Well, I'm not going up against Greg Morin, but I do have hair algae in tanks where Excel is the carbon source. It could be that it would be worse without it, but I am not going to try that. 
These are tanks where Amanos cannot be used (medium sized catfish which do not eat shrimp but scare them out of the tank, and the Palembang puffer which loves shrimp - as snacks).
The tanks involved are resets or newly set tanks. Hair algae is my chronic issue in such tanks. I expect it and live with it to some degree for the first x weeks to a couple of months, then it fades and I stop worrying about it. My mature tanks don't have a problem, although if you really look you should be able to find some hair algae (actually at least one of the two forms that I tend to grow) somewhere around the Anubias, but not enough to fret about. It tends to be trivial and non-expanding in such tanks, so is ignored.
These are tanks where Amanos cannot be used (medium sized catfish which do not eat shrimp but scare them out of the tank, and the Palembang puffer which loves shrimp - as snacks).The tanks involved are resets or newly set tanks. Hair algae is my chronic issue in such tanks. I expect it and live with it to some degree for the first x weeks to a couple of months, then it fades and I stop worrying about it. My mature tanks don't have a problem, although if you really look you should be able to find some hair algae (actually at least one of the two forms that I tend to grow) somewhere around the Anubias, but not enough to fret about. It tends to be trivial and non-expanding in such tanks, so is ignored.
