Lucy

Ok, you can laugh, I did.

My first attempt at an algae farm.
It's for a quarantine tank. I want to get a few ottos.

There's a small glass bowl inside the larger one with some algae covered rocks from one of my tanks.
(Those bowls are good for something)




Pssst....we won't mention that I could have put the little glass bowl in my tank that has algae and would probably grow algae faster.

Butterfly

I raised algae out side in a small tank for my bn when I was breeding them so I'm not laughing too hard
I have been trying to grow green water for teh past month and I can't do that.
Carol

Coryd55

Carol if you want green water then fill up a 29 gallon tank and leave it outside for a week or so. Guaranteed green water, I speak from experience =)

I have trouble growing algae inside though =/ not sure if thats good or bad.

Pictures of the tank. And a random pic of my backyard.

I was in a picturey mood....

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clinton1621

Try using an ammonia remover that converts ammonia to ammonium... and overdosing the water with a fertilizer like plain Flourish. The combination of the ammonium and fertilizer should give you algae out the wazzoo.

Butterfly

I have a 10g sitting in front of a window that gets direct and indirect strong light all day. have been feeding it with the gunk I siphon out of the bottom of my tanks. It's been a month and the water is crystal clear and no algae or green water I have even dosed it a couple of times with flourish excell.
I thought about putting it outside but I'm trying to grow infusoria (green water is an excellent source) for fry and I don't want any possible nasties in it. we have Dragon Flies all over and I hear their larvae is dangerous to fry.
Carol

Shawnie

funny stuff...we dont want it and its everywhere!! we want it and cant get it to save our life LOL ...good ole murphys law I guess....

clinton1621

The stuff you siphon out is probably loaded with bacteria, which means they are eating all the ammonia that would spur an algae growth... try using fish food instead of using the siphoned out waste, it should overload the bacteria and give the algae a good start.

Lucy

You're right, Shawnie.

I though about just taking some algae covered glass candle holders from my betta tank and putting them in the QT tank. But if the ottos were sick, I couldn't put them back in right away and they have plants in them.


Edit: Question: I put dechlorinator in the water, was that the right thing to do? Oh and a couple of cups full of tank water.

clinton1621

Yeah the dechlor is fine, chlorine in high amounts will kill algae and or keep it from growing. Algae can take a few weeks to get a good start, so give it time and plenty of light and waste to feed off of, ammonium... fertilizers... and fish food should all work (especially if the fish food has phosphates). The only problem is, you wont know what type of algae you are going to end up growing... otos dont eat all types of algae, and they only eat new young algae growth. So you might end up with useless algae.

Lucy

Oh goody. lol

mrsmuffin

I have absolutely NO problem growing algae in Billy Voltaire's tank!

COBettaCouple

I think the secret to growing algae is to NOT want it to grow.

Alessa

I had thought about doing an algae farm for my ottos when I got them, since they refused to go for the hikary wafers... but then they got used to them

Lucy

Lucy

Seven days later.



I'm going to put the little bowl in a 5g QT for my future, hopefully sometime this week, ottos.

Allie

You are so right!!
We had our 100g tall coated in algae...it looked like green paint all over our plants. Too much lighting.

sirdarksol

You stole that secret from me! No, wait, I was talking about snails.

Lucy

Believe me, once the ottos are out of QT, they'll have plenty of algae with me having to grow it purposely!