# Green Algae growth - PLs help **Urgent**



## plantblr (Feb 27, 2007)

Hi all,
1st of all Wish you & your families a very Happy New Year .

For the past 2months or so I suddenly find that there is a lot of Green hair algae growing in many parts of my El Natural(Walstad style) tank .Its growing on the wood,plants,on the substrate.....Every time I see that its grown too much,i manually remove it.Can some one pls advice how this pain can be stopped once for all ?Its getting on my nerves.... :mad2:

>Lighting : 2.6wpg / 10hrs a day (No direct sunlight).
>Water changes : 50% change Once a month.
>No ferts dozed,no CO2 as this is a El Natural style tank(Walstad style).
>Lot of fast growing plants like Vals,4 types of Crypts...lots...!!!,Nuphur Japonica,Amazon swords,Red water lillies.

The plant growth is really good.The Vals grow almost 1.5 to 2 feet every week covering the surface,Red water lillies shoot up a leaf to the surface atleast every alternate day,the crypts are almost taking over the tank.I trim them every week.

Below is a pic for your reference.


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https://flic.kr/p/3212743854

Pls advice.

Many thanks in advance,
Ravi


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi Ravi,

You have fairly high light, and a pretty long photoperiod, for not running CO2 or dosing ferts. I suspect that may be part of the problem. I have tanks with about 2 WPG. When I started them I had a 8 - 10 hour photoperiod and had problems with hair algae as well. Now I run 6 - 8 hour split photoperiods, use CO2 and dose with ferts and Excel, and have very little algae or no algae and my plants are growing great. Maybe changing your photoperiod or rethinking the El Natural would help.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/algae/3806-flourish-excel-got-rid-all-my.html
http://indianaquariumhobbyist.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2917&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30


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## cclansman (Jan 29, 2007)

I agree with above, lower the lights and trim the photoperiod to 8hrs per day.


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## plantblr (Feb 27, 2007)

Thank you both.

I neither dont want to tear down the tank nor do I want to change the set up from El Natural to the Hi-Tech set up.Even dont want to dose any ferts nor inject CO2.It was all fine,only for the past 2 months I have this problem all of a sudden.

Is there any way to get rid of this algae problem once for all without doing which I dont want to mentioned above?

Pls advise.

Many thanks,
Ravi.


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi Ravi,

I feel your pain! This is what worked for me. You did not mention if this is a new tank setup not, but it happened to me shortly after my first set-up. First I removed as much of the algae from the tank as possible, the glass, the substrate, and removing up to 50% of the leaves of plants that are heavily infested.

Next I tested the tank water to see what my nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium concentrations were. They were high (which I suspect yours are as well), so I did weekly 20% water changes twice a week to reduce the amounts of nutrients. 

I cut the amount of light way, way back, to a 4-5 hour photoperiod. I added fast growing stem plants like hygrophila, rotala, and ludwigia to help use up the excess nutrients. As a "cleaner crew" I used (along with my Corys) 3 Otocinclus and a true Siamese Algae Eater (mine loved hair algae when I had some).

Lastly I started dosing with Flourish Excel then changed to Glutaraldehyde (lots cheaper and available in India). You did read the threads to APC and indianaquariumhobbiest I provided above, didn't you? The active ingredient in Flourish Excel is Glutaraldehyde and either product does an excellent job helping me control algae and provides needed carbon for plant growth. Once the algae subsides, I would started increasing the photoperiod about 30 minutes per week. I now have a 8 hour total photoperiod (split into two 4 hour periods) with 2 WPG, do a 20% water change weekly, and have no algae. I hope this helps!


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