# Hair Algae



## LigouriRd. (Jul 14, 2010)

I have a roughly 4 gal (8" cylinder x 18" tall) npt that is getting clogged with hair algae. The substrate is 1" of garden soil (not mineralised) topped with 1" of gravel. I have the tank planted fairly heavily with anacharis, a little hornwort and some duckweed. The water here (Madison area ground water) is very hard. I have a 5-6 guppies and one crappie in the tank currently. The crappie only eats blackworms and the guppies get flake food. I try not to feed too much. I have a small powerhead filter (foam only, no charcoal) three inches from the surface to circulate the water. The tank is placed by a south facing window and gets only natural sunlight. 

For the first couple of months there was no algae to speak of but lately it is getting choked with hair algae. I pulled some of it out over the weekend but it has grown back fast. The fish have a hard time getting to the surface of the column so I can feed them. 

Should I pull out what I can and keep the tank in darkness for a while?
Would a water change help (haven't done one since the tank was set up)?
Would switching to timed artificial light in the future be better?
Dilute the water with distilled to reduce the hardness?
Any other suggestions, siamese algae eater?

The tank was really supposed to be temporary to experiment with NPTs until I tore down and re-set up my 16gal. I had hair algae in that tank as well but it had other issues (undergravel filter with pebbles instead of gravel). Is this something to expect in this area, all my plants were collected locally?


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## Grathum (Jul 13, 2010)

Hello,

Am I understanding correctly...your tank is 8" square and 18" tall???

Oops never mind...you said cylinder. That is pretty tight for a crappie unless it is a complete baby.

Why do you have a soil layer? None of the plants you have listed are really rooted plants. I guess the anacharis would root but not the hornwort. That's a thick soil layer to have no real rooted plants in there.


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## LigouriRd. (Jul 14, 2010)

The crappie is about 1½" head to tail, it did not get fed well early in life (wouldn't eat flake food) so after a year or so it never got any bigger. 

The soil layer thickness comes from the basic setup for a walstad type tank. My thought was that the soil would introduce nutrients to the water column even for the floating plants. I did have some rooted plants but they did not take. The setup is basically 90% anacharis.


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## Grathum (Jul 13, 2010)

Yeah, I used to keep crappie. Beautiful fish but very finicky eaters in captivity. I've never had one that ate anything but live food and only certain wild food at that. I even had one that would not eat guppies but would go after little fish called rosies (I'm not sure what they are called scientifically but they are basically pink minnows).

Anyhow, here are my initial thoughts,

For that small of a tank I think your soul layer might be a bit too thick. I know you said it was a temp tank so I'm not sure how much longer you are planning to keep it going.

I believe the soil layer in a Walsted tank is actually meant to release certain nutrients to the plants through their root systems so you don't have to add those nutrients to the water column. So in effect, it's actually the opposite premise of what you have said. Having the soil is meant to feed plants but not release nutrients into the water column.

Your anacharis, if I am remembering correctly mostly feeds from the water column. If it is doing well in your tank you should notice the PH has fallen dramatically (especially since you say you haven't changed the water in such a long time) because the anacharis is capable of using bicarbonate for photosynthesis. In fact, I have read that these plants don't do well in tanks with added Co2...so if you aren't changing the water, they may start to diue off on you.

What kind of rooted plants did you try?

If I were you, I would drain the tank (after removing as much of the hair algae as possible), carefully add enough rooted plants (crypts, maybe some small anubias, and maybe even some tenellus and a banana plant), to fill most of the footprint and then refill the tank without getting soil into the water column. The goal is to add some plants that will develop root structures that will be able to take advantage of the soil layer you have in place. Add as many plants in there as you reasonably can without clogging the tank. Keep enough of the anacharis not to clog the surface of the tank. Also keep only a little bit of the duckweed (if it is doing well it will replace itself anyway).

