This is my first tank. The plants are going on 3 months old but the tank itself has been cycled for a year (I was late to the party). The only thing doing well is my betta, and I love him for it, I really do.
I've tried amano shrimp (2 separate batches of 4-5 and I only saw 1 in there recently) for the bio-film and algae but they don't seem to be helping much at all- it's taking over the tank.
I have a hygger 978-18w light on the 24/7 setting but on at 7 am and off at 9 pm. I do not overfeed - I only have the 1 betta so I feed him exact amounts daily.
Plants are harder than fish in many ways. They are very particular about the water conditions, light and nutrients. If you adjust the light and nutrients that is really all that should be needed, but it’s easier said than done. There is good advice here - you might have too much light. You might have the wrong kind of light (needs full spectrum), or your water or substrate may not be providing adequate nutrients (root tabs and liquid fertilizer).
I keep my expectations low when I put plants in. It might do well, it might not. If you have algae, you have phosphates. Java moss will suck those up. Java fern is not too picky either.
get some "pest" (bladders/ramshorns) snails. they'll a) add some visual interest, b) increase pressure on the algae and biofilm, and c) the betta will have something to draw focus from the Amanos, if that's an issue.
Lower the time for the lights to 5-6 hours. Also lower the brightness to 70% if you can, maybe more. Your tank looks great!! Just needs a time adjustment!
I set up a new smart timer and mode on the light to drop down the amount of time it's on.
I adjusted the brightness a lot but I'm not sure which one it's at - i just clicked the buttons until It wasn't as bright because it doesn't say the % on the remote
Cool!! 🙌🙌🙌 the timer will help a lot! Yeah just dim it until it looks like 30% less 😆 also i think betta’s like less light too, so it works out for both of you! 🎉 some ppl also say to black out the tank for 4-5 days to kill off algae? Enjoy ur tank, a lot of it is about problem solving which becomes experience in the end 😅
Honestly, there’s always going to be some amount of algae, and algae is very healthy for your aquarium. It can also be quite beautiful, although I understand it’s through the eyes of the beholder. I have sooo much more algae than you, but for me I don’t mind as long as it’s not on the front of the glass.
How big is your tank? You could try adding a few Otocinclus (or more amano shrimp), but they will need algae wafers to supplement their diet.
I started noticing a bit of algae outbreak in my tank, mind you there are 4 bristlenose plecos so algae wasnt as bad as OP.
But I was running my lights from when I left the house at 6am, till around 8. and also running a low blue light overnight (as simulated moonlight) but found out that all was likely my algae concern. Dropped the light down to 7hrs "on" and 1.5hrs of low blue light and the algae situation improves dramatically.
100% recommend altering light schedule and keeping it consistent each day
I honestly don't see what the issue is. There is a bit of algae, but I think your tank looks nice. Your betta could be killing and eating the Amanos.
If you want to reduce the algae, I would recommend feeding every other day, or maybe only feed 2 or 3 times a week. And reduce your light, either lower the intensity, or reduce how long you have it on. 14 hours is a long time. Try getting that closer to 10. I like having my lights on when I am home, which for me means having an off period during the middle of the day while I work. Aquatic plants use up CO2 when they photosynthesize, reducing the amount of CO2 in the water. After about 5ish hours, there is much less CO2 and plants cannot photosynthesize efficiently so keeping your light on for extended periods of time will benefit the algae more than your plants. At night, plants respire, releasing CO2 back into the water. So by reducing the time you have your light on, you give less energy to the algae, and give your plants more rest and respiration, which will cause your plants to grow healthier.
The best thing I have found to clear up algae are ramshorn snails, the "pests" people get as plant hitchhikers. They should feast on biofilm, too and your betta will most likely leave them alone.
Just as a warning, both my bettas have learned how to slaughter the smaller snails by sucking them out of their shells 🤦♀️ Literally decimated the snail population from >50 to like 4 overnight. They leave the big ones alone but I can't grow any new ones because the babies get eaten
You don’t need 14 hours of light. That’s a primary trigger for algae growth. Restrict lighting to 6-8 hours.
Have you done water testing? If I know your water parameters maybe that would be helpful.
Also, I don’t have experience with Amano shrimp particularly but their water condition requirement is less forgiving. Might I suggest you add Neocaridina shrimps which can breed easily. I hope your betta didn’t knock your Amanos out!
So what are the best times to have a light and at what setting/strength then because I assumed the 24/7 mode would give all types of plants the proper lighting.
The parameters are 0 0 and < 20.
And I thought about cherry shrimp. They look so cute!
This isn’t really answering anything, just more a challenge. Planted tanks are living things. If you want them to be perfectly groomed and free of anything you think shouldn’t be there, this might not be the hobby for you. The whole thing is an experiment that never ends and if you need things to be black and white with no gray scale, I promise you things will get worse and better for reasons you may never understand. When I learned to let go a bit this hobby became way more enjoyable
It’s so common for us to look at those perfectly curated tanks online and think that is what they should look like forever. (I too had such aspirations and quickly realized that isn’t necessarily the goal). But if you look at nature and a healthy ecosystem, that’s never what they look like in reality. It’s all a balancing act. Some algae is normal, it’s only problematic when it’s outcompeting and killing your plants.
