Hair algae (D'oh!)

[Sean_Buckley]

Well, a few days ago, I had to take out my Aquaclear 200 because there was a small chip in it, and it was leaking, so I decided to reseal it. Well, about 2 days later, my water got cloudy, sort of greenish (algae bloom, I think). So, I did a water change, and now today, there's hair algae all over one of my stem plants and some other stuff. I cut down the time the light is on, but is there anything else I can do? I'm putting the filter back on tonight, and the light duration is now only 10 hours. I'm assuming its due to excessive nitrates, because of the filter being gone...
Sean

 

[bshockstubb]

Get a Plec and let me gourge himself, in a few days you'll have a very very fat plecostomus.

 

[Sean_Buckley]

I've got a plecostomus. Bristlenose, actually. Should I get another, since this one seems to be a lazy little turd?
Sean

 

[Nospherith]

I used to have the hair algae real bad. It's gone now, thankfully. I'm taking it easy on the lighting (2.75-3.5wpg) averaging around 8 hours a day and never leave the light on overnight... anymore ). I have a medium-high plantload w/ fast growers and dose N, K & micros conservatively. CO2 is around 10-15ppm w/ DIY CO2, diffusion is airstone bubbles that collect on underside of apon crispus leaves. I feed a little bit once a day and do a 30-40% w/c weekly hoovering just above the surface so it's free of mulm. I still have some staghorn leftover on my cryptocorynes and the odd algae here and there but overall the hair algae hasn't grown back. I'm not sure if it's from my practices or from the SAE's... perhaps a combination of both.
--
If you have an excess of NO3 then that signifies that nutrient uptake in your tank is slow. I haven't seen your tank, but I would reckon getting more fast-growers and generally increasing the amount of flora in your tank could speed uptake, thereby inhibiting algae growth by having plants absorb all nutrients. Finally, algae growth is a sign of an improper balance of nutrients in the water. It's best to treat the cause than the algae itself.

Last I checked, ghost shrimp eat hair algae and they're really cheap so if you can find them get a bunch of em.

 

[Aulonochromis]

The filter being gone won't cause excessive nitrates. What probably happened is you had an ammonia spike without the filter and that caused it. Ammonia is the biggest cause of algae.

 

[Sean_Buckley]

It probably was the ammonia, but I've got the filter back on again. I will try to get some faster growers, right now I have 2 Amazon Swords, about 4 Ludwigia repens, 1 Anubias sp., some moss, Cryptocorynes and a bunch of Vallis. My WPG are about 2.4, I think. I've got an Angelfish, would it try to eat the Ghosts? I've used some smaller ones as feeders before, should I just try to get big ones? And should I get another BN?
Sean

 

[NikkiY]

I just had my share of problems with hair algae. My solution is rosy barb. I got a pair and after a few days they ate all the hair algae like noodles. I only got two bec. my tank is quite crowded already. You really want to keep around 6 of them. However, be aware that it could grow to 3" long.

Nikki

 

[jimbooo]

Plecs dont eat hair algae, trust me. i have the stuff all over my 40G and have been battling it for a month. the plec still sucks on the leaves but i've watched him "avoid" the hair algae in favour of the healthy leaves on many occasions.

do you have CO2? if you dont then the ammount of light in your tank may be the problem. plants use light and CO2 together to photosynthesise (sorry cant spell) if you have loads of light and not enough co2 algae will grow faster than your plants.

my hair algae only started dying down when i changed one of my 4 tubes from a marine white (10,000K) to a 5500K tube. (the higher Kelvin tube isn't that great for plants but algae love it. ) and added another co2 bottle to the existing 2.

i now have 3 x 1 litre DIY CO2 bottles supplying the tank with 3wpg (tubes: 2x 5500K, 1X 7500K and 1X 3000K) and the hair algae is dying by the day.

hope my rambling is of some use.
good luck

 

[daniaduncan@yahoo.com]

Hi, can you describe the hair algae, or direct me to a website where i can see pics of different ones. I have some white stuff on 2 of my plants. looks kind of like shredded cotton with little strings hanging off. I washed these plants off last night and the white stuff is back on this morning!! there is also a bunch of little white dots floating around in the water. Is this Algae or Fungus??? Any input would be appreciated!

 

[jimbooo]

the hair algae in my tank is like horse hair, coarse and black, 2/3 cm long.

not sure what the white stuff is, sorry.

 

[BigC]

Follow this link for discriptions and pictures of various forms of algae.
http/www.aquaticscape.com/articles/algae.htm

 

[simonbrown403]

i had a bad run of algae, i redused the lighting, introdused a siesta period. cut and cleaned and scrubbed to get rid of as much algae as i could, and treated with one of interpets anti algae products