Pictures - Brown algae nightmare

[Watcher74]

Ok, so here are some shots of my 10 gallon tank.

Been set up for 6 months now.

2 Cory Julii, 1 Betta

Fed lightly every other day. A small sprinkle of Betta Pellets(like around 5-8) and 2/3 of a TetraMin Tropical Tablets.

Water turn over 9 times an hour.

This is 14 days worth of growth. And I have to scrub everything out, replace 70% of the water, etc.

My water reports show very little phosphate, nitrate, practically everything but carbonates/bicarbonates.

What can I do? I hate this tank.

My 29 gallon doesn't behave anything like this.

 

[sky.eyes.woman]

What kind of substrate is that?

 

[dave76]

You need a Siamese Algea eater, they love brown algae and are non agressive, If otos like brown algea they might be a better choice they are smaller and very peaceful.

 

[Watcher74]

Inert black aquarium gravel.

The uncovered ones look blue in the picture, but everything is lighter in these pictures. The tank looks twice as bad in real life.

 

[Avenolpey]

Are those real plants.? How much and what spectrum lighting?

 

[Watcher74]

No live plants. I know that plants would help.

I have the lights that came with the tank. No markings on the bulb so I don't know the wattage or spectrum. But it is definetly not for a planted tank.

 

[mishi8]

I have a zebra snail (neritina natalensis) in my 10gal, and it does nothing but eat the brown algae off everything (doesn't appear to touch flake food or algae wafers.) The very moment I put him in the tank he got to work scraping off the algae! Zebra snails are supposed to be good in planted tanks as well (don't eat plants), I wouldn't know, though, since I keep only the plastic and silk variety.

 

[JosephMCorbett]

A Farlowella (Twig Catfish) works wonders. Mine never stops eating and keeps my 125 relatively clean of brown algae. There are places he can't get to that still have algae on it, but I can live with it. They get around 5-7 inches, but they are as thin as a twig (pun intended) and would do fine in a ten gallon. I recommend him because I've never seen anything eat like he does...I'm not kidding, he never stops.

 

[Kissofthegorami]

Otos eat mainly brown algae. Do lots of water changes. 2-3 Otos would do great in your tank. Siamese algae eaters are too big for your tank.

 

[montanaxvi]

how about a mystery snail or two?

I dropped some in my 10 gallong betta tank and the algae has all but diaspearred.

they are champs at cleaning up the tank.