Blackout period for thread/hair algae

Matak

Matak

Out of the blue!
Jun 18, 2002
1,133
0
36
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Near Toronto
What is an appropriate blackout period to rid my tank of this algae. Just to clarify it is long, thin, does not grow too dense, and is muddy green in colour and grows mainly on my Amazon and secondarily on rock & some floating plants.

I have bleach dipped my Amazon Sword, scrubbed my glass, rocks, and decorations and cut & removed the other small plants that had a trace of the algae. I have done a 60% water change and right now I am in the middle of a nine hour diatom & carbon filtering.

I would like to leave on some lighting for the sake of my plants. Does 1.3 watts/gal for a 4 hour photo period seem good enough to save the plants and kill the algae.
 
If you have scrubbed and cleaned it off, doing the blackout will not help really.
I'd worry more about the plants.

Why did the algae appear in the first place etc.........poor CO2, nutrients, neglect etc.
Fix those.

Blackout is good for a few algae, but the algae you are talking about does not respond that well to Blackouts, and the plants need to grow also.
Shrimps are verty good for eating this algae.

I've gotten rid of it by doing good mainteance and trimming, scrubbing etc and re setting the water's nutrients. No blackout, snake oil, bleach, adding herbivores etc.
Just good maintenance basically. Do it 2-3 weeks once a week each time and this works for most all algae.

Now just don't let things get bad from then on.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
A "true" blackout period would be about four days. This means no food or light for four days, period. Don't worry about the fish or plants they will survive. I've done it many time without every losing anything. Do a search on this for specifics... works pretty good IMO.
 
You can check my tank specs (below) for general tank parameters. My CO2 is usually in the 10 - 20 ppm range.

I saw a web site that suggested that this type of algae is caused by iron excess. Do you agree?
 
Looking at your tank specs, I'd say your CO2 is lower than it should be. I'd shoot for 25-30ppm. It has really helped clear up my algae problem, along with upping my dosages of nutrients etc.
Do more frequent, larger water changes(2per week,40-50%) to re-set your water parameters, and when you do, do a lot of checking substrate surface for the garbage that can collect there. Get rid of it. And follow Tom Barr's(Plantbrain) advise. Everything he's told me to do, I've done, and it ALWAYS works.
Len
 
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