Hi all!
This is my first post, so I'll introduce myself first! I'm relatively new, about 8 months, into the whole fishkeeping thing. I started out with a small tank and then quickly moved up to a 55 gal planted. I have an amazon sword, java fern and a "lilaeopsis mauritiana" which I believe is some kind of micro sword. They have been in the tank for approx 6 weeks. I keep a shoal of 16 neons, 2 golden gouramis, 2 dwarf gouramis, 4 siamese algae eaters, 6 pepper cories and 2 singapore fan shrimp. Oh and a token snail that came in with the plants!
Over the past few weeks my rocks, tubing for the air stones, and filter itself is getting covered with an algae. It is also appearing on the glass, but is v easily removed from there with an algae magnet. It's on the amazon sword and the micro sword, but the java fern doesn't seem affected. I initially thought it was brown algae, so I sat it out after research told me that it will just go away. However, it didn't seem to go away. On Friday I decided enough was enough - my lovely rainbow slate had gone from pink/white to various shades of muck, and my green/violet quartz had suffered the same fate :fire: . I took the rocks out and scrubbed them with a nail brush. The algae came off pretty easily :bounce: .
Now, after doing some reading, it sounds more like green spot algae I think. What confirms this in my own head is that I have 4 siamese algae eaters, which I believe eat the brown algae. They seem to sort of skim the plants with this algae but don't really do much to get rid of it at all. I have a token snail which I presume got introduced with the plants, he seems to eat it and forms little patterns around it, but again, it just comes back.
So based on description, what do you think? I will try and post a picture of the plants as I have not touched them yet. It seems to really grow on the surfaces that are exposed to the lights cos when I lifted the rainbow slate cave that I have, the inner surface of it was bright and shiny, while the outer surface had the algae on it. From what I can see, I have several options:
1. Buy some kind of pleco that may help (my fav solution).
2. Keep scrubbing every couple of weeks (not sorting the root problem out).
3. Buy a diatom filter (expensive and again, not sorting the root problem out.
The plants don't seem to be too unhealthy or anything - the microsword is growing some runners, the java fern is reaching upwards and the amazon sword is growing little plants off it. I just don't want to kill any plants. I've nothing special in terms of CO2 or anything like that. Just the air stones really.
Any help is greatly appreciated and sorry for the long post!
Diddle
This is my first post, so I'll introduce myself first! I'm relatively new, about 8 months, into the whole fishkeeping thing. I started out with a small tank and then quickly moved up to a 55 gal planted. I have an amazon sword, java fern and a "lilaeopsis mauritiana" which I believe is some kind of micro sword. They have been in the tank for approx 6 weeks. I keep a shoal of 16 neons, 2 golden gouramis, 2 dwarf gouramis, 4 siamese algae eaters, 6 pepper cories and 2 singapore fan shrimp. Oh and a token snail that came in with the plants!
Over the past few weeks my rocks, tubing for the air stones, and filter itself is getting covered with an algae. It is also appearing on the glass, but is v easily removed from there with an algae magnet. It's on the amazon sword and the micro sword, but the java fern doesn't seem affected. I initially thought it was brown algae, so I sat it out after research told me that it will just go away. However, it didn't seem to go away. On Friday I decided enough was enough - my lovely rainbow slate had gone from pink/white to various shades of muck, and my green/violet quartz had suffered the same fate :fire: . I took the rocks out and scrubbed them with a nail brush. The algae came off pretty easily :bounce: .
Now, after doing some reading, it sounds more like green spot algae I think. What confirms this in my own head is that I have 4 siamese algae eaters, which I believe eat the brown algae. They seem to sort of skim the plants with this algae but don't really do much to get rid of it at all. I have a token snail which I presume got introduced with the plants, he seems to eat it and forms little patterns around it, but again, it just comes back.
So based on description, what do you think? I will try and post a picture of the plants as I have not touched them yet. It seems to really grow on the surfaces that are exposed to the lights cos when I lifted the rainbow slate cave that I have, the inner surface of it was bright and shiny, while the outer surface had the algae on it. From what I can see, I have several options:
1. Buy some kind of pleco that may help (my fav solution).
2. Keep scrubbing every couple of weeks (not sorting the root problem out).
3. Buy a diatom filter (expensive and again, not sorting the root problem out.
The plants don't seem to be too unhealthy or anything - the microsword is growing some runners, the java fern is reaching upwards and the amazon sword is growing little plants off it. I just don't want to kill any plants. I've nothing special in terms of CO2 or anything like that. Just the air stones really.
Any help is greatly appreciated and sorry for the long post!
Diddle