How water flow affects aquarium algae? Black Brush Algae

Описание: In this video, we will dive deep into how aquarium water flow affects algae, the relationship between aquarium circulation and algae coming in.

We will take a 90 cm planted tank in our gallery as our reference.

Now, this tank has all the right equipment—very good filters, good lighting, pressurized CO₂—but here’s the thing: having good equipment isn’t always enough. If they are not used correctly or if certain factors are overlooked, things can still go wrong. In fact, they often do.
This video is our attempt to understand what went wrong. We’re going to walk you through our observations, highlight some unusual patterns, and share a few possible reasons behind this outbreak. These aren’t conclusions—just working hypotheses based on what we’ve seen in this particular tank.

Along the way, we’ll explore how flow patterns and fluid mechanics—like laminar flow, boundary layers, and gas diffusion—might be influencing algae growth. We haven’t seen many videos that dive into these aspects in detail, so we thought it was worth making one that does. Our understanding of physics is not perfect, but we have tried to do our best to connect these concepts to what we observe in a planted aquarium.

As always, we’re not claiming to have all the answers. This is more of an open discussion. So if you’ve dealt with similar issues—or if you think differently—please share your thoughts in the comments. Your feedback will help others as much as it helps us.

The other often-overlooked factors in the context of algae is plant health. If plants aren’t getting the nutrients they need, they slowly weaken. And weak plants can make it easier for algae to gain a foothold. We will examine this aspect too.

Videography done by Saikat from Ripples Team, and editing and explanation as well as editing done by Gautam Gupta.

Music is from our favoruite epdemic sound (https://www.epidemicsound.com/)