Hair Algae!
- Thread starter imhandy2
- Start date
I believe some Mollies eat hair algae. But it's more effective if you solve the algae problem.
-John N.
-John N.
So I have been gaining a steady build up of hair algae myself, and I havn't seen real advice on how to get rid of it other than temporarily lowering the watts per gallon, removing the algea by hand, and then restoring the original lighting wattage.
I have heard that flying floxes and cherry shrimp will eat hair algae, but that is on advice from a flakey pet store guy. Other people have posted about hair algae too, what can you do to get rid of it. Lowering the lighting and cleaning wouldn't seem to be a perminate solution...?
My hair algea (what I assume to be hair algae) is long single greyish white strands which seem to favor the leaves of only half the plants in my tank while the others are un covered. My java moss and amazons appear to be the main targets...how can i get that stuff of my java moss or better yet how can i get that stuff out of my tank completely? I'll get an updated post with my water perameters if that is part of the problem.
Those of you who have encountered this type of algae before and now have a clean thank, tell me, what do you do to preserve hair algaeless conditions?
I have heard that flying floxes and cherry shrimp will eat hair algae, but that is on advice from a flakey pet store guy. Other people have posted about hair algae too, what can you do to get rid of it. Lowering the lighting and cleaning wouldn't seem to be a perminate solution...?
My hair algea (what I assume to be hair algae) is long single greyish white strands which seem to favor the leaves of only half the plants in my tank while the others are un covered. My java moss and amazons appear to be the main targets...how can i get that stuff of my java moss or better yet how can i get that stuff out of my tank completely? I'll get an updated post with my water perameters if that is part of the problem.
Those of you who have encountered this type of algae before and now have a clean thank, tell me, what do you do to preserve hair algaeless conditions?
I'm not sure if this would work on hair algae, but many people (including myself) have used Flourish Excel to get rid of BBA. It does a good job. On the Seachem site, they even admit that it is a unintentional perk to their product.
I believe John N. is right though, you should probably find the source of why algae is growing in the first place. Usually it leads to a lack of a specific nutrient or low CO2 levels.
PS
John, your CR's beautiful.
I believe John N. is right though, you should probably find the source of why algae is growing in the first place. Usually it leads to a lack of a specific nutrient or low CO2 levels.
PS
John, your CR's beautiful.
I had been using the recomended dosage of excel even before I got the hair algae problem. I origonally got it from what I believe is when I picked up this red lotus at a old lfs I used to frequent years ago. It had hair algae but it was so cheap I couldn't help myself, so I manually cleaned it then dipped it in a bleach solution 17:1 for 2 min. I was confident it would kill it, 
now I have hair algae!! I had been upping my Fe(TE) from 0.1 to 0.25 to try to help the condition of the sords. I had since yanked out my little sords in the pic and have been manually cleaning/removing any trace of it. But like my bba they are both wearing me out :coffee: and I am so close to putting my fish in a holding tank and trashing all my plants and flourite and bleaching the sh*t out of everything and starting from scratch.
My water parameters are:
Fe.....0.25
N03......20
P...........3
Ph.......6.6
C02......38 (injected)
wc 50% weekly
Lighting.....3.5wpg @ 12 hours (130w/12 hours & 130w/6 hours)
Any help would be great!!
Terry.
now I have hair algae!! I had been upping my Fe(TE) from 0.1 to 0.25 to try to help the condition of the sords. I had since yanked out my little sords in the pic and have been manually cleaning/removing any trace of it. But like my bba they are both wearing me out :coffee: and I am so close to putting my fish in a holding tank and trashing all my plants and flourite and bleaching the sh*t out of everything and starting from scratch. My water parameters are:
Fe.....0.25
N03......20
P...........3
Ph.......6.6
C02......38 (injected)
wc 50% weekly
Lighting.....3.5wpg @ 12 hours (130w/12 hours & 130w/6 hours)
Any help would be great!!
Terry.
Try dropping your iron down to .1
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_algae.htm
I get .2 out of the tap and was getting hair algae. I don't dose for iron anymore and the algae is much less. I don't mind a bit of it, I think it makes the tank look more natural.
Also, is that P phosphates? If so, 3 is really high IMO and could account for the BBA problem you are having.
Roan
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_algae.htm
I get .2 out of the tap and was getting hair algae. I don't dose for iron anymore and the algae is much less. I don't mind a bit of it, I think it makes the tank look more natural.
Also, is that P phosphates? If so, 3 is really high IMO and could account for the BBA problem you are having.
Roan
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I agree with Roan on the Fe. I don't dose any extra Fe and have never seen the need.
I also agree with her assessment of the P. I would bring it down to 2.0 and the N down to 1.5 and see how the plants/algae react.
I don't know of any correlation between nutrients and BBA however. That's just a matter of keeping the CO2 where it is, keeping the tank as clean as possible and continuing the use of Excel. BBA is tough.
Can you send us an updated shot of the overall on the tank?
Len
I also agree with her assessment of the P. I would bring it down to 2.0 and the N down to 1.5 and see how the plants/algae react.
I don't know of any correlation between nutrients and BBA however. That's just a matter of keeping the CO2 where it is, keeping the tank as clean as possible and continuing the use of Excel. BBA is tough.
Can you send us an updated shot of the overall on the tank?
Len
Roan, the problem being is that I had the hair algae even while my parameters were Fe-.1 , N-20, P-1 and still had the hair and as len knows, the bba. I will drop my Fe to .1 again and my P down to 2.
Len you mentioned to bring the N down to 1.5, is that a typo?
The reason why my P was at 3, is that I acidentally overdosed and later on that day there was serious pearling going on with everything.
The added opinions are good.
thanks,
Terry.
Len you mentioned to bring the N down to 1.5, is that a typo?
The reason why my P was at 3, is that I acidentally overdosed and later on that day there was serious pearling going on with everything.
The added opinions are good.
thanks,
Terry.
Hey Terry, I can't believe you're still dealing with this stuff! My sympathies, glad you haven't given up yet.
I agree with lowering the Fe, keeping PO4 at 2. Have you tried Amano shrimp? If they're hungry they'll eat it. Also are you still dosing Excel and did you try double dosing it for a while? I tried that when I had a HA problem way back when and found that the HA pretty quickly turned reddish, then white, and died. That, coupled with keeping things as stable as possible and using shrimp kept it to a minimum.
I agree with lowering the Fe, keeping PO4 at 2. Have you tried Amano shrimp? If they're hungry they'll eat it. Also are you still dosing Excel and did you try double dosing it for a while? I tried that when I had a HA problem way back when and found that the HA pretty quickly turned reddish, then white, and died. That, coupled with keeping things as stable as possible and using shrimp kept it to a minimum.