My planted tank is about 10 weeks into the setup and getting considerable brown stringy type of algae. My chihiros wrgb2 pro light runs from 2pm to 9pm along with CO2 injection and micro and macro ferts on alternate days. It gets natural light from the window during the day(not direct sunlight). I think this might be promoting algae. I was thinking if adding a black background to the glass will reduce light time to only one provided by my aquarium light and thus cause less algae. I will later try to determine if it's a phosphate or silicate issue ?
Posted by ccgcool
1 Comment
yes, blacking out the back would reduce algae if any natural light is hitting your tank from that side. Even a little sunlight, helps algae a ton. In my store I get much more Algae on the front of my tanks, viewing area then the back, (Blue paint) because you can see my fish aisle from our huge windows outside, and thus light makes it down the aisle. My building is also North facing, so no direct light, and still, the algae grows on the front and very little on the sides and back.
Using a Filter that has a built in UV light will also help reduce algae as you get it under control. Scraping algae just releases it into the water and comes right back within days, a way to prolong your efforts is to use UV which kills it as it passes through.