What algae can't you get rid of?

[Kaidohishida]

BBA, very hard to wipe off plastic tank with tissue paper...

[StanChung]

That's impossible, you're probably better off with a glass tank and using a dental scraper. I think ADA makes one but not in stock around these parts if my source is correct.

That said, I'm sure a swiss army knife or any hand held tool would do the job.

[pleco4me]

Fuzz algae

Getting me down at the moment!

[dagger13]

for me ill just remove GSA which appears on the glass surface using a plastic ruler or protractor

[Loopy]

Hi all New here and first post Anyhoo, I suffered with all the different algaes for about 6 months as a trial tank at work. It is a small 2FTX0.7FTX0.5FT Nano setup. And since any change (I found) is like an atomic bomb I learnt very quickly (6 Months NOT! quickly) what works and not, for me at least.

After messing around with timers, fertilization cycles, lights and losing everything that lived, including the plants! I stopped all that fussing and did 24/7 CO2 fertilization with an Inverted Rain Bar (i.e. I place the rain bar slightly under the surface of the water) facing up for the water agitation.

Office Tank
- I change the water by 20% every three days. (Religiously)
- 1ML of SEACHEM Flourish (Everyday with a syringe directly into the filter)
- 1ML of SEACHEM EXCEL to areas I think look dubiously like algae is a cometh (With a syringe directly on the plant - Dilute with 10ML of water)
- PH is 7 point something something
- KH is 3 to 4
- I broke an API Root tab into 4 and placed them randomly around the filter intake which goes all the way down into the soil, which done not even act a direct root fertilizer. Just far enough for what I think is enough to slowly "seep" into the intake.

What I think is helping after 6 months?:
1.) Frequent Water Changes (I was doing it every 5 days previously)
2.) Controlled Water Agitation (Water Flow/Circulation and Balances the CO2)
3.) Controlled Fertilzation (I was one of those more is more instead of less is more)
4.) Stopped Thinking Too Much! (Chill baby, walk away from the tank for awhile and stop fussing!)
5.) Use The Pearling as an Indicator (Some veterans would probably cringe, but I tweak the bubble count and rain bar with the some plants I use as "Indicators") - Riccia and a Nana as the 2 Indicators.
6.) Use The Fish as an Indicator (If the fish is at the surface and I am pearling I increase the agitation and drop the bubble count)

Home Tank
My 4FTX2FTX1.5FT has since been setup at home, actually yesterday to the date of this post which is why I am here

I did the same things and amazingly I have a nana already pearling, and the fish have now come to the bottom of the tank. I know the advice is not to add fish till after a week or more. I just sat in front of the tank for 6 hours and kept tweaking it till now. Also, I am changing water 20% of the water everyday for week. Let's just say I never have been conventional, because when I was in some way - I kept having crashing tanks.

BTW my setup is, EHEIM 2028, TECO Chiller, 5L CO2, CO2 Mixer and X2 3 Bulb 10K EA Lights - PL's.

[WiNd08]

i'm facing slight problems with hair algae in my less than 1 week old tank.

problem lies with me for not readin up enough! i actually dosed liquid fert on the 3rd day of planting! the next day i saw the hair algae on some of melted plants !

[dkk08]

I have this bright green stringy algae that looks like Moss ball (I thought the moss ball left some of itself behind when I remove it) and it seem like its overtaking my tank.

[Loopy]

The best thing I ever did for my tank was to stop messing with it and tweaking this and that. Everyone else in this thread has given advice, all I say is stop messing with it. AND PLEASE don't dose CO2 till your fish are gasping, the school of thought would be not to work AROUND it but no let it happen at all.

[Shadow]

Can it be used for hair algae?

Excel does not work for hair algae

[Shadow]

problem lies with me for not readin up enough! i actually dosed liquid fert on the 3rd day of planting! the next day i saw the hair algae on some of melted plants !

Doubt that the cause, I dose fert since day 1, no algae issue. According to Tom Barr excessive fert dosing does not cause algae unless you dose Amonia . This is the basic idea behind Estimate Index (EI) fert dosing

[Plantbrain]

Causes are generally not direct, many think that all causes must be direct.

If you do not enough CO2, then dose NO3 as well, the rate of uptake of NO3 will not be as high as it might be in an aquarium where the CO2 is amply supplied.

This will lead to higher NO3 in the poor CO2 aquarium.
This leads folks to think that the root cause is higher NO3 = algae.

But the real issue was CO2. The NO3 was merely the effect that they measured, they did not look at CO2 etc.

Another example is where there's enough CO2, but the tank is limited with K+.
Adding non limiting K+ causes stunted tip growth and progressively smaller tips.

Is excess K+ causing this?
No, we can go back and increase CO2 and then add as much K+ as you want, 10ppm, 30ppm, 50ppm, 100ppm even, no stunting.

While cO2 was fine at a slowed and limited rate of growth in the fist tank, adding K+ to non limiting levels causes a shift.

Many assume it's only K+ because they only changed that one thing.
However, the test and conclusion are flawed because CO2 was not independent in each aquarium.

This lead to a confounding conclusion and one that was incorrect.
The way around that, is to ensure there are no limiting factors when you test one thing at a time.

Most algae issues are CO2 related or they are limiting something. Excess is rare....... and is generally much like adding too much salt to an aquarium. There is no inhibition or weird stunting or the tables of plant deficiencies etc.

Algae are perhaps better indicators than plants are at issues.
Riccia is good for CO2(if it pearls well after a few hours of lighting, then you are likley doing fine).

More attention to basic care, pruning, cleaning, water changes, reasonable stocking, and a large focus on CO2 generally takes care of things.

Problems also do not manifest themselves immediately, some algae take a 1-2 week time frame to bloom after the exposure.

The "cure" is to trim and remove as much algae as you can and reset the tank so that you have good plant growth. You can do this very agressively or oce a week etc. After things are back to normal, you can do less work, but that time frame while you are trying to fix things will require work.

I prefer to stay on top of things maintenance wise, that way I do not chase problems around and reduce the total work.

This is easy to do with light(use moderately to low light) and with nutrients/water changes. It is difficult for CO2 for many, but it gets easier as you get experience and know what to look for.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[blue33]

...This is easy to do with light(use moderately to low light) and with nutrients/water changes. ...

I notice most of the time what people face is also the lighting problem, the plant dont get enough lighting to create photosynthesis, thus before plant can create photosynthesis taking up the CO2 and nutrients, algae starts to roam in, especially BBA.

[Shadow]

If not enough light for photosynthesis, plant will eventually die. No need to worry about algae because you have a bigger problem.

[blue33]

I think you get the wrong idea, if you notice those leggy plant, thats what i mean. Eventually lots of thing going to happen later, that is one of the sign beside i've mentioned. Alot of plant still can survive but the problem is leading to algae and more things going to happen. Currently i'm testing this on my old tank before i decommission, many things are happening from my observation. I've tested the extreme and also to the simplest, you can try it out.

[Shadow]

it is probably not because of light. I have low tech tank with almost algae free. Only brown algae that stick on the glass, nothing that otos can't handle. Maybe those melted leaves are causing amonia spike thus algae grow. I just thinking loudly here.

[Plantbrain]

I notice most of the time what people face is also the lighting problem, the plant dont get enough lighting to create photosynthesis, thus before plant can create photosynthesis taking up the CO2 and nutrients, algae starts to roam in, especially BBA.

Give this some thought for a moment.
Not enough, this implies what?
You are light limited, not nutrient limited, or CO2 limited.

Plants are not going to grow and slowly rot.
You can add all the CO2.nutrients, and it will not matter. Algae, at a small amount, will grow.

But you will not have some horrible infestation, you just will never grow plants and watch them rot slowly(The old days this was a typical routine for many, folks had few lights and fewer options), like in the 1970's, live plants where bougtht, then we'd watch them slowly rot over 8-12 weeks and replace with fresh plnts.

Clearly you have larger issues if you do not have enough light than algae if light is really limiting. It will never be an issue because you will repalce the plants often since they will slowly die off

But these days, with T5, HQI, T8, PC lighting, this is really much less likely and tolerated, seems 99% of the folks are not light limited. There may be a few who still replace plants every few weeks I suppose and only have a single T12 FL light etc, But this is a rare case these days.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Loopy]

Tom, thanks for your informative replies.

As for the subject; I have 2 forms of algae that plague me and the most amazing thing they are only stick to 2 specific plants.

1.) Narrowleaf - BBA
2.) Hair Algae - Fissiden

[Shadow]

I'm curently fighting Green spot algae on the rock. I have been doubling the PO4 dossage for 2 weeks, so far no different. The Good news is hillstream loach seem to eat this algae.

[taikiat]

BBA's my problem now, althought i wouldn't really call it a problem haha. Haven't been battling all out, because my tank is just a low tech tank and I don't have the means to get medication or whatsoever, and I try to limit methods to control of lighting etc. Thought it was going to overrun my tank at first, and I cut down the lighting and now, it's only limited to my driftwood. My plants are all ok, althought they're all fast growing except for my java moss, which is still bright green. GSA occurs time to time, but some scraping will do the job. Will be doing some trimming soon and increasing density of planting, see if that helps ^^

[Verminator]

BBA, GSA and thread/hair algae are all present in my tank. Although my Anubias looks quite natural with little clumps of dark brown hairy algae on.

Just the thread algae and GSA that really p*ss me off :/ Other than that i think algae can look very natural if kept under control. I'm yet to gain control though :P