tang algae eaters

austinpetemo

AC Members
Sep 25, 2007
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Newton Falls, OH
what cn i put with my multies that will take care of my algae problems? i occationally have green algae but i have terrible brown algae and it refuses to go away. i tried uping the light bcuz i read that brown algae thrives in low light and it hates high lighting so i amped up the light and it is still growing. and very fast. i want to scrape it off but when i do it kills my water quality.
 
Nerites will work if you like snails if not bristelnose plecos should do the job i have them in a few of my shellie setups..
 
Yup I would resist adding a fish just to eat algae myself - if you want to have more fish and have the accomodation for 'em bristlenose plecos are probably best bet though.
 
ive cut down the lights to less than 10 hours a day. its mainly brown algae. the green doesnt bother me bcuz my shellies should eat it. but i dont know about the brown algae. and it is always growing. by that i mean i scrape the front glass every few days.
 
Brown algae is a nuisance algae and is usually caused by a newly setup tank and or high nutrient load, if it is unsightly for you and the tank is a well established tank cut back on feedings and bump up water changes or percentages reduce fish load..

As for me i don't like the brown look as well but i do love the hair algae look and if i could get a tank full of green hair algae i mean the whole tank except the front glass with the hair algae look man i would be so happy, weird huh..

What size tank and what inhabitants besides the multi's do you have going at the moment..
 
ive cut down the lights to less than 10 hours a day.

I would cut down the lights to 7-8 hours a day if you don't have natural plants in the tank. Seven hours would be better IMHO.
 
Scraping off algae SHOULD NOT do anything to your water qulaity. Something else is the problem if you are getting ammonia or nitrite.

What size tank are we talking about? Even with the space adding anything to a cichlid tank is risky. I tried to add a BN to my 55 this past summer and it didn't work from the beginning. The plec got chased right from the start. Luckily, I was able to get him to adapt to my 30 nicely.

How old is the tank? I've found diatoms to be common in tanks up to 6, even 8, months old. They gradually disappear after that.
 
what i meant when i said it distroys the water quality was that it gets floatin around and stirred up and gets nasty.

current stock:
5 multies
5 endlers(they are slowly eating away the algae)
1 fw flounder (yes i realize its a brak fish but i have nowhere else to put him)

its a sand tank and has been setup for about 3 months. i plan to take out the endlers. i just put them in so that they could grow to adult size b4 i put them back in there tank plus i was hoping they would help control the algae some.
 
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