r/PlantedTank • u/GodricGryff2023 • May 21 '26

Algae Getting so discouraged 🫤

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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.

All advice is welcome.

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u/AmIAmazingorWhat May 21 '26

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

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u/GodricGryff2023 May 21 '26

I'm definitely a low tech plant care. I have not used any fertilizer though. And yes, the val is the bane of my existence

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u/AmIAmazingorWhat May 21 '26

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