# Algae Question



## ToothlessCarnie (May 31, 2009)

Hi, i have a planted 40 gallon tank. My question is, is there anything wrong with having algae in your tank? I have a fair amount of black beard algae and green hair algae in my tank, which i dont mind the look of. None of the plants are melting and the water quality is fine. Was wondering if there is any reason i shouldn't just let it grow. Thanks in advance.

T.C.


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## James0816 (Jun 19, 2009)

Believe it or not....some people actually do keep algae in their tanks. Not so much providing a food source...but actually for the look.

Not my cup of tea but if you do decide to keep some around just be sure to keep it in check because it can quickly over take your tank. Especially the BBA. And with that...there's not a lot of options in regards to a clean up crew to take care of it.


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## ToothlessCarnie (May 31, 2009)

Thanks for the input, i figured as much. I make sure to keep the BBA in check, pretty time consuming but i like the look of it. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't any bad effects of having it growing in the tank.


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## Dmaaaaax (Nov 20, 2008)

It if fine on driftwood and ornaments (in moderation), but on live plants it will lead to their death. They are competing for nutrients and light. If enough algae is growing on the plant it does not get the light it needs and this leads to plant death and algae blooms.

The worst for plants is blue-green IMO.


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## DarkRevoultions (Sep 5, 2008)

ToothlessCarnie said:


> Hi, i have a planted 40 gallon tank. My question is, is there anything wrong with having algae in your tank? I have a fair amount of black beard algae and green hair algae in my tank, which i dont mind the look of. None of the plants are melting and the water quality is fine. Was wondering if there is any reason i shouldn't just let it grow. Thanks in advance.
> 
> T.C.


Some people do like Algae growth on their tank, and others don't  I used to try and get my algae to grow, but the only thing is now... my entire 10 gallon tank is loaded with algae and it is hard to take off, so I don't bother with it anymore, and my fishes are fine, nothing bad that the algae is actually doing anything anyways. 

The thing is that phosphate causes algae growth, and with out phosphate the algae won't be able to grow  Laundry Detergent used to have phosphate until the 1970's when it was banned because the lakes and rivers would be loaded up with so much algae, bulldozers had to take push them all out. So I guess that was good now  although I have heard of some plant fertilizers that have phosphate but I bought fertilizers with phosphate before, and nothing really bad happened. If you have a lot of plants, algae shouldn't be able to grow because plants absorb a lot of the phosphate and all of the other nutrients that the fertilizers have


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