How do you get rid of hair algae?

j0onahra3

j0onahra3

AC Members
Nov 19, 2010
67
0
0
Columbia, MO
Just like what the title says.
How do you get rid of hair algae?
Whenever I put in a new plant, the hair algae that's been taking over my tank starts to take over the new plants. :(

I don't want to use stuff like algaefix because i have a dwarf crayfish in my tank..
Does anybody have any suggestions?
I have about 3 SAEs in my tank that nip at them a little, but they dont really eat enough of them off.. ( i heard from somewhere that they eat hair algae..)

Any suggestions are appreciated. :)
 
Buying Algea Eaters wont solve your problem, it will only cover it up. Sounds like a light/nutrient issue. I'm still not very keen on algae yet so I can't tell you exactly what your problem may be.

Would you perhaps list for us your tank specs; Lighting, Ferts, Co2, Hardness etc.
 
It's hard for me to specifically tell my tank specs because I don't have the proper equipment to do so, but I do know that
lighting is about 50watts for my 20gallon, I don't use any fertilizers because I assumed ecosystem mud filtration would support me of them..
However, I use those seachem fluorite substrate for my plants.
As for co2, i don't give too much.
In fact, I think I give too little. From counting bubbles, the rate seems to be 1 bubble per 5 seconds.
Hardness is in the high range. I think it's because of all that calcium supplement I put to try and keep my snails alive.

I'm sorry I can't give definite numbers and specs. I'll try to get my water tested from a LFS soon.
Thanks!
 
+1 to more WCs and manually removing the algae. You may have to remove badly affected leaves altogether. If your photoperiod is over 8 hours a day, try reducing it. And add a lot of fast-growing stem plants that can out-compete the algae.
 
Depending on your lighting fixture, you might be on the right track thinking you need to up your co2....either something is inhibiting your growth i.e. some macro nutrient/co2 is too low(non existent), or you have too much fertilizer....since you said you don't fertilize, I would guess you need to start. I would also start adding more co2 whatever way you can. If there are leaves which are too far gone to be able to be saved, you need to remove them. Cut off any leaves which have a lot of hair algae on them and remove by hand as much as you can. Do a large water change, and then after refilling, fertilize. Then get that co2 up and running better.
 
Ok, I'm not sure if this was the problem, but I just changed my lighting.
I've been turning on 2 24w 3,000 K bulbs for about 10 hrs for day.
I just changed them to i think... 2 t5ho bulbs that seem like... uhh red and blue lights.
I'm not sure the kelvin of those, but im pretty sure they're higher than 3,000.

No wonder my algae was growing!
And I don't know why, but even with the 3,000 K bulbs, I realized that my algae was starting to disappear anyway.
Maybe from the ecosystem mud filtration?
hmm.. not sure. but I'll see how the change in lighting works.
 
t5HO is waaaaaaaaay to much light for a 20 gallon, especially if you have minimal CO2. Even with CO2 at 30 ppm you will be hard pressed to keep the algae at bay.

You can try to run only one bulb if possible. And maybe raise the fixture a little higher up.

Also ideally you want to have 6500K or 10000K bulbs.
 
Ok, I didn't know the kelvins for the two new bulbs, but I just checked them out.
The red colored bulb is 8,000K and the white (not blue) bulb is 12,000K. I sort of looked at it again because I wasn't sure if it was actually 12K K or 10K K. LOL!
I definitely need to up my CO2 levels though. It's just a pain to adjust the number of bubbles. :/

I dont think I necessarily have to worry about algae too much at this point. They've been dying off for some reason. I think its due to my EMF (ecosystem mud filtration). I realized algae tends to die off with this filtration system from my experience.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom