Removal of Green Hair algae

**Jungle-mania** · 21st Aug 2007, 22:44

Can I ask what would be the correct steps to remove green hair algae. This was the approach I am taking.

1. Remove algae and plants affected.
2. Bought a bag of taiwanese and malayan shrimps (from colourful and Nature respectively)
3. Change my lighting brightness to 10000K from 6500k.
4.Change water by 50%.

Eventually it got worst. Any advice that I can use other than a major rescaping?

**ah^siao** · 21st Aug 2007, 23:30

get some yamatoes and do a blackout for 3 days.

**blackBRUSHalgae** · 21st Aug 2007, 23:37

get your lighting, ferts and CO2 right to let your plants do the work. Works everytime for me.

**Aquaculture** · 22nd Aug 2007, 13:12

Yamatos seems to be the best solution for hair algae... black out would help but my plants also suffered. Eventually, I reduced my lighting & CO2. Currently, I'm experimenting to have my light & CO2 on for 4hrs, off for 4hrs then on again for 4hrs (as recommended by quite a no. of lfs) it seems to work. My plants are lush and algea is controllable. It has been about 2months since I tried this method...

The only occasional algae I'm encountering is GBA and its due to my intense lighting (T5).

**Puffer** · 22nd Aug 2007, 13:53

I've encountered hair algae boom previously....This was what I did to eradicate the algae effectively for my 3 feet tank:

I plucked and threw away as much hair algae as my fingers could gather, from lumps stuck with the substrates and those clumped onto pipes and leaves. I placed a long rain-bar which was not there previously (I don't know if water/co2 circulation has any relation?). I then bought 20+ adult yamato shrimps from NA and left the bag floating for almost the entire day. During the night, I let go the shrimps. My hair algae was gone in a matter few days. I had experimented by laying 2 pieces of mesh covered with riccia fluitans with strands of hair algae. The strands are very obvious but I've seen yamato shrimps plucking them and the algae on riccia was gone very soon. Feed sparingly during this time although I know it's very heart-breaking to see my tetras and smaller cherry shrimps went on diet. Yamato shrimps are very aggressive when I throw in food. They even fight for food with my 3" fat SAE. The bottom line to eradicate hair algae is to introduce yamato shrimps - Yes, many of them.

**Jungle-mania** · 23rd Aug 2007, 09:16

I think I will try the yamato method first, then the black out as my timer switches the light for 2 tanks.

**Cloud-Strife** · 18th Sep 2007, 14:44

I tried yamatos and Siamese Algae Eater (SAE). The algae were eaten within 1 week and my SAEs died of hunger.

Hahahaha

**barmby** · 18th Sep 2007, 17:59

Originally Posted by Cloud-Strife

I tried yamatos and Siamese Algae Eater (SAE). The algae were eaten within 1 week and my SAEs died of hunger.

Hahahaha

I think that's abit cruel.

**taygu** · 18th Sep 2007, 19:46

I tried Yamatos, it works. Otherwise, manual removal.

**Aeon** · 19th Sep 2007, 00:06

H2O2 FTW. Depends on the kind of plants though.

**grey_fox** · 27th Sep 2007, 18:25

What I did was this.

1. Removed as much as I can manually
2. 50% water change
3. Reduced lighting
4. Cleaning of external filters
5. Reduced fertilization.

Think most folks often forget to clean their filters. Have you cleaned yours yet?

**Jungle-mania** · 27th Sep 2007, 19:01

Now this idea of mine may sound traverse and taboo to many planted folks here, but I cleared my 2 feet tank of green hair algae in 2 weeks and make plants grow with lush. It is a simple 3 step process.

step 1:
Put 2 small bags of zeolite and stop fert for a week.
Reason: The main problem with green hair algae is that it exist because of the lack of competition with plants. You have often heard people to plant more and more, but I have realised that it comes to a point that there is no space to plant anymore plants and plants take al longer time to absorb the extra nutrients. So what I thought of was to create my own "competition". The zeolites absorbs all chemicals in the water, thus creating my much needed and faster "competition". In days, the change was obvious, but it was the end. I know that most people use zeolite to reduce the toxicity of their arrowana and pleco tanks and to use zeolite for planted tanks is big waste especially on all the fert being used.

Step 2:
Change the direction of filter outflow to create water movement.
Reason: I figured that the algae is using the nutrients that are not broken down in time by the bacteria and with the algae bloom, it was only a matter of time, euthropication will set in and creating an anerobic environment. This will reduce the bacteria count in the water and things will spiral out of control from there on. So I decided to agitate the water surface with the filter outflow, so that some atmospheric air will be circulated in the water to breathe in oxygen for the bacteria.

Now you might think that this is major taboo in planted scene to have agitated surface due to the waste of CO2, but here is an article from practicalfishkeeping that shows otherwise.

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.u...php?blogid=116

Step 3:
get shrimps for cleanup crew.
reason: By now, the algae have turned into crinkly pale straws after a few days and you will also notice the water is getting clearer. I add in 4 bucks worth of malayan shrimps from NA into my tank and presto, in a matter of days, almost 90% of my algae is gone.

Lastly, i added a bag of carbon just in case of any organic matter floating around that cause problem in the future. I threw away the zeolite and carbon after 3 weeks and the total cost of the experiment was less than $10 and done in 2 weeks.

Yes, I admit this goes against all conventions, but when our future leader being groomed by a purple dinosaur, what is convention, but an inconvenience to possibilities.

**Aquaculture** · 28th Sep 2007, 11:47

[quote=Jungle-mania;272506
Yes, I admit this goes against all conventions, but when our future leader being groomed by a purple dinosaur, what is convention, but an inconvenience to possibilities.[/quote]

this is so politically correct.

Your method is rather unconventional but if it works, why not. Its like starting anew again... except that your fauna and flora remains in the tank. A concern I have. Via deleting all the elements, won't your flora suffer in the meantime? And by adding AC, won't your BB be eliminated and you would have to cycle your tank again...

**Madmax** · 28th Sep 2007, 13:13

I had it in my shrimp tank. I bought an oto and it cleaned up all the hair algae. Now I have to supplement its diet with Hikari algae wafers.

**Jungle-mania** · 28th Sep 2007, 16:59

Originally Posted by Aquaculture

this is so politically correct.

Your method is rather unconventional but if it works, why not. Its like starting anew again... except that your fauna and flora remains in the tank. A concern I have. Via deleting all the elements, won't your flora suffer in the meantime? And by adding AC, won't your BB be eliminated and you would have to cycle your tank again...

Actually no, the plants and bacteria to start with are suffering because of the algae, because of the lack of nutrients that are being absorb by the algae and the lack of oxygen respectively. As I highlighted, this took only 3 days or so to clear my tank of most of the algae issue, not all, but more than enough to know that it is working. By the later part of the following week, I was dosing fert again with no issues. I doubt the plants will suffer greatly from the lack of fert for a few days.

**stetan** · 29th Sep 2007, 12:27

Put in a black molly.....the next day, 90% of the hair algae gone !

This guy just seem to eat and eat....

**Serafin** · 6th Oct 2007, 17:06

Or simply try Easy Carbo. Put 3 times more then specified in manual for 4 days. Alge just burn out.

But nusproduct is damaging also some plants as Valisneria, java moss, riccia...........