Please help: are these the dreaded hair algae?

[mikeang]

Hi,

I just came back from a one week vacation to find these in my tank.

My parameters are as follows :

2*1*1 feet tank
CO2 - 5 BPS
Lights 24watt *2 T5 (3 hours ON, 4 hours rest, 4 hours on again) together with CO2
Fan cooled - temp ard 28.5 degree celsius
Sand - GEX
Plants - US Fissiden, Taiwan Moss, some ferts, some hair glass, others I cannot ID
Fish - 45+ Neon Tetras
1 Golden algae eater
2 Assasin snails

8 dead Yamato shrimps (when i came back from vacation) as switched off fan to avoid evaporation

Can i ask if these are hair algae? I find them on the Fissiden, can't see them on the other plants or the taiwan moss.

If i really do not wish to have to pull them out manually, how many Yamato shrimps + siamese algae eater should i add? Or should i use chemical?

Perhaps my parameters above is wrong. I read about some blackout. What do you recommend?

Very grateful for any help.

[Navanod]

A clearer picture would help...

May be hair, fuzz or cladophora...

[jiajuen900]

Could be one of the above mentioned algae. But to cure the problem, must find the cause. Which in this case seems to be ammonia spike.

1) your tank seems to be overcrowded, 45 neons id to much your tank should have only about 15 at the max. Also note that Golden algae eater or CAE will grow very big and get aggresive.

2) The plant on the right in the back does not look like a aquatic plant. It will rot in the tank = ammonia spike.

3) Also ammonia from dead shrimp.

As on how to remove the algae, try removing as much manually (cut off the parts that are covered in algae). Peform large water changes and improve circulation in the tank.

Chemical not reccomended as most contain harmful substances to snails and shrimp. If you use the algae riding chemical, it will be difficult for shrimp and snail to live in your tank in future (experienced myslef).

Adding any algae eater will not help. First of all, we do not know what algae it is therefore cannot reccomend what algae eater you should add. (different algae eaters eat different kinds of algae).

Black out can help but from personal experience, only useful against some types of algae.

[Navanod]

Agree with jiajuen. And since the algae is only on your meshes, taking them out and using very diluted 2.5% bleach on them for 2mins may kill off most of the algae without killing off your fissidens. But make sure to mixed the bleach in evenly and to not leave it longer than 2mins.
Make sure to rinse off the bleach and soak with water after adding dechlorinator before putting back. You may still lose some fissidens though

Aside from taking out that non-aquatic plant, you can also replace it with something fast growing like hornwort, frogbits or a fast growing stem plant. That will absorb and compete with the algae for nutrients

Your CO2 can be switched on 15mins before the lights so that the algaes do not get that "window" of light where the plants are still waiting for CO2 to reach 30ppm and not able to make use of light to soak up nutrients in the water.

Replacing the dead yamatos may also help if the algae is the edible type...

[jiajuen900]

Instead of bleach which could prove harmful if not rinsed properly, you could try using hydogen peroxide (h202), less harmful and can dose directly into tank. Can buy from pharmacy.

For less work, just change the moss.

Also keep up with water changes to distrupt algae growth.

[Fuzzy]

I would recommend something slightly more drastic, just take out the fissdens mesh entirely and start over with the mesh, you are going to have an uphill battle dealing with the algae, and fissdens is fairly delicate and will not deal well with a bleach dip, especially if they are already degraded.

I'd recommend a 50% water change and a 2 day blackout for starters.

[Shadow]

Look like cladophora, need clearer photo

By the way, how old is this setup? All of your plant look like just newly planted. Your moss on the wood also does not look healthy.

You can try the above suggestion by jiajuen, Novanod and Fuzzy

2 days black out probably not enough, I will go for at least 3 days.

[mikeang]

hi everybody,

Thanks for your suggestions.

Yes, mine is newly setup. One month plus only. I had a suspicion about the plant at the rear but when I asked the uncle at C328 if it was aquatic, he just nod. Sigh... Will remove it tonight.

I paid quite highly for the fissiden so am reluctant to throw them away.

looks like I got to redo my tank.

Do you think getting amano shrimps will help?

Thanks

[Shadow]

if you have the patient, you can pull the algae as much as you can regularly. Add Yamato but you need to reduce bioload (2f tank with 45 neon is too much). Also reduce feeding otherwise Yamato will eat the fish food instead of algae. You need to have patient because you will be doing this few time a week for couple of weeks

[newtank]

Since you are using GEX soil, I would guess one of the factor is too much nutrient, but too few fast growing plants. If you wnat to maintain your tank as it is, then it will be a delicate task of trying to balance the nutrients vs the plants, But if you are open to the idea, then do some massive planting with fast growing plants, normally this will take care of most algae

[jiajuen900]

Correct if im wrong but too much nutrient should nit be a problem if not how does EI work. Probably not enough water change so there is no balance. The new soil also release ammonia

[newtank]

Correct if im wrong but too much nutrient should nit be a problem if not how does EI work. Probably not enough water change so there is no balance. The new soil also release ammonia

Ei is a very successful concept, but my question is if too much nutrient is not a problem, then why bother to water change to reset the tank.

