i am having a repeating battle with some BBA and staghorn algae good thing its still limited to a certain portion of my tank and havent spread out. the last time i wiped them out completely was by heavy excel dosing in my tank... 3x the dose for 4 days. it cleared it out, but at the expense of my amanos. apparently my amanos dont seem to like eating the stringy staghorn algae would otocinclus catfishes eat them?
would otocinclus eat bba and staghorn algae?
- Thread starter stonedaquarium
- Start date
+1 on jpappy789
I battled black hair algae in my 125 g for month. Not completely gone but 95% better. In my tank, as others have detailed so well before, it was balancing lighting, fertilizer, and for me CO2.
As you mentioned, I've been told Excel works but not without consequences.
I battled black hair algae in my 125 g for month. Not completely gone but 95% better. In my tank, as others have detailed so well before, it was balancing lighting, fertilizer, and for me CO2.
As you mentioned, I've been told Excel works but not without consequences.
myswtsins
Global Moderator
Agree.
Agree, the "balance" fish eat all types of algae.
Of course getting proper balance will deal with your algae issues and should be your overall goal but to answer your question.... Siamese algae eaters (the younger the better and they have to be TRUE ones) and amanos are known to nibble on BBA but you have to keep them pretty hungry because BBA is not very yummy. I do not know of any fish that will eat staghorn.Both algae are known to be brought on by low/fluctuating CO2 levels so that's is the first thing I'd suggest checking out. Good luck!
Amanos worked for me for BBA, and so did SAEs, but for SAEs u want a tank larger than 40 gallons, and get either 1 or more than 3.
thanks for the tips guys... much appreciated... well if oto cats wont really do a good job on staghorn... what do you suggest i do? I tried spot treating this time with excel but not overkilll like the last time... the last time i did was the whole tank treatment. after spot treating i have seen some staghorns turning red on some of my crypts which is a great thing... now i guess the biggest question is how would i prevent staghorn? I reduced my lighting to 4 hours on and 4 hours rest then 4 hours on again. In this process i leave my Co2 on for the whole 12 hours. and my drop checker is reading CO2 (+1) or it turns light green which indicates too much CO2.... still i got a recurrence of staghorn. I also follow EI dosing and included a power head in my 20 gal to control the algae... so far i have been successful in controlling the green spot algae with a phosphate remover which keeps my phosphate levels at 2 to 3 ppm. now it time to battling the comeback of the staghorn... any suggestions is openly welcome and very much appreciated.
mellowvision
Seafood Lover
myswtsins
Global Moderator
Like you are observing staghorn tends to find a favorite spot and stick to it. So what is in that spot? What plants are affected? High flow area? Do you have any pictures of the tank and the affected areas? Staghorn algae is probably the one algae I never found a straight answer to but there are a few possible causes.