Ahhh hair algae!

[windeindoiel]

I pretty much just looked in my tank and screamed WHAT THE... well you know. I saw the hair algae flowing in the current of the powerhead it's growing on. More inspection showed some growing off the sponge that covers my filter. And there's a little bit on the fake plant by my filter. I have quite a few real plants going in there, I put fertilizer in every week or two, although my plants were turning kind of brown so I thought maybe I had too much iron so I changed the water about a week ago and haven't added any more fertilizer. I also just bought a new light. It's a 29 gallon tank and I bought those skinny bulb lights with two bulbs. I think one's a marine bulb and ones a plant bulb... I'm not really sure. Sorry for so little exact information. Anyways what do I do? I hear this stuff threatens to take over the tank, which I'll believe considering this is the first time I've noticed it!

 

[MidnightPyro]

When you say Marine Bulb, I believe you're referring to actinic bulbs. Is it a deep blue color? Actinic bulbs don't belong on freshwater tanks and can lead to unwanted algae growth. I'd look into replacing it with another power compact bulb suitable for freshwater aquariums (I use a 6700k/10000k daylight bulb. They also make 6700k/6700k bulbs and probably some other variants.)

What kind of fertiliser do you add/how often?

 

[windeindoiel]

I'm not really sure what the bulb is. Next time I go to pisces I'll look at the products and figure out what I have. I use leaf zone for a fertilizer. It has potash, iron and chelated iron. My other plants were turning brown and a red color was developing on my rocks. I did some research and some sort of thread like algae (I forget what it was called) is caused by too much iron. So I changed the water again and cleaned all the algae out of the tank. Today it looks a little better, I'm hoping it doesn't come back though. My tank has dwarf puffers, otos and shrimp in it and I think I'm going to go out and buy a few more otos tonight to try to control the algae. *sigh*

 

[tanker]

From experience iron REALLY makes it GROW.
I use to have it but stopped dosing Iron and it has stopped. I no longer have hair algae.

 

[windeindoiel]

Ok I'll cut the iron. I was reading an article and it talked about a maximum watts per gallon, which I didn't know existed (yes I'm still learning about this planted tank thing). So I think I'll check what I'm putting out. Also the article said that if you add CO2 then the plants would be able to use excess light.

So I have questions.

Should I be using any fertilizer? What kinds? How often?

If I add CO2 would it help the plants outcompete the algae?

Thanks for the responses by the way, I appreciate them.

 

[beviking]

Let us know exactly what the lights are and we can better help you. From the sounds of it, you don't really have that much plant mass and adding nutrients w/o CO2 may not be necessary.
As a resort/solution (to the algae and CO2 problem), you might want to pick up some Excel and dose it according to the label for the initial dose, then 1 1/2 times the daily dose for the following week to two weeks to get rid of the algae.

tanker...thanks for the clarification!

 

[Aqualung]

tanker...thanks for the clarification!

I wonder if that disclaimer was to put a stop to the flood of pm's?

I had a problem with hair algae while at my old residence, but was able to beat it with minimal dosing of excel. I have had a nasty outbreak of it at my new place (different water), and have had to step up the dosing but I am finally getting it under control. Manual removal combined with an increase in water changes helps to slow it down, and the excel helps to eradicate it.