# Too much algae



## Hoody32 (Oct 17, 2012)

How does one know when algae is becoming a problem? Obviously if a tank has more algae than plants then there is a problem. But, is it ok to have algae on older leaves? I've seen around that some people don't mind a bit of algae. How could a person tell when the algae is sucking up more nutrients than the plants are?


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Any visible algae shows that there is a problem in your tank. You should not look at the amount of algae but at the trend - do they grow or they just sit there or they gradually go away. This hobby is about being able to notice trends. If you have a few Amano shrimp and never see algae that is because the shrimp are eating the algae before they become visible to you. But algae has a tremendous ability to grow fast. In some cases if something is a bit off in your tank they can take over literally overnight. If you look at the trend you will catch the explosion before it is too late (change water, stop feeding fish, etc).

Keep in mind that a completely algae free aquarium is only our view of perfection. In Nature there is no body of water that is totally algae free. What we are trying to do is largely fake. Never forget that when you look at algae and think it's ugly.

No matter how you look at it if you have more N and P freely floating in the water algae has more chance to take over. American tanks usually have N=5-20 and P= 0.5-2.0. Japanese tanks have N=0.5-1 and P=0.05-0.1. Guess in which tanks algae has more chance of exploding.

One more thing - algae is also very dependent on something we call "organics". This is not just the visible waste on top of your gravel and rocks. It is also a bunch of invisible "stuff". You can think of it as clear juice that grows algae. These "organics" can bind or release different chemicals and affect the algae growth. Proper filtration minimizes organics.


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## Hoody32 (Oct 17, 2012)

Thank you very much for this response. I like when trend in my tank is algae decline! Things are looking pretty good in my tank now that I got a bigger filter and dose less fertilizer. For the longest time I had a problem with algae on all of the glass so I decided to go out and get a bigger filter. Hooked up the new filter, stopped dosing frets and let my ludwigia grow out across the surface of the tank. Within a couple months all the algae was gone. The ludwigia is trimmed now and everything is growing nicely with almost no algae. The algae that is left is BBA that is on the heater and diffuser. That stuff is hanging on for dear life. 
About a month after getting new filter 
And now around three months after adding the bigger filter.


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