Black Hair Algae ?

[NottsFishy]

Hello ladies and gents

All three of my tanks have been going well for quite a very long time now but im having a problem with my 55gal tank.
I do regular water changes on all my tanks and the stats are fine but recently it has become over run with black hair like algae that is hugely stubborn to get rid of the lighting is dim and my bristlenose doesnt eat it over that past couple of weeks it has nearly covered all my bogwood and plants and is now starting to cling to that glass.
All my fish are fine and dandy but wat is annoying me is the fact not even regular water changes have stopped it if any one can help me on this that would be brilliant.
Thank you

 

[meguro]

did u change anything recently (last 2-3 months) in the tank?

 

[Carlovel1]

If hair algae is your problem then buy 6 Siamese algae eaters.They are the only fish that eat that algae

 

[pauld]

overdose with flourish excel 4x the reccomended dose on day one 2x dose on day 2 etc will clear it .

 

[The-Wolf]

what is the black hair algea on?

if plants you can do a bleach dip(10% bleach solution and dip the affected plant into it, rinse well, preferably in aquasafe.
if on ornament you can do a bleach bath (24hrs) then a bath 24hr with aquasafe, which breaks down any bleach
if on substrate the best thing to do is change it for new substrate.
if on the internal glass of the tank/silicon then I'm afraid scrubbing every time it appears is your only option.

HTH

 

[snowflake311]

I to have called WAR on this WEED. I took all my decorations out and bleached them No need to wait 24 hr if you make a strong mix or use straight bleach it will kill it fast. Then scrub the dead stuff off and rinse really well. I also let my stuff dry out.

Then I scrubed the tank down added some new sand to the top of the old stuff. The sand was not efected by if but I just wanted it to look good. Then I took out ALL live plants. Im treating them in a tank with NO fish and over dose with Excel. I rub off as much as I can at first.

I gave up on plants in this tank and put all fake ones in. I cut back the amount of time the light is on for. my light is too powerful and I was useing differant kinds of ferts for the plants. Now that I don't have plants It should be ok. also make sure you have some good water flow.

If you only have a little bit in a small area you can spot treat with excle I did this and it worked but I had too much to deal with.

 

[Bigbadbaz]

eSHa PROTALON-707 will stop it growing, I have used it a few times, as long as you follow the instructions and use the rest of the second bottle as per the instructions it will be gone.

 

[the biffster]

i had a problem with it once
it all came about due to a
nitrate and phosphate problem
lower these and changed my
lighting tubes for new ones
and the time they were on and
bingo it was no more but once you have
sorted all that out the only way to clean
every thing i found was a red hot pressure
wash with no chemicals just scalding water
it moves then

 

[RadaR]

Hair algae is nothing to do with phosphates or nitrates. It's strictly CO2 related. Unstable or low Co2 will encourage this algae.
How to fix it? Increase the CO2 and make sure the output is costant. If you don't want to do that, then it's a case of lowering your lighting.
I've seen many tanks with too much light and massive airstones which result in BBA (black brush algae) madness.

 

[NottsFishy]

Thank you everyone for youre help if removing everything from the tank and bleaching it is the best option then i will do that but can i bleach bogwood ? if not i will just remove it and get new bits.

 

[snowflake311]

I bleached my wood and it looks a bit lighter now and I like it. Just rinse it off well soak in clean water then add to tank with dechlorinator. Once you have killed it all you need to adjust what you were doing. Less light and if you don't have any plants don't worry about c02. Then things should get better. I never had bba untill I started keeping plants and used excle as my c02. I was really bad about keeping up with adding excle so my tanks c02 level was not consistant. I agree with RadaR about the cause of thus stuff.

Good luck this stuff sucks.

Make sure you do a huge wc bring the water down to 5-6" if you can that will remove most of the fee floating bits you might have scrubed off the tank sides.

 

[NottsFishy]

Thanks alot snowflake will do that.
One thing though is i cant for the life of me think what i have changed to bring on all this algae the lighting hasnt changed there are no live plants or c02 so i have no idea lol

 

[RadaR]

Thanks alot snowflake will do that.
One thing though is i cant for the life of me think what i have changed to bring on all this algae the lighting hasnt changed there are no live plants or c02 so i have no idea lol

Air pump? Raised the filter outlet above the water line?