enchanted]

They are all right about what is causing it in the sense of nutrients.

One option that will help is to locate some Hygro or another fast growing heavy nutrient using plant. Once the algae problem becomes under control you could then replace the hygro or whatever plant you get with something you like better or keep it.

http/www.plantgeek.net/plantguide.php

That is a good site for looking up plants and learning about their requirements.