# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Intractable Hair algae



## Mark Spencer (Apr 19, 2004)

My 46 gallon tank has blossomed into a nice planted paradise with one exception—hair algae. I have had every other sort of algae that eventually ran its course. This algae will not leave and wraps itself around plants, making it hard to remove. I have already had to throw out my Java moss.
I fertilize weekly with Seachem Fluorish and my lighting is 2 6500 K PC bulbs.
Mark Spencer


----------



## Mark Spencer (Apr 19, 2004)

My 46 gallon tank has blossomed into a nice planted paradise with one exception—hair algae. I have had every other sort of algae that eventually ran its course. This algae will not leave and wraps itself around plants, making it hard to remove. I have already had to throw out my Java moss.
I fertilize weekly with Seachem Fluorish and my lighting is 2 6500 K PC bulbs.
Mark Spencer


----------



## imported_chrismisc (Jul 25, 2004)

Hi Mark,

Are you running CO2? If yes, you might try increasing it. I have a 38 tall with the same wattage of lighting as you've got, though one of the PC's a 10,000K & the other's 6700. I had trouble with a fine hair algae in my sagitaria, to the point where I was cutting off the tops of the leaves, they were so furry! Also, in my floating plants (amazon frogbit) I find the amount of hair algae responds in a day or two to any leftover fish food that gets caught in the leaves--in a bad way. I've got otocinclus & amano shrimp, but the otos wouldn't touch the stuff, and the shrimp just cleaned it.

What I found works like a charm is a combo of two things: First, I keep phosphate-absorbing pads in my canister; second (and best for immediate results!) I cranked up my CO2 injection. This approach works on the premise that the higher plants in the tank will outcompete the algae for available nutients if given the opportunity (e.g. they have to be able to photosytnhesize enough to absorb available nutients, but at 2.7 wpg I guess it depends what you've got growing). There's a great study on nutrient-limiting & its effects on algae here http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/sears-conlin.html

This is reproduced all over the web on different sites, and I apologize if it's here, too, and I just didnt realize! The basic premise is you (or at least a mere mortal aquarist like me!) can't have complete control over ALL the nutrients or sources thereof in your system, so don't try to control everything--just pick one, like phosphate, provide everything else your plants need, and theyll do the rest. And failing that, american flag fish will eat hair algae, but I'm guessing they'd have to be pretty hungry, and if they're sharing the tank, you can't cut back everyone's feedings just to make the flagfish buckle down!

I'm basically algae-free with the exception of crusty diatoms on a couple leaves of plants that I moved in from my old tank & my resident algea-eaters abhor.


----------



## Mark Spencer (Apr 19, 2004)

Thanks Chris. 
I do use CO2 from a yeast generator but it's not a prolific generator. What do you use? I will try phosphate pads in my filter. The amano shrimp is an interesting idea as well.
Mark Spencer


----------



## nino (Oct 2, 2004)

Mark,
Stop dosing Flourish until the hair algae stop growing. How old is the tank? IME, all my tanks couldn't take a full Flourish dosage until going into 5th month. Every time I tried to dose early, hair algae took over. Once the algae is gone, dose it slowly (1/3 or 1/4 recommended dosage) and increase it every other week.


----------



## hubbahubbahehe (Mar 29, 2004)

Amano shrimp is not going to be enough to get hair algae gone. I mean, you would need a ton of them to see a noticeable effect. i know from experience. In a 20 gallon, i have 3 SAE's and 4 amano shrimp and i still get tons and tons of algae. My nitrates are at 10 ppm, phosphates at 5 ( i think phosphates are the problem in my case) .... 



Ninob, how did you get rid of the hair algae ?


----------



## imported_chrismisc (Jul 25, 2004)

Amano shrimp don't fight hair algae--they just "clean" it by picking out tinier, more appetizing particles of who-knows-what. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Oticinclus will clean the green spot off your glass, but also won't touch the hair. American flag fish will (so I've read) eat hair algae, but really only if they've got nothing more appealing, so unless yours is a fish-less setup, the flagfishes' tankmates won't likely appreciate the kind of fasting needed to induce the appetite for hair algae.

For CO2 I've got a pressurized tank, an electric solenoid (regulator valve) on the same timer as my lights, a plastic cylinder-type bubble counter, and a ceramic diffuser. 

The reason I suggest cranking up the CO2 is about four months ago, I was fighting with a total infestation of cyanobacteria, which is not negatively affected by a lack of phosphate--like it won't be stopped/killed! Two things I did to rid my tank of (so far) any vestige of this stuff were A, dose with Maracyn at 1/2 strength for 4 days (this won't do anything to help a true algae problem); and B, crank the CO2 up from about 1 bubble every 5 seconds, to 2 per second-- a huge leap! Needless to say, I was walking over and reading the pH about every half hour, and had an air pump & stone on hand. But the point is, while I was trying to eradicate the CB, I found that every other green menace in my tank virtually disappeared, as well. I have to start culturing algae for my otos, as there's none left. Anyway, I hope that makes some sense--it's what's worked, & continues to work for me.


----------



## newmang (Sep 22, 2003)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by chrismisc:
> Amano shrimp don't fight hair algae--they just "clean" it by picking out tinier, more appetizing particles of who-knows-what. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Oticinclus will clean the green spot off your glass, but also won't touch the hair. American flag fish will (so I've read) eat hair algae, but really only if they've got nothing more appealing, so unless yours is a fish-less setup, the flagfishes' tankmates won't likely appreciate the kind of fasting needed to induce the appetite for hair algae.
> ...


