Is that a Badis sp. in the 1st pic?
Okay now to the algae.
If you're not running CO2/ferts and you have the 65w of light that your sig says you have on that tank...that's too much light IMO. I had two Normal Output 15w fluorescents over my 29 gal and that was too much. I had continuous algae problems even with a fairly heavily planted tank. Youve even got WATERSPRITE in there for god's sake!!! That plant is a nutrient sponge. I dropped my lighting down to one 15w light and put black foamcore sandwich board on three sides because it was getting a small amount of sunlight.
Two weeks later and it looks like the algae wasn't ever there. all I did was scrape the glass so that it looked good at the time and limited the light. If you can, try that and float a bunch of watersprite. It loves the light and will grow faster and soak up more nutrients that way (<<<note that I also did this). When the watersprite overgrows the top of the tank (that's when not if!) just throw away however much you don't want or give it away or whatever.
It worked great for me. From my experience, a "cleanup crew" will only go so far and mostly just increase your viewing pleasure. Unless you have a really really large cleaning crew like a shrimp only tank, then the cleaning you see will not be substantial or even (have you seen those snail-tracks in an algae covered piece of glass?!?!).
Okay now to the algae.
If you're not running CO2/ferts and you have the 65w of light that your sig says you have on that tank...that's too much light IMO. I had two Normal Output 15w fluorescents over my 29 gal and that was too much. I had continuous algae problems even with a fairly heavily planted tank. Youve even got WATERSPRITE in there for god's sake!!! That plant is a nutrient sponge. I dropped my lighting down to one 15w light and put black foamcore sandwich board on three sides because it was getting a small amount of sunlight.
Two weeks later and it looks like the algae wasn't ever there. all I did was scrape the glass so that it looked good at the time and limited the light. If you can, try that and float a bunch of watersprite. It loves the light and will grow faster and soak up more nutrients that way (<<<note that I also did this). When the watersprite overgrows the top of the tank (that's when not if!) just throw away however much you don't want or give it away or whatever.
It worked great for me. From my experience, a "cleanup crew" will only go so far and mostly just increase your viewing pleasure. Unless you have a really really large cleaning crew like a shrimp only tank, then the cleaning you see will not be substantial or even (have you seen those snail-tracks in an algae covered piece of glass?!?!).
