My Experience with Cladophora Algae

**kakaz** · 5th Jan 2011, 16:35

Friends

I would like to share my experience with Cladophora Algae.

Cladophora is like Hair Algae; Green Branching Type Long Coarse Strands which easily breaks off. Emits a very nasty pungent smell if you rub or crush it. Attracts lot of dust floating debris. It grows everywhere on substrate, driftwood inside hairgrass, glosso, moss.

Extremely difficult to remove from the tank once infested. It grows rapidly with increased nutrients like Nitrate, light and CO2. If the plants grow well they also grow well and fast. In one of my aquarium they started growing on snails also.

I tried Excel to kill them; overdosing of excel definitely kills but the traces remains in nook and corners or even inside the substrate grains and after few days they start growing once again. In low light Cladophora grows slowly but in that case you cannot keep highlight plants.

Disgusted, in my 100 liters tank I nuked them first with Chlorine (Bleach) changed the complete water after two days and then once again emptied the 250 ml excel bottle. Everything died and I thought finally I got rid of this nuisance. I changed the water several times and restarted the things.

But to my utter surprise, Cladophora started appearing in bogwood branches sporadically and form the substrate. I started spot treatment with the help of a brush soaked with Excel. After repeated attempts, the tank appears to be finally free from Cladophora.

Cladophora in my opinion can be transported to tanks only as contaminants:

Check thoroughly any new plants, moss, decors before introducing to tank. Discard straightway if there is any slight evidence of suspicion.

Check the water and sterilize it properly if it sourced from rivers or lakes. Municipal authorities’ dose chlorine to remove pathogens; however that might not be sufficient to kill Cladophora strands. Filtering the water thru a ceramic cartridge will help.

I am attaching a picture of the tank with the algae infestation.

GlossoTank3Feb10.jpg

Regards
Kakaz

PS : The above description is based on my experience only and one need not agree with the same.

**blue33** · 5th Jan 2011, 18:32

spot treatment can kill them, dont need to bleach them, stop anything that can cause current movement before you do spot treatment. sounds funny to me, i've seen many people washed filter washed this washed that till tear down the whole scape etc etc etc, at the end they still come back to them.

**Kenng** · 5th Jan 2011, 23:10

Thank you for sharing, my fissidens were struck before and dosing with excel killed them together with my fissidens.
I guess is too much.

**Navanod** · 6th Jan 2011, 11:08

I agree with you that Cladophora Algae and BBA are exotic and only introduced as contaminants rather than appearing from tap water. In my most recent tank, I did everything in my powers to prevent introduction of exotic algae. But BBA still got in, probably from a clump of hairgrass I brought over from an old tank that had BBA. But the fact that I only had BBA, greenspot and the normal green & brown algae means that other exotic algaes can be kept out through strict practices.

I saw this LFS selling tissue-cultured HC. I'm definitely going to use that if I ever start another tank. I truly believe its possible to be free of these pesky super algae.

**kakaz** · 6th Jan 2011, 13:18

BBA is more common in tanks with softwater + abundant CO2. In fact contrary to popular belief I observed BBA growing inside the internal CO2 reactor (Where Co2 concentration is maximum) of a pressurised system. However you can destroy BBA easily with Excel or CarboPlus overdosing and then maintain that.

Softwater +CO2 is good for plant growth and so for BBA also.

Regards
Kakaz

**blue33** · 6th Jan 2011, 22:51

i agree with Kakaz. BBA comes from anywhere, even if you just keep fauna you still get BBA also.

**Navanod** · 7th Jan 2011, 14:02

Originally Posted by kakaz

BBA is more common in tanks with softwater + abundant CO2. In fact contrary to popular belief I observed BBA growing inside the internal CO2 reactor (Where Co2 concentration is maximum) of a pressurised system. However you can destroy BBA easily with Excel or CarboPlus overdosing and then maintain that.

Softwater +CO2 is good for plant growth and so for BBA also.

Regards
Kakaz

Some claims that their BBA　ｄｉｅｄ　ｏｆｆ　ｗｈｅｎ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｃｒａｎｋ　ｕｐ　ｔｈｅ　ＣＯ２．．．ｂｕｔ　Ｉalso noticed that the BBA　ｇｒｏｗｓ　ｏｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｒａｉｎｂａｒｓ，　ｗｈｅｒｅ　ｔｈｅ　ＣＯ２　ｃｏｍｅｓ　ｏｕｔ　（ｕｓｉｎｇ　ｉｎｌｉｎｅ）.
I'm using excel and thought I killed all off...but they came back a few weeks after I stopped overdosing. As long as they don't grow too fast, I'll just learn to live with it for now.

Originally Posted by blue33

i agree with Kakaz. BBA comes from anywhere, even if you just keep fauna you still get BBA also.

Finding a cure for BBA will be like finding a cure for AIDS!

**hyun007** · 9th Jan 2011, 00:31

H202 is my favourite method, cheap and effective.
Just squirt it with syringe.

**Kenng** · 10th Jan 2011, 11:17

Originally Posted by hyun007

H202 is my favourite method, cheap and effective.
Just squirt it with syringe.

Will it kill fissidens? I lost quite a lot of it due with excel 20% to 80% water dip for 10 minutes treatment.

**hyun007** · 5th Feb 2011, 18:06

Originally Posted by Kenng

Will it kill fissidens? I lost quite a lot of it due with excel 20% to 80% water dip for 10 minutes treatment.

I used it on spots that have cladophora with syringe.
If your fissidens has cladophora, just use syringe and inject at places that are infected.
Overdose can of course killed the fissidens.
Sometime the fissidens will go brown but it will come back to life again after sometime.

**hyun007** · 5th Feb 2011, 18:07

Originally Posted by Kenng

Will it kill fissidens? I lost quite a lot of it due with excel 20% to 80% water dip for 10 minutes treatment.

I used it on spots that have cladophora with syringe.
If your fissidens has cladophora, just use syringe and inject at places that are infected.
Overdose can of course killed the fissidens.
Sometime the fissidens will go brown but it will come back to life again after sometime.

**kakaz** · 6th Feb 2011, 23:08

IMO the best method to combat cladophora is to spot treatment. Recently I started a new tank, all was going well but I noticed some clumps are growing here and there. I take a painting brush, dip with excel and rub that nuisance. This kills them. I suggest not to try to remove physically as the fonds get broken and spread easily.

Regards
Kakaz

**Kiatster** · 7th Feb 2011, 01:24

Algae spores are everywhere...and when the time and conditions are met.....KABOOOMM!! Algae infestation!

**Kenng** · 9th Feb 2011, 11:12

Now I am trying to get rid of them in my 1ft shrimp tank by having one spray of excel weekly.
So far no shrimps died, still monitoring to see if it can be cleaned up.

**Raven_** · 15th Jan 2013, 00:15

Originally Posted by kakaz

Extremely difficult to remove from the tank once infested. It grows rapidly with increased nutrients like Nitrate, light and CO2. If the plants grow well they also grow well and fast. In one of my aquarium they started growing on snails also.

I have an aquarium with cladophora and i want to bleachbomb it all but want to keep the animals and a few of the plants that has sentimental value.

I was thinking of setting up a small tank that will have everything to make plants grow at an extreme rate and then put in some of the animals for some time, do you think one month will be enough to be fairly sure the tank and animals are free of cladophora?

Regards
Raven_