# Staghorn algae, green spot algae, and green water, oh, my!



## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

I know why I have algae. The powerhead on my venturi reactor has been repeatedly stopping on me. The first time was stargrass leaves and other bits-o-stuff so I wrapped some java moss around the intake as a bit of filter media. The next time I found a baby snail in the impeller housing. The next 3-4 times I don't know what the %&#@ it was, it just stopped, so today I took it down to one layer of java moss and made sure no other plant material was in the "filter media" I had created. Yes, I am probably guilty of overfeeding too, to get the darned Oto interested in eating the spirulina pellets. Yesterday before the green water started, I dosed the tank with Excel and continued that today. I changed out the DIY yeast early too a few days ago one of the times the venturi stopped. I have been removing what algae I can manually. Apparently I haven't got enough Cherry red shrimp or snails for all this.

Matt, did you never resume your aspirin/green water experiment? I read the green water/willow branches thread. I don't want to injure my fauna with aspirin.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

EcleckticGirl said:


> Matt, did you never resume your aspirin/green water experiment? I read the green water/willow branches thread. I don't want to injure my fauna with aspirin.


I did, but I have been unable to grow anymore green water outside! The weather has been too cold (nights) for the green water to grow I am assuming.

I really need to make the time to bring in the two 10g tanks and set them up again. I have a few strip lights I can place over the tanks so if I don't get too lazy this weekend, I will start up the experiment inside.


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## jonathan (Apr 6, 2005)

Cherry Red Shrimp aren't the best at eating algae. They are fun to keep, but don't really eat all that much algae. They are picky in the types that they will eat too.

Green water can be cured by covering the tank for a few days and adding a high end canister filter (optional). Have you been stiring up the gravel recently? That can sometimes cause green water from lots of nitrates being released.


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## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

Water change is due Saturday, Matt. I can bring you some green water.


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## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

jonathan said:


> Cherry Red Shrimp aren't the best at eating algae. They are fun to keep, but don't really eat all that much algae. They are picky in the types that they will eat too.


I have noticed they seem to eat the soft stuff I can't seem to see, not the staghorn. It is a lot too, for the small juvie shrimp colony to keep up with.



> Green water can be cured by covering the tank for a few days.


I am not sure I have anything that would cover the tank sufficiently to keep the light out and still let me feed the fish.



> Have you been stiring up the gravel recently? That can sometimes cause green water from lots of nitrates being released.


Possibly. I did move a rock and trimming the algae damaged java fern leaves from disturbs the driftwood and stirs things up a bit. I try not to stir the gravel up when I vac, but I haven't vacced since water change last Saturday. More than likely it's the uneaten food, though the shrimp and snails seem to have cleaned up all the spirulina pellets that were leftover.


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## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

Despite the poor CO2 with the venturi failures, I have no BBA (finger crossing here). Could the outbreak be more of an underdosing of the macro ferts? The dosing recommendation Matt gave me for the solution was 10 ml, should I try a higher dose do you think? One of the algae is (are?) the result of low phosphate, I have a spare enema hanging around, what kind of dose could I use to give the 20 gallon a boost of phosphate?


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

I would bet the outbreak is more of a CO2 issue than nutrients. I'm not saying that nutrients are not part of the problem but knowing the CO2 issues and the light level on the tank, it seems to point to CO2 mostly.

The Green Spot is either a PO4 deficiency or CO2, so feel free to add more of the fertilizer and see how it works out for you.


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## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

I am reluctant to do a total blackout since the poor nourishment of the plants is causing the outbreak. Taking away the light is taking away the number one need of the plants and that seems like the worst thing to do to plants not getting nourished... Blackout for me is worst case scenario treatment and this is just barely cloudy water right now.


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## Simpte 27 (Jul 16, 2004)

Are you sure its staghorn algae? I had what I thought to be staghorn (and Matt also I believe) which turned out to be hair algae.


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## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

I have green hair algae, possibly what you are calling thread. It's quite beautiful and is growing in the substrate and the moss. The fish and shrimp seem to enjoy eating it and I don't mind a bit of that really; it's part of the food chain. What I am calling staghorn is coarse, branching and gray; no one eats it. It's growing primarily on the un-mossed section of driftwood and the java fern. There could also be thread algae too, I don't see a separate entry for it in the Algae Finder here at APC.