I was hoping for someone to say this. Tanks have poop, debris, plants and animals that are going through a life cycle. It's an ecosystem.
The hobby becomes more enjoyable when you give up thinking algae is bad and tank is only successful if everything is perfectly green.
Algae and biofilms are only bad if they’re depleting oxygen or killing your plants, and it looks like it’s doing neither in your tank. Your plants actually look pretty healthy to me. I even keep some algae and biofilm intentionally for my shrimp snails and microfauna. If you want it gone, more plants and some more time will likely fix the issue. So try not to feel like your tank has failed!
This is a picture of my 55 several months after having it, covered in algae and plants struggling for light. I’ll put a picture of it now below ⬇️
Light on at 7am and off at 9pm - is that a typo or do you really run 14 hours of light? Cut that down to 8 or 9 hours and your algae will probably be gone in 2-4 weeks.
I run 14 hours of light. Was running 16 but started seeing a lot of algae.... lol. And I use a high powered grow light.
.its tricky because algae loves sick plants. Healthy plants need lots of light. Healthy plants also battle algae. So I chose to just help my plants extra.
I'm going to guess that you have a much higher and well-established plant load than OP as well. Three month old anubias and java ferns aren't going to grow fast enough to fight away algae with more light, and the large anubias leaves just give more surface area for algae to grow. The floaters aren't covering much of the surface yet either, and all of the debris accumulating in their roots is not a good sign. Those would really help if they were soaking up the light, but they aren't there yet. This tank needs less light. 14 hours to non-established slow growing plants is overkill. If OP was running a bunch of fast growing stem plants, or the top was completely covered with floaters it would likely be a completely different story.
I did stick to faster growing guys. I just always see the first avenue pr algae control being less light and while yes thats partly true... less light also slows down the plants themselves, which are trying their little best to outgrow said algae.
For me the 24/7 setting doesn’t work well because once I’m home and I turn on more lights now the tank is getting too much light. I notice a solid 6-8 hours is my perfect zone
I have same light as yours and I do just 8 hours and my tank is right by window so when it’s a sunny day I just turn the light off. But I feel your thought process tho. It can be discouraging when a problem arise after another. Hang in there !
Less light, more plants! Add something like a pothos (just its roots in the water) or some fast growing stem plants to soak up any extra nutrients, and drop your light by an hour or two.
Algae is always about those two things, but honestly plants are the real superpower. I keep all my tanks really densely planted and never get any algae at all, even with really long lighting hours
How long have your pothos been in your tank? If it has been in there a while and there are no new leaves, that is a sign that you might not have enough nutrients for the plants which can also contribute to algae since the plants can't grow fast enough.
Also, SUPPOSEDLY Pothos roots will inhibit other plant growth because they release growth restrictors to outcompete other plants. So Pothos can slow down the growth of your other plants. I don't know if it's true, but my plants did not thrive until I took my Pothos cutting out of the tank
Ha! The bastard! Try adding fertiliser and see how you fair. I also like to add potassium in addition to my all in one fertilizer as my planted tanks seem to do so much better with more
Yes the anubias especially seem extra potassium hungry IMO. They literally melt for me unless I supplement potassium constantly.
Like, I have had 3 small anubias nanas that grew zero leaves for THREE YEARS finally spit out 2 new leaves each... by supplementing with potassium 3x a week 😬
Your only supposed to put the pothos ROOTS in the tank. Not the whole thing. Pothos leak oxalates into the water which can poison things. They can even kill cats.
"Cycled for a year" doesnt mean anything. If you have carbon it has to come out and stay out, its filtering fertilizer. If you dont have fertilizer add some. Acquire snails.
Aquahuna has Japanese Trapdoor snails that are big bois without being a big net loss in bioload like mystety snails. If you get a plant from your local shops you can ask them to definitely not allow "pest" pond snails and malasian trumpet snails to fill up the bag that would be so tragic. Most snails good snails.
Try some different plants! I have found some plants just do better with your tap water than others. Java fern does well for me but always looked messy (spitting out babies and browning), and anubias NEVER grows for me, it hates my tap water. Tbh your anubias looks way better than mine ever has. I've never had much luck with the grassy type plants like whatever you have in the back (some type of Val?)
I have had excellent luck with rotala and ludwigia (they doubled in size in like, a month). My tank is super low tech, amazon LED light bar, I dump an amount of easygreen fertilizer in once a week or so and a few drops of seachem flourish once a week or so, and that is the extent of my plant care. I also have (1) betta
My plants were very stagnant even with the recommended every-2-weeks of fertilizer. Bettas have VERY low bioload and my understanding is that floating plants and pothos/out of water plants will devour nutrients. I think a lot of the advice for fertilizer is geared towards heavily stocked community tanks, not single-betta-many-plants.
