How do you get rid of Algae in tropical tank?

[Knomeo]

Hi,
We recently got a 64litre tropical tank. We have stocked it with 3 gurami's, 10 tetra's, 7 male guppies (2 varieties) & 10 cherry shrimp. Over the past 3 weeks the tank has become quite full of brown type algae sticking to the glass, ornaments & plants. The cherry shrimp have helped with the stones to some degree but after 10 days the glass and ornaments are really unsightly again after removing them and cleaning them 4 days ago. We were thinking we may need to get something else, could we get a Pleco with the other fish & shrimp or what else should we look at??? Many Thanks

 

[bluemalawi]

A bristlenose pleco would be a good option in your case IMO, they only grow to a few inches and should leave your shrimp alone if well fed. Also make sure you aren't overfeeding, and your lighting isn't too bright. Those are two of the most common causes of excess algae growth. A general rule for lighting is 1-2 watts per gallon if it's not a planted tank, and 2-5 if planted.

 

[bluemalawi]

A Bristlenose in a 64 Liter tank is pretty marginal though. Especially since your tank is already borderline overstocked. You might look into some larger snails.

 

[dougall]

You could just wait it out, the diatoms/brown algae should die off once the supply of available diatoms in the water column has been used up.

If I did insist on throwing livestock at the problem, maybe nerite snails or Otocinclus catfish... Just have a plan for feeding them when this food source is gone and keep an eye on your bioload/nitrogen compounds.

 

[Steebs]

After taking a great deal of time in preparing my new planted aquarium I sat back and enjoyed the plant growth. Sadly I ended up with another growth. Algae!! I was going to go down the track of chemically treating the water, but I avoided that for fear it may harm the fish when they were added.

Until the tank was ready to add fish, 3 months later, I would siphon off the weekly water-changes, drawing the siphon hose over everything in the tank, careful not to disrupt anything.

Eventually sick of the Algae problem, I took to good old google for answers. It said that Mollies love algae. I didn't have mollies, but a close relation, Platys' As my small tank was becoming crowded, lets say due to randy pairs of platys, I chose to take three of the females, and one of the males from my old tank. Within a week there was a significant reduction of the algae levels. Following week, I moved almost all of the platys over. Now, some two months later, the tank is virtually algae free.

It seems part of the reason is that in my area there are still a lot of lead and copper water pipes. To protect we humans from the problems of lead leeching into the drinking water, the utility companies regularly flush the pipes with a calcium phosphate solution. This form a protective barrier by all accounts. I have now added JBL Phosex Ultra to my filter which has reduced the resurgence significantly.

Hope my post helps a little.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Sunnydays17]

Tetra sells a good algae control formula. I used it for my 20 gal. and it worked right away. Also snails and plecos love to eat it so mabye get a couple of them.