Battling Hair Algae

**Blue Whale** · 18th Dec 2009, 10:57

Mua never studies ar...so always got a lot of spelling errors here and there. Thanks to AQ admin doing all the correction behind.

Bicarbonate of SODA is more on water hardness, so far I do not see any links with algae. On the less chim (deep) side, yeap, it always about that Lighting thingy. Tom bring out one good point about understanding your plant. How hard the water do you think your plant need?

I do not measure light in terms of microns, and so what do I do if I got one light with 2 tubes and 1 switch? Flip the light over, turn one light until its off, there we go, half light! ha ha...Of course, you can remove the entire tube if you do not have a protective cover below the light. Most CO2 tank setup will follow the cycle of the timer we set. Now how about CO2 tank + DIY CO2? Simple, just make sure that you add Bicarbonate of SODA to the sugar solution, less yeast, the bubble rate will reduce, last longer. Now remember that day time there is still sun light. So even if the tank light is not on, you still have to watch out for direct sun which can contribute to the growth of the algae. Night time, you do not need a DIY CO2 with super bubble rate to di-oxygenate the entire tank.

**TyroneGenade** · 18th Dec 2009, 16:26

Thanks for the replies Tom.

I have been increasing the CO2 but think my diffuser isn't efficient enough so I have ordered a better one. The response of the Cabomba is surprising as I would have though it would have preferred the low pH (and thus higher CO2:HCO3- ratio) but it didn't. But I have changed many things at once so it may be the switch from mostly Aquastar to mostly Cool white which is the problem. I'm not back to 1 Grolux: 1 Cool White: 1 Aquastar and will see how that goes.

I have 172.4 W/m2 (or about 850 micromol photons/m2 based on the wavelength of yellow light). Guess I need to tone this down or increase the CO2... My Riccia, at a depth of about 40 cm, pearls while other plants don't. In the past I used to run 153 W/m2 over this tank without any algae and luxuriant plant growth---of course back then the tank was very overstocked so plant nutrients would have been in excess.

To increase the day-time CO2 I would turn off the filter during the day. The fish would be hanging about near the surface of the tank by midday so the CO2 was very high of course, K, Ca and Mg was lacking... Maybe that will change not that they are added.

Thanks again for the information and articles.

**mozaqua** · 21st Dec 2009, 03:36

Tom,

How do we maintain good KH? My tap water is 7.5 PH, GH:11, KH:3.
Old setups the KH will rise to 7 and CO2 injection works (plants make O2 and no cyanobacteria). I have used peat filtration and resin to soften the water in previous setups with success. Problem with the resin filtration is it removes too many plant nutrients and the plants grow very slowly.
I don't want to use the peat in this tank, so I tried reducing PH with HCL, but it will not stay below 7.5.
My latest setup the CO2 is not dissolving well, and lots of cyano. So I checked the KH, PH. PH is rising, and KH will not.
Oh, I also just started the CO2 injection this week(just repaired leak), which is why I have so much hair algae to begin with.

Regards

**blackBRUSHalgae** · 21st Dec 2009, 10:47

Originally Posted by StanChung

Does your hair algae look like this?

Is it nearly as bad?

It was at a LFS that shall be unnamed- to be continued. need to shoot the AFTER pics this weekend.

Mine was worst than this Stan!!!

Lush and thick clump of green filamentous algae up to 30cmm or more!!!

It flourished and bloomed in both my 3-1/2' tank and 1' cube. I rescaped both the tanks and this algae came with my new plants. And of course being an algae, they adapted better than my new plants under good condition of strong light (4x39W T5HO for 3-1/2' and 24W twister for 1' x 8hrs for both) good dosing and 24/7 CO2 ( 4bps for 3-1/2' and 1bps for 1').

With the same amount of lighting, dosing, CO2 and weekly water change with mechanical removal of the algae (they comes back stronger everytime I mowed them down) which I allowed this to continue for about 1 month or so, in order to let me plants to adapt into "weed" growing form hehehe... so did the algae ~_~" The algae had evolved into made-in-china-mass-production-form, that they even grew madly in my filter media in the filter canistor!!!

