Good Green Algae?

Hello everyone. I'm a NANFA member and have posted some things here in the past. Today I have a question for any of you that might know. I have a small tank that I use for freshly hatched fry and I have a light close on top of the tank and filter. I have some really cool algae growth right on the filter where the water falls into the tank. I was wondering if you think this is a good thing? I don't mind the way it looks so that doesn't bother me, but is this added filtration for the tank? Is it doing the fish any good? Is it harming the fish? I am not a scientist and I do not know all the kinds of algae or how to tell them apart but here is a photo. It looks like the kind of algae you would find on a rock in your local stream. Thanks for looking! If you have not seen my native tank you can check it out here: http://www.youtube.c...u/3/_IG6Y4vcWcc


Thanks again for any reply's!

-Justin Alessi

PS. Spring Fly Fishing Season is JUST around the corner here in Upstate, NY! Can't wait!



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If you like the way the algae looks, then keep it. It won't harm the fry (at least I think not), and does work to remove a little bit of the nutrients in the water, but my guess is not much. If anything, I would think that it might be a nursery for all kinds of protozoa that your fry might like to eat. The only way I think it could be harmful is if it died, broke off, and started decomposing in the tank (like maybe if you lose power for a week). If the tank is huge, though, this would be less of a concern. I can't view youtube at work to see your tank, so I don't know what size it is.

nativeplanter

Thanks for the info. Helps a lot! I will leave it and make sure none of it rots in the tank

As for the youtube video I sent, that is not the tank that the fry are in, its my main native tank.

Thanks and hope you enjoy the video!

-Justin Alessi

I'm a strong advocate for allowing algae to grow up to the point it becomes a true eye sore.
If you periodically remove some and throw it away you are improving H2O quality because the algae assimilates nutrients to produce the green stuff. When you throw away the algae, you're throwing away pollution.
The fact that the algae thrives in your filter outflow proves nutrients are passing through the filter.
Lots of fish at least nibble algae and many actually need some green. No doubt small critters also colonize algae and can be considered good food.

I always tell people, "That's not algae, that's aufwuchs!" I too feel that algae can only make a tank better (except when it obscures the view). I've got a couple tanks growing nothing but algae in them now, and let it grow freely in many of my critter tanks.

Besides being great for microfauna and little fishies, algae are pretty cool organisms in themselves. One particularly attractive type that I am cultivating is Hydrodictyon, which forms tubes of hexagonal netting, with each segment between two "knots" being a tremendous multinucleate cell several millimeters long and easily visible to the naked eye. Unfortunately its nutrient demands are too high for fish tanks.

The maroon-colored mat on Justin's filter may be a mix of algae, but looks like the bulk of it is blue-green slime, maybe Oscillatoria or Phormidium, which fish and snails generally wont eat.

Newt- I found Hydrodictyon once in a creek near Raleigh. Looks like it could gill-net tiny fish and eat them! Hard to believe there's algae that need more water-borne nutrients than in a fish tank!

The maroon-colored mat on Justin's filter may be a mix of algae, but looks like the bulk of it is blue-green slime, maybe Oscillatoria or Phormidium, which fish and snails generally wont eat.

Newt- I found Hydrodictyon once in a creek near Raleigh. Looks like it could gill-net tiny fish and eat them! Hard to believe there's algae that need more water-borne nutrients than in a fish tank!

Maybe Hydrodictyon from a creek is less demanding, I dunno. I imagine it is a different species or ecomorph from what I've found. The stuff I've tried has been from cattle ponds, and swiftly deteriorates unless it is kept soaked in nitrogenous waste. It might work well as a primary filter, actually, but in a well-filtered tank it seems to not find enough to live on.

The maroon-colored mat on Justin's filter may be a mix of algae, but looks like the bulk of it is blue-green slime, maybe Oscillatoria or Phormidium, which fish and snails generally wont eat.

True, it does look mainly like blue-green algae. I don't know about Oscillatoria or Phormidium, though. I think of those two as being more stringy than lumpy en-masse.

Ok, there seems to be a little glitch and I can't edit my post above. Anyway, I just looked at the photo again and think that Oscillatoria or similar could be floating in the basket, but the stuff hanging on is awfully red. I'm not terribly good at cyanos, though.

Thanks everyone for the reply's! Much obliged! Now I'm interested in more types of algae etc.

Have a good one!

-Justin Alessi