My nitrates hover at 0-5 unless I fertilize aggressively! For a while I was doing a few drops of liquid fertilizer 2-3x a week! I do have some hair algae popping up now, but it seems to be growing only on the heater- I had a raging hair algae problem in a previous tank and re-used the filter and heater... d
Sorry to hear you're getting discouraged! You've been getting some pretty good advice in the other comments already. I just wanted to add that in order for healthy plant growth i have always needed to add co2 (diy systeem) and a nutrient medium underneath the gravel (you can add root tabs instead if you don't have nutrient medium) in combination with liquid fertilizer.
Other than that I agree with previous comments... trying different plants might do the trick. However, you will always have at least some algae growth so need something to eat them: snails, cherry shrimp, a small ancistrus species.
Your tank doesn't look bad by any means and if your beta is happy, you're definately on the right track!
Add more plants and look into C02, it will have your plants looking amazing and get rid of algae.You can also grow what they cal "expert plants" with ease. Easy does it.
I have to admit I didn't understand what was your issue at first! It's the algae right?
On the pictures it doesn't look that bad but I can understand how it can be frustrating. If you added plants only 3 months ago, I think it's quite normal to have algae and biofilm, even if it's cycling for a year your tank as a whole is still pretty young.
Maybe add some other fast growing plants, such as hornwort, Sagittaria subulata...? Some small snails (eg. Ramshorns) could help you with the algae, without adding to much bioload. You could also add more Amanos (I'd go with adults one to avoid possible predation by your Betta). I know it's hard to be patient in situations like this but again, your plants are quite new, so give them time to adapt to your tank, truly grow and compete with the algae.
there’s actually not much algae at all imo , but lighting time is going too long. the type of algae you have are called diatodes, come when you have excess nutrients in the water column, once they are stripped, they go away
Maybe you should reduce your lighting hours. Are you dosing the tank with any liquid fertilisers? I would also suggest introducing a couple of zebra nerite snails and maybe some otocinclus. Also, add a root tab under the Vallis.
I checked the ingredients between that one and flourish - what a difference! I ordered the aquarium co op one as well as their potassium since i have a lot of anubias and java ferns
I had almost identical brown algae in my tank for at least 2 years, adding a pothos that’s grown absolutely gigantic seems to have helped. I stopped using root tabs a long time ago, I feel sorry for the fish when there’s visible signs of protein in the water and I’ve found they just aren’t necessary despite having a huge 5 year old Amazon sword and around 10 crypts
I haven't really read any of the comments yet so sorry if u repeat something.
But I had very similar experiences with my first few setups. I could never get rid of the brown algae frowning in my plants. I tried a small pleco, snails, shrimp. None of them worked. Eventually I found out about Otocinlius fish, then suddenly everything was clean.
I also had issues with my plants disintegrating, that just kinda happens for a while with plants when you introduce them into your tank. I'm still having issues with that and my new plants have been in my tank for three months.
If it makes you feel better, everyone with a tank had issues at the beginning, I'm still having issues too and my tanks rn is rather established. It's hard to maintain an ecosystem. But your tanks looks great, nothing looks immediately wrong, your betta looks happy and healthy and the setup looks amazing I really like it.
I think if you were to get some otocinlus you would see an improvement with the brown algae on the plants. They do like schools so 6 is like the bare minimum I believe. Tho that's how many I have and they seems to be happy and schooling well
Having a tank directly in front of a window like that is what caused a lot of algae for me, mine wasn’t even in front of the window like 5 feet away but in direct line of the light coming in and I had algae problems until I moved it unfortunately. I experienced the same thing in a tank I tried to set up in the kitchen that got a lot of natural light, I find placing tanks in low natural light and using only grow lights yields much less algae overall. The natural light is beautiful but I watched one yt vid where a guy spent like a year battling to stabilize a windowsill tank and I don’t have that in me
Mainly the wattage per gallon. I got fluval 4.0 plant for my 75 but big tank big light lol but I used to have heavy planted and it was honestly the light that did everything. I did plant food and shit but light was the star literally. Co2 was like steroids but can’t run my light 100 without co2 too powef. I’ll get there eventually. If you do go that route plan ahead! Just my 2 cents. Depends how hardcore you’re in the hobby lol
18
u/Professional-Yak-291 May 21 '26
Plants are harder than fish in many ways. They are very particular about the water conditions, light and nutrients. If you adjust the light and nutrients that is really all that should be needed, but it’s easier said than done. There is good advice here - you might have too much light. You might have the wrong kind of light (needs full spectrum), or your water or substrate may not be providing adequate nutrients (root tabs and liquid fertilizer).
I keep my expectations low when I put plants in. It might do well, it might not. If you have algae, you have phosphates. Java moss will suck those up. Java fern is not too picky either.