Get Rid of Algae With the Power of Aquarium Plants
- Feb 12, 2023
- Anshika Mishra
- 684 0 0
When fighting algae, live aquarium plants are your best defenses. Think of it as a healthy lawn grass full of grass that leaves little room for weeds to come in. That's why we want to focus on growing healthy plants that will outcompete the algae for the same resources they use.
But on the other hand, if the algae are winning and now they are starting to coat the leaves on the plants, then there is a good chance that your plants may not do well and melt away and die.
Tip 1. Plant Densely
When you have a newly planted aquarium, plant as densely as possible so that it can consume all the excess nutrients in the water column, the plants with low plant loads are pretty hard to maintain and keep algae-free.
If you have a jungle-style tank, it's going to be a lot easier for you to keep the algae away because you have so many plants already consuming those resources naturally.
You can also plant some house plants, like Plothos, in the tank. It'll start growing roots and then absorbing all the excess nutrients there.
Top 2. Choose Fast Growing Plant
Choose faster-growing plants, especially ones that suck up nutrients from the water columns. One great algae-bursting plant is water sprite.
Most floating plants are going to be pretty fast-growing. So, you can also choose to include Amazon Fron bits and Dwarf Water Lettuce.
Stem plants are another type of plant that primarily takes nutrients from the water column versus the substrate. You can use Guppy grass and Pearl weed.
Tip 3. Go For Beginner Plants
Suppose you're new to planted tanks and have not done a lot of balancing of lights and nutrients. It's strongly recommended that you pick beginner plants. Beginner plants are easy to care for and robust. Versus, if you start looking for a high-end aquascape, most likely it's not going to do well for you, and algae love attacking unhealthy plants.
Tip 4. Plant Placement
Some plants are slow growing; they don't like a lot of light, whereas a few are fast growing and can stand bright light. So based on that, you can see where your light is in the tank and move around that plant accordingly.
Tip 5. Be Realistic
You will get algae at some point in your aquarium, especially in a newly set-up aquarium. It's just kind of part of the cycle. During the initial stages, the plants will grow a lot and not consume much light and nutrients, leaving room for algae to thrive.
Finally, most of these plants are grown immersed or out of the water at fish farms. Therefore, when you put them submerged into the tank and grow them underwater, immersed grown leaves will end up melting and grow new submerged grown leaves.
Make sure to remove any rotting melted leaves. If you have stem plants where the bottom leaves end up falling apart, you can trim them and replant them. However, if you have floating plants, they tend to grow out of control, so you'll have to do regular maintenance and remove them because the floating plants can end up outcompeting the plants below for shade and nutrients.
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