hornwort kills algae?

[ttan]

I recently ( past couple of weeks) have had out of control algae, bga, bba,spot, and maybe some others. I also right before the outbreak removed all my hornwort, and I also doubled my lighting. Now I know I can't completely attribute the outbreak to this, but could the hornwort have been really keeping my algae that much in check?

I read it excretes a natural algeacide. Any comments?

 

[John N.]

More likely the increase in lighting caused your problems, depending if it was heavily planted or not.

The hornwort doesn't kill algae as far as I know, it just sucks up alot of nutrients fast. With it gone there was excess nutrients for algae to thrive on, and the increase in light only helped the algae feed faster.

-John N.

 

[ttan]

I agree with what you said, but um google it and see what you find, there are a few sites that say that hornwort does this. when I get time I'll look into it further.

thanks for the post

 

[hurricanejedi]

I have hornwort and its the only plant I'm having an algae problem on. I think its blue-green algae but not sure. I rustled it up a little and now it seems to be going away.

 

[Sully]

i am probably the least knowledgeable person about plants in this forum. seems to me i read (god only knows where) that the reason mentioned above--sucks up nutrients fast--was one of the key reasons for algae no being a significant problem with hornwort.

I also read that one of the key things it sucked out of the water at a prodigious rate was nitrates.

i can be waaaay wrong.

i used hornwort when i started a planted tank a few months back--it was the first plant that i got the heck out of there after a few weeks--it is really nothing more than an invasive weed. After that the cabomba and foxtail was weeded. Once again the elimination of nutrient sucking invasive weeds.

i have not noticed any change in algae as a result of the elimination of any of those plants. without them though i the other stuff that is left would most likely have been algae covered since they are slower growers.

 

[rrkss]

I keep some hornwort with my goldfish and the nitrates never go above 10 ppm. My tapwater has 7 ppm so it is a good nitrate sponge.