Staghorn Algae ?

GeorgeI said:

Greetings to the group!

I known its been discussed a million times but wanted to ask whether the algae in the pictures is staghorn algae.

I have been starving my livestock which includes 6 Amano shrimps (now in day 3) but they dont see to care much about the algae. Do I persist. Another option is to start dosing Flourish Excel.

Click to expand...

Greetings George! May be Staghorn or some sort of Beard/Brush algae.

I would suggest the following...
1) Patience - if this is a new tank, it goes through initial cycles, not just N but also different sorts of algae. They come and fortunately, mostly go as well.
2) Plant Mass. Judging from the partial tank shots you could use some more fast growers. You may be going for a minimalist scape, that's fine, but initially cramming the tank with some healthy growing plants helps to speed up the cycles mentioned above.
3) Balance - not much info given, but make sure light on one side is balanced out by good plant nutrition (incl CO2) on the other side.
4) Testing - at least initially, getting some readings of N and P can help to understand why things are not going the right way.

Hope that gets you some ideas and stuff for trying out.

Yup, thank you. So, it's a new-ish tank (see my #1) perhaps a bit sparse on plant mass (#2), I would recommend getting some fast(er) growers in there.
It is looking good, but there is always a risk of a downturn if things are not in balance (#3). Note that not all plants will grow successfully without CO2 in harder waters (high pH is an indication). That's not a big problem, instead of demanding plants like hairgrass you can switch to others like Marsilea or Lilaeopsis and see what grows.
Problems (more algae) WILL appear if/when nutrients run out and there is too much light (not sure from image).

The brown alga is definitely staghorn, look kinda cute if you ask me. I was never able to keep them for long.