The green water was clearing when the morning lights came on for feeding. I made sure I got the lights off as soon as I saw everyone had eaten. When I got home from errands and my driftwood hunting walk this afternoon, I saw that the green water had pretty much cleared when the lights had come on today for the "day." Last night I had given the tank 10 ml of a generic Fleet enema thinking that what little I was giving couldn't hurt considering the water change was coming up today anyway. I doubt it did much. I think getting the venturi running and the two days of Excel finally paid off. 

Water change this evening after choir practice (I got a solo part! :supz: ) and before dinner and hopefully the rest of the algae will fall in line. I picked up 4 free buckets from my friend today (recycling the kitty litter buckets, a very good thing). I am making the job easier on myself with more buckets to do the job this time around instead of one bucket going back and forth.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

You have added a whopping amount of PO4 to your tank with the generic Fleet addition!

Here's the dosing for Fleet enema - 1ml = 1.33ppm in 100L

For your 78L tank - 1.33/.78= 1.7ppm per ml x 10ml = 17ppm PO4!

Do you want to run an experiment on this tank for high PO4? If not, I would suggest you do a water change to drop the PO4 levels a bit. Nevermind, you are doing a water change tonight. I would do a 75% wc if possible considering the amount of Fleet you added to your tank. In the past when I used Fleet, I used 1 ml every other day in my 75g!

Green Water will be clear in the morning before the lights come on. If the tank gets cloudier as the day progresses, it is growing. 

If you want to rid the tank of the "staghorn" algea, before the water change today, turn off the filter, and manually remove as much algae as you can, do the water change and dose the tank. If you keep after the algae it will eventually go away. This may require manual removal every day for a week, maybe more maybe less. Just turn off your filter each time you remove the algae as the filter tends to blow it around the tank more. Turning off the filter and doing a water change works well for green dust and green spot also. A diatom filter will also work but on a smaller tank, that would be a lot of current!


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

has anyone noticed their plants grow much better when greenwater hits? 

Mine seem to have produced multiple buds and have much shorter distances between leaf nodes. their color also looks great.


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## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

MatPat said:


> You have added a whopping amount of PO4 to your tank with the generic Fleet addition!


 EEK!:shock:



> I would do a 75% wc if possible considering the amount of Fleet you added to your tank.


I had more time earlier in the day and got it done before choir practice. Hadn't we figured on Tuesday when we were talking that my usual water changes down to the halfway point were changing way beyond the 50% water volume anyway? I sure hope so... I did roughly 8-9 gallons, considering substrate, wood, plants, rocks and equipment....



> Green Water will be clear in the morning before the lights come on. If the tank gets cloudier as the day progresses, it is growing.


It was already pretty clear before I had started the water change as I stated in the earlier post from today.



> If you want to rid the tank of the "staghorn" algea, before the water change today, turn off the filter, and manually remove as much algae as you can, do the water change and dose the tank. If you keep after the algae it will eventually go away. This may require manual removal every day for a week, maybe more maybe less. Just turn off your filter each time you remove the algae as the filter tends to blow it around the tank more. Turning off the filter and doing a water change works well for green dust and green spot also. A diatom filter will also work but on a smaller tank, that would be a lot of current!


Hmm, I would have thought that the filter would suck up the bits for me and keep them out of things. The brittle stuff is hard to pull out of the tank, unlike the hairy green stuff. Some of it will stick to the nylon algae scrubber pad, but most of it floats away.

More frequent water changes won't disturb the balance of nutrients for plants? If I do more frequent water changes to manually clear algae, how do I dose ferts? What percent wc should those changes be? Just enough to clear the water somewhat, 10-20%?


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## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

Zapins said:


> has anyone noticed their plants grow much better when greenwater hits?
> 
> Mine seem to have produced multiple buds and have much shorter distances between leaf nodes. their color also looks great.


Well, Zapins-- I increased the Excel and changed out the DIY CO2 early. I sure hope everything else is growing well along with the algae!

Now that everything is settled (the green water has cleared as Matt said it would) the aftermath of my high PO4 experiment seems to be that I have made my anacharis melt! I have some floating in a bucket, so hopefully by removing the melting stuff, I don't start this algae cycle all over again. Today has been busy, so I haven't tried any manual removal of the algae yet. Now that I have realized why the tank looks funny is the melting anacharis, I will change that out right away and maybe trim out some of the very damaged Java fern leaves.

This has been your update on the Wonderful Wizzard of Algae....


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