Algae in tank

[matttamar]

Hi everyone, I set up a 40 gal tank for my sister and there is algae growing everywhere. It is fast growing and starting to spread. Does anyone know what kind it is and how to get rid of it.

 

[ibanez]

Hair algae, and how to remove it is a long story. First, don't use tap water, don't overfeed, as close to weekly water changes as you can do, manually remove it by scrubbing with a toothbrush and sucking it out during water changes. Turbo snails have been known to eat it. It is caused by phosphates (which come from fish waste, fish food, and I have heard soap on your hands) and nitrates. Neither of which will probably be present in your system because the hair algae is consuming it as rapidly as it is made.

 

[matttamar]

I forgot to mention there are no fish in the tank. Just a standard clean up crew, snails, crabs etc..... and two pepermint shrimp.

 

[ibanez]

Are you using tap water? or RO/DI, or distilled water?

 

[matttamar]

Just tap water. I tried talking her into an ro/di system but they dont want to spend the money on that.

 

[ibanez]

Sound like that is the problem, if you don't even have any fish in there, unless they are feeding the clean up crew. An RO/DI unit is well worth it, show them a picture of someones tank that is covered in hair algae and ask them if that is what they want their tank to look like. Don't let them be talked into buying a lawnmower blenny either, some won't even eat the longer hair algae, mine being one of them.

 

[matttamar]

Thank you for the advice. I do have one more question, she bought a royal gramma from a fish store against my advice, it had just come off the plane and of course it killed everything in her tank with ich. How long should we wait before they get fish again

 

[don1234]

Six to eight weeks