Dealing with hair algae

Blinky

Blinky

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Jun 22, 2004
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I've been combating a hair algae outbreak in my 14g recently. I increased the lighting, and BOOM, there it was, almost overnight! I realized the CO2 was much too low, so I finally said goodbye to the bio-wheel on my Penguin. Right away, the CO2 went from 12-15ppm up to 20 - 25ppm. I started adding Flourish Excel, since they say it can be used in addition to CO2 and it's reputed to be a miracle worker when it comes to hair algae. When I was at the LFS buying the Excel, I noticed they had some Amano shrimp, and picked up 4 - they're cute little critters! The last thing I did was add a few big floating water sprite plants to soak up nutrients, and lowered the ferts.
From everything I've read (and I've been reading everything I can get my eyes on), this should do the trick. After a week with Excel, lowered ferts, more plants, loads of CO2 and the shrimp, it looks like the hair algae's growth has been stopped (yay!), but there are still 'hairs' and many little holes on my Crypts' leaves - it looks like the algae burrows right into the leaves, causing a lot of damage. Some of the leaves are partially melting/dying, covered in little pinholes.
My plan today is to remove all the leaves that are damaged and still have hair algae on them, but this will leave some of my Crypts with very few, small leaves. Does this sound appropriate, or is it best to leave them alone and let the algae (and probably the leaves it's on) die naturally?
 
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Blinky,

I recently did a retrofit upgrade (AH lighting) for my new 55 gal. and went from stock 34w to 110w compact fluro. Almost imediately I encountered some of the same problems you did in addition to others.

Initially I had brown/green algae with a moderate amount of green water. At the same time I ordered about 20 plants online and planted them in my tank (substrate: Shultz's AS/Estes gravel). I eneded up doing a 96 hour blackout with good initial results. The plants continued to establish themselves but hair algae has developed on most plants including a large driftwood piece. I have a lot of crypts too...wendtii red, lutea, lucens, and they have some HA growing on them as well.

Like you, I'm going to start dosing Flourish Excel next week in hopes of getting the plants to grow faster an out-compete the algae. I don't use any supplemental CO2 at this point and I know that would help but I don't want to give up my bio-wheels.

As far as your crypts go, I would leave the leaves alone for the time being. If they look as if they are starting to die or aren't contributing to the plants growth then I'd prune them, but not until. I have HA on most of my plants and plan on leaving them alone until I do another blackout followed by the Flouish Excel next week. My hope is that those two things combined with lots of new plant growth will help the tank get back into equalibrium.

Please keep us updated on how things work out for your tank. I learn a lot from others experience. This new tank of mine has been a little challenge to get going too but I'm learning volumes and it'll help me become a better fish keeper in the future.

Good luck.
 
I would remove the partially melting/dying leaves. If there is new growth (small leaves) it will come back...they're crypts, they melt, they re-grow. ;)
Good luck.
 
I dove into the tank, and stripped off all the algae-covered leaves, as well as those that were dying. All the new leaves near the centres of the plants are algae-free, and I'm hoping they stay that way. I gave the tank a thorough cleaning - gravel vac, scrubbed the walls, rinsed the filter inserts and did the weekly water change. I've added another 2L CO2 bottle, which will hopefully raise the CO2 to ~30ppm, and I'm continuing to dose Excel since that seems to be what stopped the hair algae.
I'm feeding very lightly and dosing ferts as usual, with my fingers crossed :)
 
Good luck blinky, we are sisters in battle against this algae. I have been flighting mine for a couple weeks now with CO2, ferts, 1 hour black out in the afternoon, and tugging it once or twice a week.

We'll show this algae who's boss!
 
Ditto on the upgraded lighting and hair algae.

For me it was cranking CO2 and reducing feedings that did it. A little 72 hour blackout didn't hurt either. ;)

Definitely remove any infested leaves, be tenacious with the algae.

Now I feed very lightly, although I must admit to occasionally 'spoiling' the fish. :rolleyes:
 
When I get what I think is hair algae (tuffs of green that tend to grow along the edges of anubias and also blend in with hornwort, for example), I give it a shot of hydrogen peroxide (h2o2), sometimes right on the offending algae or at least nearby. By the next day the algae has turned an interesting, even pretty red-orange and eventually goes/melts away... The h2o2 bubbles up everything but does not seem to affect anything but the algae (though it probably takes a toll on bacteria, but I suspect they bounce back quickly).
 
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