# hairgrass & algae



## jon22b (May 27, 2007)

I have a nice carpet of hairgrass in my tank. Its the only planet I am using. Recently I started to get what looks like BBA. Does anyone know how to effectively control this? Also, does anyone with good experience with hairgrass have any recommendations of what are the best conditions for this stuff?

Currently I am using "Giovanni's fertil+" and "Giovanni's Trace." I use 1 ml of each daily. I have 80 watts of light over about 18 gallons (60cm tank). ADA light. I am injecting c02 at about 2-3 bubbles p/s. I bought new ferts today. I bought ADA Brighty K, ADA Green Step Brighty 1 and ECA. I was going to change to this because the leaves seem to be yellowing a bit too. Is this a good idea or should I stop fertilizing until the algae is gone?

I am kind of new to this, and I live overseas. Unfortunately, there aren't good books in english that deal with planted aquariums, so everything I have to learn from the web and trial and error.

You can see some of this algae on the tips of the grass in the photo.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Nice carpet.. I wish mine would do that... Grasses are notorious with getting algae. Hair grass is pretty good with not needing that much light. Maybe reduce your wattage to 60w or reduce your photo period to (8-9 hours) and increase your CO2.
And make sure to add your ferts on a regular basis.


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## jon22b (May 27, 2007)

Thanks. I'll try removing one of the light bulbs and increase the c02 a little more. The c02 already seems to be going like mad though.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

You should have a drop checker in the tank to measure the CO2 in the tank.. It's not accurate to measure with bubbles/second.

I think there's a DIY drop checker thread on this forum somewhere..
here's one that I made http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/diy/46209-diy-drop-checker.html


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## jon22b (May 27, 2007)

I currently use a drop checker.


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## DonaldmBoyer (Aug 18, 2005)

You could use an old toothbrush! It is very effective when it comes to removing algae from hairgrass. You could also try applying a light dosing of hydrogen peroxide via an eyedropper or syringe to the affected areas....it will kill the algae and leave the hairgrass alone, as long as it is applied lightly!!


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

I was going to recommend excel too but thought otherwise. The shrimps are pretty sensitive so Hydrogen peroxide & excel might kill them.

What's your CO2 in ppm?

and you might want an oto or a sae in there.. they're safe with the shrimps.. They might go for baby shrimps.

well, your best bet is to keep regular dosing of ferts.


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## DonaldmBoyer (Aug 18, 2005)

As long as the shrimp are out of the immediate area, you can use hydrogen peroxide. I keep plenty of shrimp in my tanks and have used H2O2 without any negative consequence.


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## jon22b (May 27, 2007)

Thanks. I think I will try the hydro peroxide. 

I just have a little bit of the bba now, most of it seems under control, with only just a few tiny patches on a few strands of grass here and there. I think reducing the light helped. Now I am not just using 2 bulbs/40 watts instead of 4 bulbs/80watts. However, I increased the light time from 8 hours to 10 hours. Now the algae seems under control and the grass is much greener now and is filling in nice and thick. I went away to Hong Kong for 5 days and came back and my grass grew almost 1/2 an inch and filled in a lot of new runners. I do get quite a bit of dust algae on the glass, I have to clean it almost every 2 days.


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