# Barley Straw to Control Algae?



## Rusalka (Jun 11, 2008)

I found this article describing how barley straw has been used in ponds, lakes and rivers to control freshwater algae. So I thought, why wouldn't this work in a Walstad-style aquarium? Thoughts?

Here is an article about it:
http://www.swedesdock.com/pondstrw.sht

The recommendations for a minimal algae infestation are 10g/m2 - so by my calculations a floating mesh bag of 2.322576 grams should do the trick in my aquarium. If I can find some barley straw I will try it and get back to you!


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

If it works at all, it should work in an aquarium as well as in a pond. I know the idea of barley straw in a pond has been around a long time. I have not tried it myself.


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## ming shipwreck (Mar 24, 2011)

I don't remember where I read this, but somewhere I read that the algae-inhibiting chemical barley straw produces is produced only when the water gets hit by sunlight, and it breaks down very quickly. So it might take having the aquarium by a window for barley straw to work.


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## Rusalka (Jun 11, 2008)

luckily my tank is next to a window and gets a couple of hours of direct sunlight a day. i've been struggling with algae lately so if i can get my hands on some barley straw i'm going to try it! 

on a related note - it would stand to reason that a full spectrum bulb would work just as well as direct sunlight, no? 

something is a bit funny in my tank these days - when i leave it to it's own devices it goes through a growth spurt then gets algae. if i keep some fresh activated carbon in the filter i get poor growth and little holes in many of my sword leaves. so i added more hearty growers, improved my light source, and am feeding the fish a bit less. i would add a floater as well but i don't have much luck with them.... so hopefully this will help and, if i can, i'll put some straw in there too!


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## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

Rusalka said:


> something is a bit funny in my tank these days - when i leave it to it's own devices it goes through a growth spurt then gets algae. if i keep some fresh activated carbon in the filter i get poor growth and little holes in many of my sword leaves. so i added more hearty growers, improved my light source, and am feeding the fish a bit less. i would add a floater as well but i don't have much luck with them.... so hopefully this will help and, if i can, i'll put some straw in there too!


To me, it sounds like your plants are starving. If you add activated carbon to an aquarium, it is going to remove nutrients from the water column; In a planted aquarium, that means removing nutrients from the plants. Pinpoint size holes in leaves is often times a sign of potassium deficiency (K). It is not unheard of to have potassium deficiency in aquariums in aquariums, both high tech and low tech. This can be corrected by adding potash (KCl) or, better yet, potassium sulfate (K2SO4). Sword plants are usually nutrient hogs. Also, they like a very rich substrate (they LOVE soil substrates... or at least mine do).

Also, we don't know what your tank looks like. Size? Lighting? CO2? Substrate? Plants? Age? We can help you more w/ your algae problem when we know more about your tank parameters.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Barley and various cereal grasses are used for their allelopathic qualities. I don't know the effect on algae versus other plants, but you want to do a test plot of sorts in a small tank before going full on in your aquarium.

+1 on comments by JeffyFunk. Many folks find dosing for Potassium a great help, and activated carbon takes the majority of your N out of the fert picture among other things, though it certainly keeps the water clear.


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## Rusalka (Jun 11, 2008)

Jeffyfunk - here are my tank stats:

1 yr old, 20 long aquarium packed full of swords, a few crypts, some anubias, tiger lilies, unhappy java fern (since the beginning), thriving huge marimo ball and a new sad looking barclaya longifolia (which is not settling into it's new home so smoothy...) 
residents are guppies, kuhli loaches, 1 shrimp, 2 nerites, a mystery algae eating fish, mts, and annoying pond and ramshorn hitckhikers.
lighting is marineland double bright led (brand new!), classic walstad set up - 1 inch soil, and 1 inch gravel and a sandy 'path'. filter is a small fluval with either just a sponge or sponge + activated charcoal. 
2 month old algae issue

when activated charcoal is in the filter, yes the plants are not getting enough nutrients. Without it I get a crazy algae bloom - so i'm hoping to find something in the middle. I will look into the potassium deficiency issue for sure. What is the best way of getting potassium without getting into dosing?

Mudboots - from what I've read, there have been no recorded issues with other plants, fish or inverts. It's also been used all over the world in various habitats, so I'm thinking I may just go for it right away in my tank - am i crazy?


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## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

A couple of comments... 

First of all, I'm wondering if the LED light isn't causing issues. What lighting did you have before? Did the algae occur w/ the addition of the new light? Perhaps you can control how many LEDs are on and reduce the amount of light. Alternatively, you can raise the height of the light to decrease the light intensity. 

Secondly, you have a lot of nice plants with *BIG* root systems. Have you had to move them around a lot? My experience w/ plants like swords and crypts is that moving them around can cause issues w/ a tank. The problem is that their root systems, when removed from the substrate and moved, can pull up a lot of soil from the bottom sub-layer. This exposes a lot of Iron (Fe) in the soil, which when exposed to light, can result in algae from the reduction of Fe(III) to Fe(II) via photooxidation. The way that I dealt w/ the problem was to do a good vacuuming of the gravel in order to remove as much soil on the surface as possible. 

Finally, about that Potassium (K) dosing... I would simply add a small amount of K (using K2SO4 preferably) to the tank whenever I noticed the holes, maybe 1/4 tsp. Maybe add it once a week or every two weeks. It's not the laborious daily chore that you probably think it is. Soil based tanks w/ low(er) light are often pretty forgiving w/ regards to dosing due to the large, natural cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the soil sublayer. (In other words, the soil can absorb excess nutrients from the water column and then release them to the plants when they need it.)


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Rusalka said:


> Mudboots - from what I've read, there have been no recorded issues with other plants, fish or inverts. It's also been used all over the world in various habitats, so I'm thinking I may just go for it right away in my tank - am i crazy?


Hah! No, not crazy. I'm happy your willing to try something a little different from what I'd want to try. Keep record of what you do on this thread and a lot of folks will get to experiment and learn with you. That's what I enjoy about these forums.

I wish I knew more about your lighting; LED is a whole experiment in itself on planted tanks lately. Have you had the fixture for the same 2 months as the algae issue?


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## Rusalka (Jun 11, 2008)

Jeffy - LED system is brand new and not the cause of the algae. I bought it in hopes that it would help the plants compete better with the algae. No major plant moves recently - but some plant additions, post algae problem though. I did come up with one theory - since my tank gets sunlight from a window that maybe it was the increase of spring-summer daylight hours that may have started the algae bloom.

This week I'm actually seeing some improvement - I still have the 'black fuzz' as I call it, and a new little ball of hair algae (sigh) - BUT most of the green algae is gone. Yay! We will see over the next couple of weeks if this will stay without any activated charcoal additions. The black fuzz has settled on my anubias collection which is currently tied to a piece of wood that sits pretty high in my tank - I'm thinking of changing that to a chunk of slate that will sit lower - and also try tucking them under one of my larger plants to give them some shade.

Mudboots - still can't find any barley straw! - I'll keep you posted on that! 
About the LED system - the spectrum seemed similar to the Cool White compact fluorescents I was using. My CF set up worked well for my tall tank but it was a a bit too short for my new tank. I've had the new set up for about 2 weeks. So far so good, in terms of plant growth, and as I mentioned my algae issue is calming down... for now.... it also looks really nice too here is link to some info on it.
spectrum: http://www.marineland.com/LEDp2.aspx
unit: http://www.marineland.com/LEDFlash.aspx


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