[jiajuen900]

ahh... you got a point....... But since Ammonia is the cause of algae, so how is nutrient linked to algae?

Another way to look at it is. Algae is always present in the tank and we do water change to distrupt the growth of algae, therefore killing of some of it.

But Im not sure.... Maybe too much nutrients indirectly cause ammonia spike overtime? Can any one enlighten me?

But one thing i know is that different algae like different conditions e.g little co2 or little phosphates. These will lead to ammonia indirectly and cause the alage that prefer those conditions to bloom. Am i correct?

[Shadow]

Ei is a very successful concept, but my question is if too much nutrient is not a problem, then why bother to water change to reset the tank.

because otherwise it will kill your fauna.

Need to be careful when you use the word nutrient, because Ammonia does cause algae bloom but not KNO3 nor KH2PO4

[mikeang]

HI guys,

here's an update of what I have done over the weekend:

1. took out all the fissiden moss and using a toothbrush as advised by a bro here to take out all the hair algae manually.

2. reduced the feeding of the fishes

3. backout for the next few days then reduced timing from 8 hours to 6 hours

4. took out the non aquatic plant and the taiwan moss

5. planted more aquatic plants to absorb the nutrients but seems bought in sufficiently. I bought almost $20 worth but it only cover half my tank

6. added more shrimps (can see the shrimps actually picking up things from the fissiden and nibble on it)

7. added 4 SAEs but one died

8. Do a daily water change of 10%.

Hope it works. Need to get more plants later to help absorb some more nutrients.

[herns]

Hi,

I just came back from a one week vacation to find these in my tank.

My parameters are as follows :

2*1*1 feet tank
CO2 - 5 BPS
Lights 24watt *2 T5 (3 hours ON, 4 hours rest, 4 hours on again) together with CO2
Fan cooled - temp ard 28.5 degree celsius
Sand - GEX
Plants - US Fissiden, Taiwan Moss, some ferts, some hair glass, others I cannot ID
Fish - 45+ Neon Tetras
1 Golden algae eater
2 Assasin snails

8 dead Yamato shrimps (when i came back from vacation) as switched off fan to avoid evaporation

Can i ask if these are hair algae? I find them on the Fissiden, can't see them on the other plants or the taiwan moss.

If i really do not wish to have to pull them out manually, how many Yamato shrimps + siamese algae eater should i add? Or should i use chemical?

Perhaps my parameters above is wrong. I read about some blackout. What do you recommend?

Very grateful for any help.

the middle picture of algae is a Cyanobactria. ( I hope I got that spelling right) Give a Squirt an Excel or a Hydrogen Peroxide to it and it will die. Also improve your water circulation and crank up your CO2.

[newtank]

because otherwise it will kill your fauna.

Need to be careful when you use the word nutrient, because Ammonia does cause algae bloom but not KNO3 nor KH2PO4

I agree with you, but when we do water change to reset tank, we cannot choose to reset ammonia and not the rest...so are they interelated?

[jiajuen900]

i agree, circulation important in planted tank. More important than most think. But note, the problem of over stocking still remains, may even be worse, because SAE can grow very big, they are good algae eaters when they are younger but tend to eat food more than lage as they get bigger.

Note: they can grow quite big, and 4 of them will be too many for a 2ft in future.

With all that algae should go away in time, but it may come back again. The reason why algae bloom is still there which is ammonia ( problem still lies in too many fishes )

[mikeang]

Hi,

Thanks. What would you recommend I crank up my CO2 till? It's currently set to around 3bps and am using an external CO2 reactor.

the middle picture of algae is a Cyanobactria. ( I hope I got that spelling right) Give a Squirt an Excel or a Hydrogen Peroxide to it and it will die. Also improve your water circulation and crank up your CO2.

[mikeang]

Yes, i plan to pass some of my neon to my brother soon .. as for the 4 SAEs, i am left with 3. (one died)...

I think preferably, I should have just 20 neon + 10 shrimps and maybe 1 SAEs.

i agree, circulation important in planted tank. More important than most think. But note, the problem of over stocking still remains, may even be worse, because SAE can grow very big, they are good algae eaters when they are younger but tend to eat food more than lage as they get bigger.

Note: they can grow quite big, and 4 of them will be too many for a 2ft in future.

With all that algae should go away in time, but it may come back again. The reason why algae bloom is still there which is ammonia ( problem still lies in too many fishes )