I believe the diet of the crappie may also cause you additional problems...especially since you don't have enough plants. I would move him to the other tank you mentioned if possible.

I am not sure what to say about your light situation. I know folks grow plants in 100% sunlight (it only makes sense) but since our plants are in little artifical glass boxes we have to figure out how to best use that natural resource. I would have to say since this is an experimental tank just keep experimenting with it. If the plants are not doing well just keep trying things. There is no blueprint. Every tank is going to be different. You may succeed where others have failed and vice versa. Keep to easy plants and keep watching to see what is going on. 

Oh yeah, do you keep a watch on the temperature of the tank? I know in the winter time in madison it might not be that much of an issue but during the summer here in the midwest that small tank could be cooking. It's probably ok since you haven't said anything about the fish gasping for air or the anacharis dieing off (it actually likes cooler water) but you might want to make sure to keep the tank under 85 with it getting that southern exposure. 

As a side note, if you decide to move the crappie, you might want to look into adding a few ghost shrimp. I had some in a 45g tank and to my surprise they ate both string and hair algae. If you get things under control you will have to feed them just like you feed the fish so keep that in mind. They also prefer fish food to algae so if you always have an excess of food after feeding time they will just eat that instead of the algae. 

I wouldn't add anything else to the tank you have until you add more plants however. The main thing is to just keep experimenting with your ideas and keep trying to understand the basics of the processes that are going on!


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## LigouriRd. (Jul 14, 2010)

I was planning to set up the 16 gal like a larger version of this tank. I was planning to use locally found plants, anacharis, milfoil, miscellaneous pond weeds and such. I may have to rethink my plan if I am going to end up growing masses of filament algae. I did buy a rooted plant that looks like a bacopa or mabye a aurea (LYSIMACHIA NUMMULARIA) but that will probably not be enough. 

The larger tank is probably a week or so away (mabye more if I have to get more rooted plants) from being set up so I do not know what to do until then.


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## LigouriRd. (Jul 14, 2010)

Well, a little over six months later I have my 16gal bowfront setup. Again a walstad configuration with 1" of mineralised topsoil and clay mix topped with 1" of Ø2-4mm gravel. Starting out I had a little issue with blue-green algae which was cured by a dose of erythromycin. After that and for the first four months of the set-up I had little algae. Since then I have had increasing amounts of hair algae to the point where I need to clean it out with a toothbrush twice a week and it is choaking the plants.

Plants are wisteria, java moss, and "creeping jenny" (rooted stem plant). Plants cover about half of the tank with wisteria toward the back and "jenny" toward the front. Fish are four 1" crappie, one 1.5" crappie, and a mexican live-bearer (¾" long). Circulation is handled by an small filter/powerhead with only foam. Water moves counter-clockwise around the tank. Lighting is two 40W T12s, one gro-lux (3400k) and one standard 5000k. The lights are in a 48" housing which covers a little over half the tank, it also lights some house plants. Lights are on for 4 hours in the morning and then another 4 in the evening. 

I checked all of my levels last night (forgot ph though):
Nitrate: 0-5ppm (sample color was light yellow which is in between the really light yellow for zero and amber for 5ppm on the API card ...and yes I did vigorously shake up the #2 test solution)
Phosphate: 0-0.25pmm (color in between the 0 and 0.25 colors indicated on the API chart)
Nitrite: 0 (no difference between the test solution color and the 0 color on the API chart)

Is it possible that I have too little nutrients and that is driving the algae? Or do I have too much light?


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

You might try to get your phosphorus up to 2-5 ppm. However, I have a little hair algae in one of my tanks and have pretty reasonable levels of nutrients in the water column from overfeeding the shrimp. Check the AlgaeFinder link at the top of the page in the gold bar and the Fertilator link, and even check out the EI dosing threads in the fertilizing forum of this site. If you're testing and know how much of what you're inputting, chances are you can fight algae relatively easy. I never check, so I just have a lot of guesses in my tanks.


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