Help with hair / beard algae - see pics

[evster]

Hi guys. Having a problem with hair/beard algae here. I think I have both actually. See the pics below for further clarification.

I need help getting rid of this stuff! Here's the details:

20g tank
36w of light for approx. 8-9 hours a day
DIY Co2 injection
Just tested nitrate levels an it read around 10-20 (hard to tell the difference since the shades are very similar)
4 neon tetras, 5 phantom tetras, 1 little shrimp-type creature, and a few snails.
I do not dose any type of fertilizers.

A little back story:

This 20g tank has only been set up and running for a little over 1 month. However the gravel, plants, and some of the driftwood were taken from a n established 10g tank that I tore down to make room for the 20.

Here's what I did tonight:
40% water change
refueled my Co2 (which was running low)
cleaned out all of the algae I could and removed the piece of driftwood in the 1st photo that was completely covered in algae.

I'm thinking that I don't have enough plants to suck up all the nutrients in the water right now. These plants were doing well in my 10g tank, but it was becoming overgrown so I only transfered a handful of them into the 20g. Maybe I should get more plants?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[CBWMN]

I pulled the affected plants out and dipped them in 3% H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide for about a minute. Replanted and the next day the algae was a pinkish red.. Coupla days later gone.
H2O2 is safe for fish in small quantities.
Also a 3 day blackout (total darkness) will help the whole tank.
Charles

 

[Jag1980]

I pulled the affected plants out and dipped them in 3% H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide for about a minute. Replanted and the next day the algae was a pinkish red.. Coupla days later gone.
H2O2 is safe for fish in small quantities.
Also a 3 day blackout (total darkness) will help the whole tank.
Charles

I did a Peroxide dip for 3 Min's and turned the BBA a little bit pink and it never fell off.
I did a black out once for 80 hours and it did absolutely nothing.

Any idea why I get such different results?

 

[Jag1980]

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I think you should do a bleach dip on the large leaf plants.
Not sure about the others, but it looks pretty bad and you might want to start over on your tank and limit your lighting or something.

 

[CBWMN]

I did a Peroxide dip for 3 Min's and turned the BBA a little bit pink and it never fell off.
I did a black out once for 80 hours and it did absolutely nothing.

Any idea why I get such different results?

The pink (dead) algae just fell off my plants in two or three days.
Maybe the BBA grew back? I used 3% H2O2 at full ;strength in a shallow pan and thoroughly drenched the leaves. The next day ALL the BBA was a pink color.
I was told on another post that the only way to get rid of all the spores was to do a 3 or 4 day blackout.

I think you should do a bleach dip on the large leaf plants.
Not sure about the others, but it looks pretty bad and you might want to start over on your tank and limit your lighting or something.

Two bad things can happen with a bleach dip. Bleach is deadly to livestock so you have to neutralize the chloramines/chlorine very thoroughly after the dip.
A bleach dip can also cause the leaves to die. It happened to me on a bunch of 18” swords. The plants lived but I had to take off a bunch of long leaves leaving some 3' leaves on the plant.

Charles

 

[CBWMN]

I think you should do a bleach dip on the large leaf plants.
Not sure about the others, but it looks pretty bad and you might want to start over on your tank and limit your lighting or something.

I agree with Jag. Increase WPG and make sure the CO2 is fully active.
Decrease the phot period.

Charles

 

[evster]

Thanks for the help guys. I'd like to avoid the bleach dip if possible. I tried it once before and wound up killing all the leaves on my anubias. Then again if that's the only choice I'm left with I suppose it's worth a shot.

What do you think about my "adding more plants" theory? My 10g was doing well under similar conditions but it had a lot more plants than this 20g does right now. I am thinking I just need more plants to out-compete the algae. Maybe throwing a bunch of something fast-growing like anacharis in there will get things under control? I could be totally wrong on this too.

 

[CBWMN]

I'm no expert but more plants are fine but you need to find out whats causing the BBA.
I'd go higher intensity light, steady CO2 for sure.
Charles

 

[saram521]

When doind a bleach dip for plants, you mix 1 part bleach to 20 parts water so that the bleach is diluted enough not to kill the plants. For hardier plants, I dip them for 3 minutes in the solution and for more sensitive plants I dip up to 2 minutes. After that, I transfer the plants to a bucket of tap water that has been overdosed with dechlorinator. I have seen a few leaves die on some of my plants but not much. You may have had too strong a solution/too long of a dip time if your anubias was affected like that.

 

[CBWMN]

Saram

When I did the bleach dip, I used 19-1 ratio. I actually used a measuring cup and pured the bleach and water into a bucket. It almost killed my plants and severely stunted them, that is why I said that bleach is dangerous to both livestock and plants. I will never use bleach again.

Charles