spyrogyra alga?

[fishorama]

Not the band, but nobody talks about this anymore. I have some fibrous spongy algae, not hair or any kind I've had in many years. It's in my "river-ish" 55g. Vals & java moss overgrown & need lots more weeding soon. 2 AC HOB filters & a powerhead along the back. Not many fish, sewellia hillstream loaches that breed every year, some rasbora sarawakensis & maybe a stiphodon goby or 2. No pics. The tank has been going for 14 years with minimal vacuuming lately, but water changes.

What should I do beyond weeding & removing it? I don't mind some algae but this is needing some control. Any suggestions?

 

[gimme30]

The only sure-fire cure I've run across for algae yet is amano shrimp. I guess you could try the usual things...more water changes, more oxygenation, less light, yada yada.
In the "Gadgets I'll Never See In My Lifetime" for $200 Alex---AI powered micro algae farmers. Like little Roombas but too small for the cat to ride on. Bluetooth controlled via cellie, natch.
Of course it will come out right after they finally make a flying car, which will happen the day after I drop dead.

(as for the good kind of spyrogyra, I got to see them at Red Rocks and they were AMAZING!)

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

The only sure-fire cure I've run across for algae yet is amano shrimp. I guess you could try the usual things...more water changes, more oxygenation, less light, yada yada.
In the "Gadgets I'll Never See In My Lifetime" for $200 Alex---AI powered micro algae farmers. Like little Roombas but too small for the cat to ride on. Bluetooth controlled via cellie, natch.
Of course it will come out right after they finally make a flying car, which will happen the day after I drop dead.

(as for the good kind of spyrogyra, I got to see them at Red Rocks and they were AMAZING!)

I'm going to the flying car dealership today.
Algae roombas already exist.
Automatic algae scraper

 

[gimme30]

What?!?! Here you get my hopes up then crush 'em with a broken link. And you forgot to list the address of that dealership!

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

What?!?! Here you get my hopes up then crush 'em with a broken link. And you forgot to list the address of that dealership!

My apologies,
MOAI | Advanced Aquarium Cleaning Robot https://share.google/6hxWj7lIqiNSu7gy3

The flying car dealership is Dewey, Cheatem & Howe.

 

[Magnum Man]

my hillstream’s are always eating algae, and that tank is designed around growing plenty… I’m also starting to get too much now… I could cut back on lighting easily… wondering if you cut back on food some, if the fish would eat more algae, and less food, is less pollution in the water, making it harder for the algae to grow, in the 1st place???

 

[fishorama]

My hillstreams graze on algae on the glass & decor, they also eat flakes & Repashy. This new algae is too stringy for them I think, tangled onto plants not on the glass.

 

[Magnum Man]

I have a kissing gourami in that tank, that eats it, and pulls it off the plants, then the hillstream’s eat it, after it’s loose

 

[fishorama]

I had a "rehomed" kisser once, never again! It "kissed" the slime coat off any fish it could.

I feed flakes for my sarawakensis (blue line) rasboras & the sewellia eat some too.

I was too sore after my housecleaning binge yesterday to go on a major weeding adventure...it's on my list. Maybe tomorrow...vacation soon, so different priorities.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

That's some nasty algae. I'm pretty sure it's what I had in my Inle tank. It took the introduction of a lot of hornwort to get it under control. There's another kids I get that's a lot stiffer, almost like a moss. I don't mind it too much and it usually behaves itself.

As for the band, here's my favorite song of theirs. Oldie but a goodie.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

My apologies,
MOAI | Advanced Aquarium Cleaning Robot https://share.google/6hxWj7lIqiNSu7gy3

The flying car dealership is Dewey, Cheatem & Howe.

Wow, that thing's $400!!! Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are a lot cheaper...and I suspect they're less work to maintain. ha ha

 

[fishorama]

Thanks, Badger, those were nice & smooth. I think I'll need a bit more up tempo for weeding. My tank is an overgrown mess of val, java moss & this new algae,

I used a Magic Eraser 1 time in my shower. Crumbs all over & not very effective on soap scum, Bah! I was very disappointed.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Thanks, Badger, those were nice & smooth. I think I'll need a bit more up tempo for weeding. My tank is an overgrown mess of val, java moss & this new algae,

I used a Magic Eraser 1 time in my shower. Crumbs all over & not very effective on soap scum, Bah! I was very disappointed.

I find them to be excellent for scraping algae off aquarium walls (just be sure to get the kind without any added cleaning chemicals!). But I do have to replace them once a month or so.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I did some searching on Google Scholar on Spirogyra alage and how to kill it. The first thing i discovered is this algae is usefull in remediating a number of issues. It helps clean up some forms of pollution in water. So is is pretty much viewed for these benefits.

So, I searched for how to kill it and that got me almosr nowhere. Then I found a paper on dealing with using a new product:

To control cyanobacterial blooms and their toxins, the efficacy of a newly developed granular compound (sodium carbonate peroxyhydrate ‘SCP’, trade name ‘PAK® 27’) containing hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as the active ingredient was investigated. First, the dose efficacy of the SCP that corresponded to 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 5.0 and 8.0 mg/L H2O2 was tested for 10 days in small-scale tanks installed in 0.1-acre experimental hypereutrophic ponds dominated by blooms of the toxic cyanobacterium Planktothrix sp. SCP ranging from 2.5- 4.0 mg/L H2O2 selectively
killed Planktothrix sp. without major impacts on either eukaryotic phytoplankton (e.g., diatom Synedra sp., green algae Spirogyra sp. and Cladophora sp.) or zooplankton (e.g., rotifers Brachionus sp. and cladocerans Daphnia sp.).

As you can see from the above from the Abastract for the paper, they did not want to kill the Spirogyra. But, as I continued to search for this word I discovered that after doing the test for concentrations of 2.5 - 4 mg/L they did one at 5 mg/L and that killed the Spirogyra.

If you want to read more big words etc. than you may desire, the paper is here:

Sinha, A.K. and Green, W.R., 2018. Mitigating cyanobacterial blooms and cyanotoxins in hypereutrophic ponds following the application of a granular hydrogen peroxide-based algaecide. Arkansas Bull. Water Res, pp.28-38.
https://awrc.uada.edu/files/2022/10...-peroxide-to-control-cyanobacteria-growth.pdf

And now a warning--> I have no idea what level of peroxide would be safe for fish or which might harm plants or any bacteria. I could suggest another method for dealing with it but I am sure you would not do it. It would involve a lot of manual removal and a proper UV unit running on the tank. And I am not certain this would do the trick.

(edited got typos)

 

[fishorama]

I did a major round of weeding & there wasn't much spirogyra if that's what it was. Lots of hair algae & java moss removed, some vallisneria tops trimmed (really just torn off). I took out such a large mass I decided to wait on weeding out some of the vals. I'll also wait until after vacation to scrape algae off the front glass. Really, I'm hoping my husband will do it lol.