I Have A 40 Breeder With A Gt And A Small Belly Crawler Pike, And Lots Of Algae. What Do I Want? Just A Common And Return Him When He Is Too Big? Also In My 30 Long With A Jack Dempsey (only About 3") What Do I Want In There? I Tried A Small Bushynose, But He Is Now Dead. Need Your Advice.
Need A Cleanup Crew
- Thread starter csm84
- Start date
With aggressive fish, the best cleaner will be you Control the nutrients going in to reduce what's available for the algaes, monitor feeding and remove what goes uneaten, and clean the tank frequently. Aggressive fish that kill others mean more work for you, no way around it.
Yup. You can also shorten the time your lights are on and make sure no direct sunlight reaches the tank.
Biggest reason Ive found so far to an algae problem is due to excessive sunlight.
No matter how far away from the window, if your tank is getting lit up by the sun you are gonna have an algae problem.
I had a 55g that sat 10 feet from a window that recieved direct sunlight and had problems. Even though the tank didn't get lit up by the sun, just being "in" the sun caused problems.
If this can't be avoided you will need to step up tank cleanings and reduce "lights on" times.
As for your rocks and driftwood.....good luck.
The best setup for a tank is a location where the tank gets NO sunlight at all. Im talking a place where the only light the tank sees is light from a light switch or actually turning the tank lights on manually. If you have any sunlight at all getting into the tank, you are going to battle the algae problem to varying degrees.
No matter how far away from the window, if your tank is getting lit up by the sun you are gonna have an algae problem.
I had a 55g that sat 10 feet from a window that recieved direct sunlight and had problems. Even though the tank didn't get lit up by the sun, just being "in" the sun caused problems.
If this can't be avoided you will need to step up tank cleanings and reduce "lights on" times.
As for your rocks and driftwood.....good luck.
The best setup for a tank is a location where the tank gets NO sunlight at all. Im talking a place where the only light the tank sees is light from a light switch or actually turning the tank lights on manually. If you have any sunlight at all getting into the tank, you are going to battle the algae problem to varying degrees.
Sunlight is only a problem if the tank nutrient levels are too high. My tanks get direct sunlight and have minimal algae problems. I stock lightly and do weekly water changes to keep nitrate low.
The only tank I have that doesn't get direct sunlight is the one at work. I don't have algae issues in any of the tanks, because nutrient control is very effective at controlling algae. The bigger concern with direct sunlight is that it will increase temperautes.