Staghorn Algae Nightmare

[Sunfire]

Hello guys;

I'm having a staghorn algae problem in one of my tanks.

Conditions are so bad that I'm practically thinking of nuking it and starting over.

Weird thing is, I've checked the levels of NO2 and NO3 and they display as normal to low levels!

Is there anything I can do? There's no BBA algae, although the staghorn algae grows so thick and fine it's practically like long BBA.

[wasabi8888]

sunfire

need to tell us more...

is the tank heavily planted? i find staghorn algae mostly at the tip of stem plants near the light..

[Sunfire]

Yes, it's heavily planted...

I wonder what causes it.

It's a 30 x 22 x 22 cm tank. I have 3 guppies and 10 sudadanio axelrodi in there, along with 5-10 shrimp. Tank is heavily planted with combi of crypts, MM, java ferns and nanas. The problem is most serious at the foot of the tank, where I have a glosso lawn...

Can't be fish waste issues or food issues.

So perhaps it's the filter? Or the lights?

[Rupert]

can you post a picture? Just to make sure that it is staghorn algea.

[valice]

I found I get those kind of algae when I have bad circulation in the most and the waste from the shrimp gets stuck in the moss. And as a result, ammonia triggers the algae.

[StanChung]

It's plant like, has bleach resistance of mosses-meaning if you're trying to save your moss by bleaching? It would not work without killing the moss too.

It is better to redo and not worry about it for months to come than see it in your face everyday IMO.

[genes]

Staghorns are so brittle, the moment you try to remove them, small bits will break off and thats the end of a never ending battle .... one that i am experiencing now...

Since they are plant like, will a black-out of 3 days wipe them out?

[StanChung]

Can last for awhile. From experience, almost as long as mosses. Kept it in dark fruit and veg section in fridge for a month.

Bits in the tank made it to round two. Round three, i redid whole tank and chucked 90% of the plants. Staghorn lost but me lost a lot too.

[genes]

So blackout will not help much. Thats why i didn't want to go to round 3, loss is too much to handle.

[wasabi8888]

What i do is just remove as much as I can see.. i have it quite bad at my hairgrass as well... those that are at the edge of cryptos and nanas are easier to remove. those that are at hairgrasss is a nightmare

[Sunfire]

Temp solution I am trying out; (have tried out)

1) Put a 2 hr gap in between lighting hours.

So it's 8am -12 pm, 2 - 10 pm.

2) Spray Seachem Excel directly on it.

Put some Excel in those mini atomisers (Watsons sells them), and spray directly on affected part. The algae would then turn white and die. This happens during the weekly water change. For deeper plants, just remove and replant. From this, I'm not sure if staghorn is that plant like, because my plants can survive being sprayed with Excel.

3) Add more Malayan shrimps. I noticed my Malayans munching on the staghorn algae directly. There are 'stumps' of staghorn algae on the leaves indicating that the Malayan shrimps have been at them.

4) Clean filter. As quoted by Plantbrain;

So correct the CO2, clean filter more often, dose well for the plants and it will not come back if you keep up on things

5) Increase CO2 and dose well with ferts.

So far, the staghorn has been under control, meaning that it's not spreading anymore, and hopefully what I remove would be permanent. Anyway algae battles can last for months, but I guess we are patient since our hobby is watching our plants grow.

[Shadow]

Another Algae killed by Excel don't you love excel? First aid for algae