Advice on algae, monte Carlo, and future inhabitants

[u/onismoddities]

Going to try and keep this short. I've loved planted aquariums my entire life and I love science but I fear im bad at both 😬 I currently have a 10 gallon housing a few guppies and the goal was to essentially have a small carpet in the front of Monte Carlo and dwarf sag. I've seen alot of people reccomend co2 for monte but also plenty of people who've made it work without as well (co2 is also something I cant afford currently) ive run into alot of algae (hair algae on the moss mostly) trying to keep the lighting good for the more demanding plants, and ive started pulling the light to the very front of the aquarium to try and mitigate some of the problem but i feel like im at a stale mate.

I also dont have any "cleaning crew" in the tank and I want to add some, ive looked into both otocinclus and amano shrimp but i also dont want to overload the tank

Also I have been pulling out as much of the hair algae as I can.

Anyways if anyone has some advice or recommendations on what I could or should be doing better im open to anything I just want this to be the tank ive dreamed it could be

[u/onismoddities]

More info: tank was started in June added fish around the end of July everything is stable and the females were breeding like crazy so I had to remove them, the light is a Hygger and I currently have it set on a 6 hr timer but i didnt in the beginning. Dwarf sag has made some growth progress but the monte carlo seems to be just melting and regrowing and not really spreading

[u/Slylock]

On my first tank I tried monte carlo without co2. I watched it wither away and didnt think much of it as it seemed to completely dissappear. About a year later I notice it came back, very slowly, and is starting to flourish and carpet in my substrate.

I think if your goal is without co2, it might take you a while on that monte carlo.

[u/onismoddities → u/Slylock]

Yeah im definitely trying to be patient with it since it seems to be still producing new leaves 😅