my roommate has a 10 gallon tank.
in it, lives one female betta, and two black mystery snails.
small gravel substrate, whisper filter, and lots of plants (about as many as you could put in a tank that small.. all these plants are short clippings of two larger plants, mostly under a few inches tall for now.)
now.. she used to leave the light on almost all the time, until i moved in and told her that's what was causing the algea on the glass. so she started turning the light off at night.
however, there's the weirdest hair algea (i assume that's what it is) i have ever seen on all of her plants. It's VERY fine, (moreso than "regular" hair algea) almost like spiders web fineness, but there's a TON of it.. and it strings from one plant to another and its very unattractive. and it sticks to itself so it looks like green slime or something.. its gross.
we'd rather not put chemicals in the tank, particularly since its such a small tank.. and we'd rather not take the plants out of the tank because they're just recently getting rooted well in the gravel.
so my question is, what is this junk and what can i get that's small enough to fit in there and eat it? the snails apparently dont like it.. or at the very least cant keep up with it.
i just stuck my hand in there and wiped it off the leaves with my fingers and let it get sucked up into the filter.. now i wish i had taken a picture before i got the bulk of it off, but i'm sure it'll grow back soon and i'll take a picture then.
please help!
in it, lives one female betta, and two black mystery snails.
small gravel substrate, whisper filter, and lots of plants (about as many as you could put in a tank that small.. all these plants are short clippings of two larger plants, mostly under a few inches tall for now.)
now.. she used to leave the light on almost all the time, until i moved in and told her that's what was causing the algea on the glass. so she started turning the light off at night.
however, there's the weirdest hair algea (i assume that's what it is) i have ever seen on all of her plants. It's VERY fine, (moreso than "regular" hair algea) almost like spiders web fineness, but there's a TON of it.. and it strings from one plant to another and its very unattractive. and it sticks to itself so it looks like green slime or something.. its gross.
we'd rather not put chemicals in the tank, particularly since its such a small tank.. and we'd rather not take the plants out of the tank because they're just recently getting rooted well in the gravel.
so my question is, what is this junk and what can i get that's small enough to fit in there and eat it? the snails apparently dont like it.. or at the very least cant keep up with it.
i just stuck my hand in there and wiped it off the leaves with my fingers and let it get sucked up into the filter.. now i wish i had taken a picture before i got the bulk of it off, but i'm sure it'll grow back soon and i'll take a picture then.
please help!
