LittleShadow 79 Posted February 28, 2017 I've noticed that my algae has gotten way worse since installing my new light. It's a LED 24/7 daytime/ nightime cycle light. I love it, other than this problem, and the fact that my algae has gotten so bad I need to wipe stuff down every few days, and the light is a pain to get back onto its cycle, or turn on/ off (you have to use a remote that doesn't always cooperate). Other than that, it's nighttime light is great because you can use it as a night light! And it does eventually go pretty dark. Anywho, I've noticed that my tall plants end up getting agae-fied, but the short plants beneath them stay nice and green. One day, I thought I'd pick off all of the dead, algae covered stuff, and BAM now everything is covered in algae, so, I'm thinking of investing in some frogbit, or something, anything, as long as it's larger than duckweed, floats, and will be fine in a tank with a lid on it. However, I've never seen any floating plants, save lilies (if those count, I know the roots are underwater, would those work too?) in any stores. Any ideas on how I could get my hands on any of this stuff? Thanks! 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shakaho 6,312 Posted February 28, 2017 (edited) Try using hornwort as a floating plant. It has a reputation of making a mess by dropping leaves, but that happens because people try to grow it as a rooted plant, which it isn't. The old leaves at the "planted " end die and fall off leaving an ugly stem. The growing end has healthy crowded leaves. Look at the growing ends here, and also observe the thinning leaves near the bottom. If you clip off those growing ends and throw away the rest of the plant, the growing ends will float in the tank and grow rapidly. Rapidly growing plants make great water purifiers. A bonus-- goldfish don't like to eat them. I prune away all but the thick growing ends every week or so. Edited February 28, 2017 by shakaho 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LittleShadow 79 Posted February 28, 2017 Cool! Do you think it would do okay loosely tied to my filter outtake? Idk why, but I feel like seeing mass floofs off stuff floating around wildly wouldn't do well with me lol. The outtake itself doesn't really have a whole lot of oomph since it has to go through the filter, then the fsb filter, so most of the movement in the water is from a separate powerhead pump nearby that I put to shoot in the same direction, more or less. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shakaho 6,312 Posted February 28, 2017 You only use about 3 inches of each growing end If you tied each piece to the filter outtake you would have a spiderweb of strings. I must say, I have never seen hornwort floating around wildly. What is an fsb filter? 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LittleShadow 79 Posted March 1, 2017 I thought fsb was short for fluidized sand bed filter, one of these: http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/FluidizedSandFilter.html And I guess it'd probably end up floating in the far left corner, that's where everything the fishes dig up ends up going. And a spiderweb of strings? LOL! Now I'm half tempted to do a 50/ 50 free floating and filter outtake experiment, just to see what each looks like! 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shakaho 6,312 Posted March 1, 2017 I understand fluidized sand bed filter, but guessing what "fsb" stands for might take me a week, so I had to ask. What kind of filter does the water go through before the FSB filter? The hornwort will definitely go to that corner. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LittleShadow 79 Posted March 1, 2017 LoL you should've seen me on my fiance's reddit, trying to figure out what TIL and IIRC meant! I don't know if I would've ever gotten it if he hadn't told me! And it goes through a SunSun Canister before it goes through the sand filter, I want to say it's the HW303B model, but I can't remember which one it actually was without looking at it Why, what's up? 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shakaho 6,312 Posted March 1, 2017 Just curious about multiple filters. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel 5,668 Posted March 4, 2017 Check eBay for frogbit and the like - usually you'll come across some. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AquaAurora 357 Posted March 11, 2017 Do you know what type of algae you are having problems with? is it green hair algae? There are a lot of different algae and each mean an imbalance of something specific. Hair algae means is light related-too long or too strong. Try raising your light. To kill hair algae google "the "one-two-punch" whole tank algae treatment" where to find floating plants you can google up live aquarium plants for sale, many sties will include floating plants. eBay has them (get from in the us, not from overseas). you can also post a wtb (want to buy) thread in the proepr subforum asking for floaters. I use salvinia minima in several tanks-most betta tanks since they like the shade. Its not hard to get rid of (unlike duckweed which never goes away) and is not sensitive about being under a lid like forgbit and water lettuce (they need more air flow and frogbit rots from condensation -water dropping on its leaves frequently). If you'd like I can send you some for cost of shipping small flat rate priority usps, message me for more details as I don't believe we can discuss buying/selling in this section of forum. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites