Losing the war against the stupid hair algae..

**samuelgoh** · 30th Mar 2007, 22:55

Guys,

guess i am losing the war against the hair algae...
did watever i can

1. get yamatoes...
2. improve the circulation of water and distribution of co2...
3. going EI...
4. manually removing as much hair algae as i can ..
5. down the co2 to 1-2 bps ...

the moss is still as "BLACK" as ever... can see the hair algae "clustered" themselves onto my spiky and erected...

plants in the rear also slightly hit by the hair algae..

hair algae in the co2 reactor too...

hair algae on my ET... so much so that i torn the whole lawn about and gave them "GI" haircut...

guys what can I do now ? can help me ? totally pissed....

**valice** · 31st Mar 2007, 00:10

I defeated hair algae the last time by throwing away all moss and my foreground and started all over again with the foreground.

**yeoyl87** · 31st Mar 2007, 00:11

refer to this link. This hair problem had bugged not only you. http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ad.php?t=27046

**StanChung** · 31st Mar 2007, 02:30

Let's see a pic of the beast you've got. It doesn't sound like the one I've killed.
Sounds like something an SAE will eat.

**Ah_ZhaN** · 31st Mar 2007, 03:10

Samuel,
regarding your step 5, you should increase CO2 instead. Nevertheless, I had a similar algae outbreak like yours before. My US fissidens, japanese hairgrass and crypt. parva are infested as what you described-"black & clustered". Here's what I done:

1) I bleach the equipments(i.e CO2 diffusor) infested with algae
2) Introduced a young SAE(total length around 2 inches long)
3) Clean my filter and increase CO2 rate.

Within two days, my hair algae are all cleared and nowhere to be seen. The SAE is capable of removing hair algae from my fissidens neatly[

]. I let the SAE remains in the main tank for an additional week and ensure all my plants are growing well before removing it. Yamato shrimps somehow are less interested in the hair algae than SAE.

**blackBRUSHalgae** · 1st Apr 2007, 01:32

I cleared away my first setup, which was also clouded with hair and staghorn, by bleaching my entire tank for 3 straight days after thrashing all the plants and temporary setup my filter along with the fauna in another tank.

My rescape ended up with a tankful of bushy and lushly hair algae and staghorn too. But I managed to get rid all of them within a week this time round without trashing any of my plants.

For both setup:

>The green filamentous algae is started all because they came along with 50% of the plants that I bought for my tank.

>Tank is heavily plant and the plants are growing so lushly and so weedy that I need to trim them every week.

>Adjusted EI dosing to my needs ( currently still fine tuning.)

What I did to remedy my second setup was turn down my lighting to 2 T5 with 4hrs lighting period instead of 4 T5 with 8hrs of lighting period for a week. I stop my dosing but my CO2 injection remains the same. By the 4th day, 90% of the hair algae has decimated. By the end of the week, only left with 10% of staghorn. One the 8th day, I resumed to all my normal lighting and dosing regime. My water change started only on the 14th day. By 21st day, I have to trim my plants as they have reached the water surface ( when I started the lighting cut, my plants are around half the tank tall.)

I do not know what has exactly happenned during the one week of lighting cut that kill all the green filamentous algae, but I do think that my healthy and heavy plant mass did helped a lot in the process. Maybe my plants managed to deplete the trace amount of ferts. for the short photo period, which might have starved off the algae. But whatever it is, you might want to try out what I have done. Oh... and 90% of my plant mass are FAST growers.

My setup at a glance

55 gal. 100cm x 40cm x 40cm Water column only
4 x 39W T5 ( lighting is only 1.5" away from water surface)
Chiller equiped (26Deg)
2bps of Co2 injection with customised diffusion (24/7)
Eheim 1260 driving both my 2028 filter and 1/4hp chiller

Sorry no pictures yet, but will have them soon.

**samuelgoh** · 2nd Apr 2007, 01:14

hi guys, this is the algae that i mentioned

**samuelgoh** · 2nd Apr 2007, 01:16

thanks for all the comments guys
so far i did the following as well

1) clean the CO2 reactor infested with algae
2) Introduced 6 young SAEs
3) trimming off ALL plants that is hair algae affected.
4) bought interpet anti hair algae (havent use yet though)
5) down duration of lights to 8 hr per day.

See hw it goes... haiz..

**ranmasatome** · 2nd Apr 2007, 01:26

Thats not hair algae.. its BBA..

BBA once established... doesn't go away on its own no matter what you do.. you have to physically remove whats already there.
A change in regime only prevents more from appearing... doesn't make whats there go away.

**samuelgoh** · 2nd Apr 2007, 04:46

oh for a moment i tot thats hair algae.
but i do have hair algae though in some of the stem plants.
cant mistaken the hairy thing on the side of the leaves... not brush algae, definitely!

haiz... so now most prob i have to remove my lawn of moss ? =(

**StanChung** · 2nd Apr 2007, 07:36

I think that's why we ask for pictures.
How long have you not cleaned your filter?

**Ah_ZhaN** · 2nd Apr 2007, 12:41

When you rubbed the infested moss(as shown in picture) with your finger and thumb, can the black-coloured algae be removed ? If yes, most probably it is some hair algae that SAE can can prick and clear neatly.

**samuelgoh** · 2nd Apr 2007, 13:41

Originally Posted by StanChung

I think that's why we ask for pictures.
How long have you not cleaned your filter?

about 3-4 months ?
will that contribute to any algae growth ?

**samuelgoh** · 2nd Apr 2007, 13:44

Originally Posted by Ah_ZhaN

When you rubbed the infested moss(as shown in picture) with your finger and thumb, can the black-coloured algae be removed ? If yes, most probably it is some hair algae that SAE can can prick and clear neatly.

for those on my moss u cant rub them away =/
hi chance that i will tear the lawn and tie the moss again....
see whether got improvement a not in the next 2-3 weeks... if not i am gonna tear it...

**StanChung** · 2nd Apr 2007, 13:52

That's IME the easiest thing you can fix to prevent BBA other than CO2 variation. Clean your filter at least every two months. That's the engine of your tank to keep the ecosystem of your tank healthy.

**Barra21** · 2nd Apr 2007, 18:39

BBA is really tough to get rid of if your tank is not in balance. Try to trim off affected areas and cut down your lighting. I'm still having it in my tank. For me, cutting down the wattage by half, dealt with 70% of the bba.

**samuelgoh** · 3rd Apr 2007, 01:38

k got it all
anyway most of it is cleared, after wat i did in the posts above.
but i found out something

by putting my spiky moss into a taohuey tub with water, adding 20ml of excel, 20ml of totto algae killer, my moss looks much cleaner nw

maybe the concoction is working!
let's wait a few days and see hw it goes =)