Reverse algae question

[bgk245]

I have a 10g tank that I was using to quarantine a couple of new arrivals, which have now moved on to their permanent home. My daughter has a betta and a little juvenile oto in a 5g in her room, and I'd be glad to let her have the 10 except that it's clean as a whistle, which is no home for an oto, even a little one. This critter is maybe 3/4 of an inch long (it is just soooo cute - I've got bigger bugs on the back porch!), and has scoured 3 sides of the 5g completely clean in the 2 weeks it's been in there, so even a tiny thing has a big appetite.

She is welcome to the tank, but I don't want to make the move until it's a little grungier, so here's a question to put our collective algae-fighting experience to good use, at least in a backwards manner. What would you do if you wanted to CREATE algae in a tank? Crank up the lights and add plant food (I have Flourish comprehensive that I use in my planted tank)?

[Haiven]

Yes to both of your suggestions. Also, when I needed algae, I went to a fish store and looked in the tanks for an algae covered rock or decoration, then I bought it and put it in my tank with fertilizer and light.

Algae!

[bgk245]

I think there's enough in the way of nice slimey decorations to keep the baby fed. I'm going to keep a spotlight on one end (I don't have a light hood yet), and see if warmth, light, and nutrients get a bit of grunge going.

[ElijahTurtle]

Just supplement with algae wafers. They make small ones now so you don't have to break the big ones into smaller pieces.

[bgk245]

I think I'm going to have to go with tank decor and supplements. When I bought a light hood from haiven a month ago, I brought home a few of her red snails, and briefly tossed them in the q-tank. After some research on their traits (and especially breeding habits) I yanked them out and threw them in a container pond out back, and I thought I'd nailed the last of the descendents from the 10g by now. But with bright light on it, I just looked again and the glass is crawling with pinpoint sized-hatchlings. There's no way I can use this tank for anything until I scour it and dispatch the gravel to the garden. The red snails are pretty, but they appear to multiply even more wildly than ordinary ramshorns, and that's saying something. (By the way, I noticed over the weekend that at least one survived January in the barrel outside, and I'm betting the rest are hunkered down in the sludge at the bottom waiting for warm weather).

I think we can rotate some of the grungier decor from another tank into my daughter's as need arises, and add veggies and wafers enough to do the job. Plus she likes to have the light come on when she gets up for school, and go off at bedtime (a good 14 hours or more), which is usually more than enough to grow a good coating all over, especially since she has no live plants.

[AndrewH]

I have great luck growing algea if all I do is change out my lighting to a low K source.

If I stick on a 4,100 K or lower; algae within 24 hours at 10 hours per day lighting. You should have no problems at all gettin' some algae with just normal lights on for 14 hours a day.