# "why you should not ignore algae"



## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

Dunno if this should go here or not, but I figured I'd share a bit of a picture(doh! Didn't get a before!) Basically this is the one guy that I know who knows the most about planted tanks(in person)'s display tank at his store. He had a tiny bit of hair algae on his driftwood after a while and I asked him what it was. Think he was getting it confused with something else because he said(when I mentioned that it looked like hair to me) that it was a sort that only grew on driftwood(and no he wasn't trying to mislead me. He's never given me advice on anything else that I can't back up in 10 forums online run by hobbyists only) and he wasn't worryed about it. Then it(and cyano) took over. Oops. Last week when I was in there I bugged one of the guys to drag a lot out(and got a few clippings of their plants for helping out myself. woo!) I went in yesterday and there is already cyano growing on the glass between the chain swords. And the hair is growing quite quickly. Yuck. I should have remembered to get a pic then too. . . He seems(to me?) to take pretty good care of the tank. I am pretty sure it has co2, it has a light fixture for planted tanks. It is pretty heavily stocked(2 smallish discus, a school of neons/cardinals, a ton of white clouds, some galaxy rasboras, a few hatchets, a few gudgeons, a couple SAEs(or maybe CAEs, dunno how to tell them apart and wasn't paying attention) a small pleco species in a 30 gallon(I think) tank that gets) and he says he has to put water he took out of his cichlid heavy sale tanks into it for water changes since the plants suck out so much nitrate. . .

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/Gilraen_Took/60%20gallon%20tank/rightstoretank.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/Gilraen_Took/60 gallon tank/Leftstoretank.jpg
You can see how much we couldn't get by hand in the first part of those pics. There was a lot left over. . .

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/Gilraen_Took/60 gallon tank/ALGAEATTACK.jpg
THAT is all of the algae we DID pull out. Along with duckweed and a few tiny stems of stuff and a few snails that couldn't be lugged out of the algae. Ewie.

So yeah. Control algae when you first notice it!


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## Squawkbert (Jan 3, 2007)

I still pull some of that stuff out of my large tank. It is fairly well confined to the highest portions of my DW though I get a wild clump under a sword leaf now and then. I used ot get more, but I cut back on ferts a bit, more PWCs... I occasionally just wind it around the tip of my DW to keep it from stringing out across the tank, then when it gets to be a significant clump, I pull it. I doubt I'll ever be able to get it all w/o pulling & bleaching or cooking the DW.


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## jeff63851 (Feb 23, 2005)

Wow, that's alot of algae! That must of been heaven to your SAE!


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