10 gallon dwarf puffer aquarium problem. Algae everywhere.

[Mr. Crayfish the great]

I have a 10 gallon aquarium with 3 dwarf puffers ( I insisted on 1, but someone bought me 3 anyway) and an amano shrimp. Its been a few weeks and there is hair algae EVERYWHERE. Not only that, but my amano is eating it and pooping everywhere! I have a Fluval C2 (rated 15-30 gallons) on the aquarium. I do not use CO2 or fertilizers.




What can I do to get rid of the algae. Do I need different equipment? Fertilizers? CO2? If so, what do you recommend?

 

[fishorama]

For hair algae removal I use a toothpick, toothbrush or a q-tip to swirl around it. Repeat often! It's not the hardest algae to remove...it does take diligence.

1 Amano should not poop so much that it's an issue...maybe it's eating hair alga & crapping a lot? How often do you change water & vacuum? What are your parameters for nitrite, ammonia & nitrate?

 

[FreshyFresh]

To to add to fishorama's advice, I would up your water change frequency and amount changed and I would reduce the amount of time your lights our on. Too much light or too much nutrients can cause excessive algae.

 

[Mr. Crayfish the great]

1 Amano should not poop so much that it's an issue...maybe it's eating hair alga & crapping a lot? How often do you change water & vacuum? What are your parameters for nitrite, ammonia & nitrate?

The Amano is constantly eating the abundant food. I vacuum around 40-50% of the water out weekly. Parameters are as follow:
PH: 7
GH: Soft
KH: Low-ish
Ammonia: ? I don't have a test for it.
Nitrate:0
Nitrates: 0-10

I hope this helps!

 

[fishorama]

How much & how often do you feed the puffers? Do you mean the shrimp is eating leftover puffer food, algae or do you feed it its own food? It does need anything special. Try reducing the amount & frequency you feed the fish, at least for a while.

FF is right, 6 hours is plenty of light.

 

[Mr. Crayfish the great]

There's a problem with that. There is one puffer who will not eat enough, so I must feed daily. The amano is ONLY eating the algae because the puffers eat everything else.

6 hours is enough for a planted tank (Val, java fern, sword plant)?

 

[fishorama]

6 or 7 hours is enough for those plants IME

 

[jm1212]

your pH is 7, and your KH and GH are soft...are you running a water softener?

potassium chloride is a frequently used salt in water softener setups (besides sodium chloride). in solution, the KCl will cause an influx of potassium in the water which *will* cause an algae bloom. as a biologist we see it all of the time with fertilizer runoff from farms in lakes and rivers.

if this is the case, you actually won't see any benefit from water changes. if you want to keep a planted tank, you'll probably need to dose ferts that will allow the plants to "take over" the major nutrient consumption. I think Flourish Excel is still around, which is what I would use if I was in your predicament.