# Growing algae



## D-007 (Jan 3, 2008)

Ok, I've seen some tanks in the Your Tanks section that had nice lush green algae on the rocks. I'm always getting brown. So what's the secret to getting the green please?


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## PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn (Dec 26, 2005)

I only seemed able to grow brown or purple hair algae.

however, my 180 is now growing green algae (admittedly only a little at the moment) the difference being its not lit by a fluorescent, rather it has sunlight for a few hours a day (well when its sunny in Wales that is) and gets natural light for about 6hours a day. the LED's dont seem to grow anything...


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## D-007 (Jan 3, 2008)

A lot of those tanks seem to be using artificial lighting though. Guess maybe I need to increase my lighting amount or time they are on.

Oh well :?


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## kingpoiuy (Jun 9, 2008)

Just a guess. I always grow green so I don't know about the others. But I do know that in order to grow a green plant you want a light from the opposite spectrum. (red) T5 is good for that usually. Soft white florescent is not.

How long has your tank been running?


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## D-007 (Jan 3, 2008)

Not 100% sure ... more than 3 months definitely.


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## LJ (Sep 12, 2007)

I'm growing some green algae on the rocks right now in my 55 with 
T-5 HO at about 2 watts per gallon. It comes at a cost though, as the glass and water tend to become quickly filled with algae as well. As it stands, I've got about a day of crystal clear following a water change before the algae starts to come back.

In one of my other tanks, a 10 gallon, I also have rocks with green nice algae, achieved with 24 watts of CF lighting. It took over year for me to get that tank stable, but now it rarely has algae problems.


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