Hair Algae!!!!

[cairocks]

Haiz....My moss are invaded by hair algae. Cannot use Yamatos as I've got 2 angelfish in the tank. Last time, tried with large yamatos, thinking that they are too large for the angels, ended up the shrimps either all jumped out onto the floor or being de-limb by the angels within a few hours of putting them in. Tried SAEs, putting 2 in at a time, always end up one jumping out of the tank. ( Are they territorial?). Now the remaining one has grown too big to be useful. Have tried to physicall removal of the algae, only to have tem come back a couple of weeks later. Now trying to up my CO2 and physical removal of moss at the same time. Haiz...my moss have naturally clinged onto the back styrofoam of the tank, such a waste if need to tear that away. So far, the back moss seems not affected by the algae yet.

[grey_fox]

Hi cairocks.

I feel your pain myself. There are a few suggestions and ulimately one ultimatum to take.

Suggestions
You can throw in as many malayan shrimps, saes and yamatos possible but your angels will eventually nip them.

You can manually remove it on a daily basis.

Keep your CO2 maintained at 30 to 35 PPM.

If you manually remove the algae, do a 50% water change, dose liquid/dry ferts.

If all else fails... do what I did. Throw away the entire moss and restart. The hair algaes grow too fast, so you really got to either up your CO2 better, get more algae eating crew in (gotta do something about your angels) and practise E.I. The weekly 50% W.C would do good too.

Maybe some other bros can further advise you but these are the steps I took when my thick & mature moss got attacked by hair algae.... in the end, I lost the battle. Heh.

[Goondoo]

Hi cairocks.

Suggestions
You can throw in as many malayan shrimps, saes and yamatos possible but your angels will eventually nip them.

Shrimps are friends...... shrimps are not food......

[celticfish]

how about trying SAEs?

[PeterGwee]

Pick on the moss and only add uninfected ones back in the tank. Are you dosing enough nutrients? Enough plant mass? CO2 at 30ppm? Stable? They should not come back if the nutrients and CO2 is good.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[cairocks]

That's everyone for the replies...Will try to follow E.I. Thr problem I am facing now is that I have been useing Super Root monster as the primary fert and Dennerle Gold 7. Not too sure what are the amount of those trace elements in my tank. Will try to figure it out by this weekend. Had upped the CO2 fro the present moment. Had been using this fert regime for the past one year and had successfully got rid of BBA from my tank. This round, it is the war against hair algae. Hummmm....

[|squee|]

Most likely your moss are not trimmed regularly and is quite thick. Am I right? I noticed algae hits moss when it's thick and not trimmed.

In future keep your moss regularly trimmed if so.