Hair Algae!

[pjos11]

I have a 350 litre trigon tank, it is about 2 and a half year old. For the past year I have been suffering from hair algae, which has lately gone mad! I had several plants which I have removed along with my large piece of bog wood all of which where covered with this BLACK HAIR! The tropical fish shop recommended a treatment which I tried but to no avail. I am now on the verge of giving up this fresh water tank as this black hair is the ugliest thing ever. Can someone please help?

 

[afishdude]

how long do you have the lights on per day?
what type and wattage are you lights?
does the tank get any direct sunlight?
do you have live plants? if so how heavy planted?
do you dose with ferts? how about co2?

 

[Dave Spencer]

A decent picture would be helpful, but it sounds very much like black brush algae (BBA) to me. This is caused by fluctuating CO2.

If you don`t actually add CO2, the fluctuations could be caused by water changes or using air bubbles. Too regular water changes in a non CO2 injected tank can cause high CO2 swings, due to the high CO2 content of the new water. Air bubbles gas off CO2 due to the surface disturbance, and BBA takes advantage of the low CO2 levels. Alga are opportunists that take advantage of poor CO2 conditions, usually of the BBA or staghorn type. Staghorn is a black/grey branching type of algae.

I know that adding Flourish Excel is a good quick fix for killing filamentous type alga. It is a souce of organic carbon that contains polycycloglutaracetal, which has the great side effect of being deadly to some alga.

Your best plan of attack would be to apply the Excel with a brush directly to the algae during the low water level period of a water change, with the filter off. Leave the Excel in contact with the algae for a minute or two before refilling the tank and switching the filter back on.

One word of caution though; shrimp are very sensitive to polycycloglutaracetal, so do not overdose if you have them. Some plants are also very sensitive to it.

All of this advice, of course, assumes the correct ID of your algae type. BBA forms in small, fluffy, black brush like clumps on hardware and leaf edges.

Dave.