Algae Good or bad????

[orion5456]

Algae good or bad? I havea 40 gallon tank that is 3 months[cycled] old. It is at it's max fish wise. I am getting green algae on the back of the tank, and on the bottom gravel. I have read that molly's and platy's need algae. Is this true? I have 3 gold dust mollys, 3 red tail platy's 2 angel, 2 balas 5 cory pandas and 6 tetras and a partrige in a pair tree. I do a 20 % weekly water/vacume change. I have a marine land bio wheel filter and change the filter media every 3 weeks. I have 0 amonia and 0 nitrites. I also do a weekly water chemistry check. So is it good or is it aint???
Thanks in advance, Tony

 

[pinballqueen]

Is it possible you have your tank near a window? That might be causing the algae growth. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have some algae in the tank, but I'm probably not the one to tell you yay or nay, because I've always kept algae-eating critters in my tank, just because I hate how it looks...I think a lot of fish pick at algae, but I have always had problems keeping it under control without the aid of some form of algae-sucking critter in there...

BTW, your balas are gonna outgrow that tank....by a long shot....

 

[Orbitorly]

Yeah agreed with queen. Algae is not bad for your tank, well to much is bad to much of everthing is bad. I always have a algae sucking fish in there. But some other fish do eat algae I think Mollies do to. And SAE's (simiese algae eater) don't let the name fool you, they call them algae eaters but they dont even TOUCH algae.

 

[Botch]

Algae, being plants, is good for your tank. The one exception is blue green algae. Some strains of BGA can even be toxic.

Mollies eat algae. As do cherry barbs, Lake Malawi Mbuna, Flag Fish, and many others.

The true Siamese Algae Eater (Crossocheilus siamensis) does eat algae - it is the only fish I know of that eat red algae. But the false SAE (often labelled SAE and more common in the hobby than the real SAE) does not touch the stuff. There is an interesting article on the difference between the two on The Krib: http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/Algae-Eaters/