And so finally my plants are in good shape, which is the time I decided to take action against the algae. I cut down my lighting to 4hrs (same intensity), clean up my filters and add in the not-so-secret algae eater, rosy barb (one each). The algae disappeared within 3 days in my 1' and a week in my 3-1/2'

Currently, I've increased the lighting for both to 6hrs (which I think is the sweet spot for my setup now), and of course I can only see green healthy plants

**TyroneGenade** · 21st Dec 2009, 21:48

Hi,

Manually removed as much of the cursed stuff this weekend and dosed with trace and macro. So far so good, no visible rebound by the algae. The plants look happy and I hope they will be able to out compete the algae but we will see... I will have the hydrogen peroxide on standby in case the algae gets going.

Sadly, Rosy barbs are not an option for me as I will never be able to catch them out the tank!

**StanChung** · 22nd Dec 2009, 01:47

Originally Posted by blackBRUSHalgae

Mine was worst than this Stan!!!

Lush and thick clump of green filamentous algae up to 30cmm or more!!!

It was neglect then. Quite a common thing to let algae take over when the maintenance guy is away.

Cleaning it up is 2 blackout for this variety + some potion from ADA.

None of the plants were harmed amazingly and really quick turnaround for something that looked like a lot of elbow grease was expected.

**Blue Whale** · 22nd Dec 2009, 07:59

-.-" Sometimes I have a hard time trying to understand whether are you all planting aquatic plants or trying to grow specialised algae.

Stan, well said. ("Quite a common thing to let algae take over when the maintenance guy is away.")

**blackBRUSHalgae** · 23rd Dec 2009, 08:23

Originally Posted by StanChung

It was neglect then. Quite a common thing to let algae take over when the maintenance guy is away.

Cleaning it up is 2 blackout for this variety + some potion from ADA.

None of the plants were harmed amazingly and really quick turnaround for something that looked like a lot of elbow grease was expected.

hahhaha it has bloomed not because I have neglected it but instead I have fueled it with very good amount of light and ferts

But of course my plants have benefited as well.

But once I fine tune my lighting and dosing, it never came back.

**StanChung** · 23rd Dec 2009, 09:53

You're a strange one.

**myfishid** · 8th Jan 2010, 17:09

Appears to me that your tank is pretty empty. Probably due to too much nutrients. Good to plant densely to limit algae problem. I don't think your lighting is a cause for concern

**TyroneGenade** · 11th Jan 2010, 20:19

Hello,

I dosed with H2O2 last week.

The dose was 2 mL of a 12% H2O2 per 15.2 L of water. (12% is the same as 40 volume, the original protocol called with 2 mL 3% H2O2 per 3.8 L. 3% is 10 volume H2O2.) I dosed on Wednesday and Thursday as per the protocol. On Wednesday morning I could see that the hair algae looked pale and fuzzy. On Thursday evening I added the second dose and almost immediately the tank was filled with oxygen bubbles (which had not happened on Wednesday). I guess the dying hair algae had released a lot of Fe and other metals into the water which were catalyzing the break down of H2O2 to H2O and O2.

On Saturday I removed as much of the dead algae as I could. My long-leafed Hygro was loosing its older leaves and the stargrass looked a bit burnt. My HM was melting but the new leaves looked OK. My Cambomba and Cryptes were all OK. No fish died and I didn't see any dead shrimp so they also survived (I guess). The snails were less lucky. I think many died.

On the whole I am happy with the treatment. All the plants, fish and shrimp have survived (though some plants are damaged). If the hair algae grows back I will probably try a weaker dose.

tt

**o2bubble** · 21st Jan 2010, 08:46

just sharing my experience with hair algae that worked for me a few times. I just increase co2, add yamatos and manual remove visible hair algae. Clears within a week.

**o2bubble** · 21st Jan 2010, 08:50

btw, i did a change 50% water and reduce fertiliser also. Lights reduce if you can will help also.

**TyroneGenade** · 21st Jan 2010, 19:23

I'm very impressed. Now that the hair algae is dead the plants are thriving. I'm seeing more pearling and better growth. Signs of nutrient deficiency has disappeared and I have STOPPED adding NPK. Nothing has changed other than killing the algae. Same CO2 etc...