Can someone give me a little algea education?

[Pyramid_Party]

Oh and one more algae is "green water", which is unicellular algae suspended in the water column. Present with high ammonia and lots of light. Some people encourage its growth because it feeds filtering shrimp, clams, daphnia, and even some fish fry.

 

[mr.bigglesworth]

Black beard algae makes me gag. Its disgusting. Like sewage.

Algae is extremely beneficial to the aquarium, it eats fish waste and keeps the aquarium balanced. the only thing negative about it is that it doesn't look good and gets on the glass.

 

[Fat Homer]

I just want to add that algae in a planted tank could be also from over-dosing ferts, or an in-balance in the tanks setup, i.e too much light / ferts, not enough Co2


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[duanes]

There are over 7000 species of green algae, almost 5000 species of red. Although an overload of nutrients is often the cause, simply having a light on too long (or too close to the front glass) , or a little sunlight hitting the tank can create pockets.
I encourage algae growth in my tanks on rocks, wood or the back glass, as it is great food for fry and even adult fish to graze on, and it absorbs unwanted nutrients . The front glass is another story, that's what razor blades and mag floats are for.

I get sun on the back of this tank, covered in algae

made this from piece of PVC and a razor blade for the front glass

 

[Metriacliman]

I've also seen this weird purple/pink algae (which I think would be classified as red?) that someone got by putting vitamins in the tank. It actually looked really cool.

 

[CanadianKeeper]

are we speaking fresh water only ? lol

 

[ksauers]

Yes it is freshwater. It's been set up for about 3 months at most.