i have a all sand bottom to my freshwater tank, and green spots grow on the bottom, and are algae that is growing. I just put in the sand on sunday and it is already growing. Any ideas to stop this from happening, or a way to get rid of it. I possed earlier that I am having trouble vacuming it because the sand is sooo light, so vacumung it probably won't be the answer. Just thought I would ask, can't think of a solution to the problem, besdes covering it with a layer of more sand, but that won't work either.
I know that the main advice for keeping nitrates low is to perform some water changes and make sure you are not overfeeding. My problem is that I have a lot of bottom feeders and it is hard for me to gauge how much food making its way to the bottom is too much.
However, I did find something that has helped me to get my nitrate levels down and keep them down. There is a plant called Water Lettuce that floats on the top of the aquarium and it gobbles up excess nitrates that are in your water. My nitrates have stayed at around 5ppm ever since I added three plants to my 55 gallon (in conjunction with reducing feedings a bit and keeping up my 20% weekly water changes). They had been haning around at around 20ppm, even with reduced feeding and some extra water changes. I have not seen any new algae since the nitrates were taken down low.
You can tell how much it is eating up by how many additional little plants appear. They sprout directly off of the original ones. You can either let it keep sprouting new plants until it fills the top of the aquarium, or get rid of the sprouts. You can break them off with your fingers.
My girlfriend also likes the way it looks, so it is not an un-aesthetic choice either.