Rosy barbs never seem to get a mention when discussing hair algae, but in my experience they demolish the stuff.


----------



## nino (Oct 2, 2004)

> quote:
> 
> Ninob, how did you get rid of the hair algae ?


IME, hair algae will show up under 3 conditions. First, they almost always show up in a newly planted tank. I set up 4 tanks and all started with the same thing. As long as you don't dose anything in the first few weeks, they will be gone. Look at the tank I'm currently working on : http://www.msnusers.com/webnino/30glhexagonjournal.msnw
I haven't update the journal but the hair algae is gone without me doing anything (no fish either). I only trimmed once and they haven't grown back. But now green water kicked in









The second case is premature micro and trace dosing. Usually it will start with excessive green spot algae and followed by hair algae. This means that you're dosing more than the plants can use at that moment. Solution : if the tanks is over 6-8 weeks old, I would do a large water change and increase nitrate to 7-10ppm and PO4 to 0.4-0.5ppm. And also stop dosing any Flourish or Plantex for the next 2-3 weeks. The hair algae usually be gone by then.

Lastly, I experienced once when I accidently stir up the nutrients from root tablets during replanting. One of my tank went from algae free to crap within 2 days. This is a bit harder and longer to deal with since I couldn't see if there were any more root tab laying on the substrate.


----------



## kzr750r1 (Jun 26, 2004)

FYI: Black mollys did the trick for me with the thread and hair algae. To top it off get a pair M/F and if your lucky (like I was) the female will have babys soon after introduction to the tank. Then you have your own cheep little army of hair and thread algae eaters. Just make sure to feed them some crushed food one or twice a week.

I couldn't get SAE in time and when the finally they did show two were dead and the rest passed quickly. That is probably the last time I order fish to be shipped to the house.

The Black mollys, Amano shrimp, Ghost shrimp and a heard of ottos have done a good job with this type of algae in my tank.

Good luck


----------



## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Hi, Mark...This is how I got rid of hair algae.

1) Stopped all ferts for two weeks.
2) Reduce lighting to 8 hours daily for 2 weeks.
3) Increased C02 too 22ppm.
4) Then I slowly added potassium nitrate intil
the nitrate level reached 10ppm and 
got phosphates down to 1ppm.
5) Add a variety of algae eaters.


----------



## kzr750r1 (Jun 26, 2004)

trenac is right though fish arn't the only answer. I looked and mine is creeping back since I started dosing again...

I'll probably to the same and not add any more ferts for a while.


----------



## Mark Spencer (Apr 19, 2004)

Thanks for all the good responses. To answer one previous querry: My tank has been established for 2 years and has seen every kind of algae known to man and all, except the current hair algae infestation, subsided. I have very luxuriant plant growth so the out-compete approach wasn't working. I will reduce the photoperiod and dosing of Fluorish. The nitrate addition is a new and interesting idea I have not heard before and I would be curious to know how many others dose with KNO3. The toothbrush works in most areas but, with fine leafed plants like hornwort, I can't remove the algae without rippping up the plant.
Thanks again,
Mark Spencer


----------



## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

Mark, a low and/or inconsistent CO2 supply may be your tank's worst problem. Manipulating fertilizer doses is at best an indirect way of controlling algae. You can't get plants to outcompete algae for nutrients. Plants can't outcompete algae for nutrients unless they are also competing with each other. In that case half (or more) of your plants will be sick and dying algae traps and the rest will just be algae traps.

All of the recent bouts I've had with hair algae have been finished off by identifying a "host plant" -- that's usually the plant that the hair algae grows back on the fastest after a good cleaning -- and either fixing that plant's problem or removing the plant.

In the most recent incident I traced a very long, coarse hair algae back to a dense stand of star grass. I found that the whole stand was tangled with the algae and that the plants inside the stand were unhealthy. I broke the stand up, replanted a few stems and pitched out the rest. I made no other effort to get rid of the hair algae. It disappeared.


Roger Miller


----------



## Garmoni (Dec 24, 2003)

I agree with Roger, find the source and remove it. I had a similar experience with a patch of liliopsis that I could not rid of hair algae. After a couple of months of battling it I finally removed it and the hair algae in my tank finally became manageable. 

Also stop the flourish dosing. I have read that excess iron levels lead to hair algae problems.


----------



## aviel (Sep 12, 2004)

Hi,

Last time I had hair algae break I did 3 things: I starved the fish for 4 days, stopped iron dosing, took the mayaca fluviatilis which was the source of all of this and was infested heavily and cut its tips, looking carefully at each stem for signs of hair and only qualified small tip stems went back into the aquarium. That ended that break but I believe the iron deficiency damaged my R. Macrandra and Eusteralis Stellata.

Now I am trying to increase my iron dosing in order to heal the macrandra. So I went up from 0.06 ppm per day to 0.12 ppm per day and the E. stellata starts looking better. However after a week or so I see a new host for hair algae... - it's the Hemianthus micranthemoides. I am still not there in terms of iron dosing (target = 0.25 to 0.30 ppm daily) and this plant is already infested







This is frustrating.









Now let me try to make sure I understand. There's a "host" plant that generates those threads and they move with the water current to some client plants. If those plants are flourishing then they fade but if they are poor plants then what happens? They become new "hosts" for the hair algae?

Aviel.


----------

