Brown Hair Algea infestation

[NatakuTseng]

My Java Fern and Corkscrew val is suffering badly from a blight of brown hair algea, and its slowly spreading to other species. I have about 2 watts per gal of lighting (this is in a 40gal breeder) Ammonia and Nitrite is 0ppm each. Not sure of the Nitrate, need to get a new one as I ran out, but the tank is moderately planted so I don't think that would be the cause. The tank is also not exposed to sunlight, and I am currently not fertilizing or injecting CO2 (I know I should so don't give me a hard time about that :D ) My Question is what can I do to get rid of this nusiance? The only options I have come across are to get Rosy Barbs, not gonna happen in my discus and ram tank, Florida Flag Fish which go figure our LFS is unable to get right now as they aren't in "season". Farowella was also mentioned, but I don't know much about them. So are there any other ways to get rid of it?

[Timmain42]

Tried a blackout yet? Wonderfully handy, IME. 3-4 days of absolutely no light will freak the fish out a little, but the algae just plain up and dies.

[djlen]

How long has the tank been up and running?
Black outs will temporarily alleviate the problem, but not fix it in the long term.
Water changes, and fertilization will. Also, Otos(1 per 10 gallons of water) would help.
Your tank should have some type of light fertilization. The Flourish line would help a lot.
CO2 would help, but is not a necessity.

Len

[NatakuTseng]

I have 4 ottos in there currently, so thats 1 per 10 gal of water. I have not tried a black out, as I was worried it would adversley effect the plants I have in there. The tank has been up for about a month, and was seeded. Now I would have thought that adding CO2, and Fertilizer would only help the algea grow, so how exactly will that help. And I didn't think that Ottos were fond of hair algea, and I meant to say that its black hair algea. I also have a couple Hill Stream Loaches in there who surprisingly seem to be taking the heat rather well and have done a lot of growing. I am probably going to get a couple more ottos. Just really want to know how to get rid of the stuff. I do two water changes a week, usually both around 30%.

[Tempest]

For some reason or other, if your plants are growing well, it helps discourage the algae. Most new tanks go through various algae stages on their way to maturity it seems also. But if the plants don't have the nutrients to grow, they can't do much. At 2 watts per gallon, CO2 would be helpful but not totally *necessary*. N, K, P and the traces are necessary.

[NatakuTseng]

Well I will add CO2 and some nutrients, but I'm not sure that its a problem yet. My swords are putting out 3-4 new leaves every week, my A. nana is putting out a new leaf every week, the hornwort is growing like a weed, my two Corkscrew vals have now turned into 10 within 2 weeks, so I'm not sure that the nutrients are the issue, but hey its worth a try. However my original question still hasn't been anwsered, lol, how can I get rid of the hair algea totally?

[Tempest]

Mine just finally gave up and went away if that helps any. :) I kept harassing it by clearing it out and doing water changes.. I use CO2 and try to keep the nitrate and phosphate from zeroing out plus dose micros and potassium. The only newish tanks I have not heard of this being *expected* are the ones that use the peat and mulm in the bottom layer to give it a jump start on maturity. Unfortunately I didn't know about that when I started my large tank. I did know on my smaller one and never did have the problem with hair algae. :D