I have brown algae all over my glass and rocks of my planted tank. Would a Siamese algae eater or bulldog catfish/pleco do the job?
Algae eater for planted tank
- Thread starter fish042099
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Wipe it by hand, and cut back on the time the lights are on to 6 hours or so. I use red marble bristlenose plecos, they are the hardest workers, and I have tried quite a few "algae eating fish". They are the best, and seem to be more active.
I have a heavy planted tank and the red marbled bristle nose they do not touch the plants. Every few days feed them a zucchini slice, you can anchor it with a fork, or use algae wafers/sticks.
In that particular tank I don't have large fish, but my clean up crew consists of Cherry Shrimp, Nerites, and 3 Red Marbled Bristle nose, I have no algae with this crew, and I do 20% water changes every week and do use seachem excel carbon, which I believe helps growth of plants and hurts growth of algae. The only time I get algae is when I notice my plants are not looking as good as I could be, and I add osmocote pellets and they don't get down far enough down in the substrate, only fert I use. The plecos take care of the unattractive green, I see them sucking on the crypts hard at work. I only recommend red marbled, over the regular because the regular are more lazy from my experience, also get larger.
Here is a picture of my tank.. looks better in person, I don't have a good camera, and no smartphone. lol
In that particular tank I don't have large fish, but my clean up crew consists of Cherry Shrimp, Nerites, and 3 Red Marbled Bristle nose, I have no algae with this crew, and I do 20% water changes every week and do use seachem excel carbon, which I believe helps growth of plants and hurts growth of algae. The only time I get algae is when I notice my plants are not looking as good as I could be, and I add osmocote pellets and they don't get down far enough down in the substrate, only fert I use. The plecos take care of the unattractive green, I see them sucking on the crypts hard at work. I only recommend red marbled, over the regular because the regular are more lazy from my experience, also get larger.
Here is a picture of my tank.. looks better in person, I don't have a good camera, and no smartphone. lol
I heard moss balls outcompete algae, might get a few more of those as well as a couple bristlenose cats, they sound good.
Also give sea chem excel carbon a try, I think you will be happy with the result. If you just do a google search for seachem excel algae killer you will see other planted tank keepers also saw a decrease in algae when using excel carbon. In that tank I use t5 lighting 6700k fluorite chips capped with gravel. All I use for dose is excel carbon, a few times a week, tetra flora pride to bring out some reds, although it isn't needed, and osmocote pellets pushed into the substrate to help the crypts grow like crazy. Good luck, and keep me posted, if you have any questions send a pm. I have a method that works for me. I recommend it to all my local aquarium buddies and I stick to it. I do want to try a dirt tank capped with gravel, I believe a good substrate is one of the most important things when keeping plants. If the leaves melt or something happens, they will come back faster in a good substrate, vs. if you run them in just gravel or sand.