Is there algae growing in your fish tank?
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Thankfully the most common reasons people are having algae problems in their fish tank are things that are easy to fix.
First, placement, you want to make sure that your tank isn’t in direct sunlight. This is usually the cause of most algae problems I see. The sun will make the algae population increase dramatically.
The norm for light length should be around 10-12 hours a day. For plants there are many other factors to take in to consideration.
Besides light the second most important ingredient that contributes to algae growth is food. The nutrients that helps algae grow comes from many sources, but one of the most important is your fishes food that’s left over after a feeding session.
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Temperature plays a huge roll in algae growth. If you find that the temperature in your fish tank is higher then what it needs to be turn it down, but you or have to be careful when turning the heat down, you have to do it gradually or you could shock the fish and kill them.
One of the best things that you can do to combat algae problems in your fish tank is to have an algae eater. You can get a pleco if you own a pond, but other then that I would get one. For a fish tank I would say get a oto cat, or Chinese algae eater. The Chinese algae eater is said to get up to 11” but I think that that is more of legend, the biggest I have ever seen is about 5 inches long. But if you are worried I would just recommend that you get an oto cat, they get about 2-3 inches max.
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I have small goldfish and have recently had massive aglae problems. I changed the light which was old and that fixed the problem somewhat but I still get tons of algae on the gravel whenever I move it around it goes flying everywhere. I recently changed from small gravel to large gravel and can this be the cause of all the algae? Is it that the small fish cannot move the gravel adequately with their mouths to get the food that falls between it and the excess food is rotting and contributing to the increased algae growth? I keep the light on about 9 hours a day and the tank is not in direct sunlight and I do have a very small pleco (the tank is only 10 gallons).
Thanks for the comment!
I would have to agree with you and say that it’s the excess food falling into the gravel that is possibly causing your problem. I only say this since this is the only thing that you have really changed other then the light.
You mentioned that you have goldfish and with that I would remove any heater that you may have going. They are not tropical fish and so you may just get lucky enough with only having to remove the heater.
I recommend that you cut back on the food a little for the next week or two and see if the algae problem persists. By waiting you will be able to see if the gravel and the food are really the problem and that way you will be able to find out if weather or not you should switch back to the other gravel or a small pebble size.
P.s The beneficial bacteria that was growing amongst the old gravel have greatly been depleted since you added new gravel, so even if the food is not the issue I would be willing to bet that the algae is from this fact as well. I would say that you should wait about 2-3 weeks for the tank to reach a stable state again and then if the issue persists that we should start looking at other possible causes.
Thanks again for the comment and keep them coming!
-Mark