# Cladaphora...How do you get rid of it?



## BobinCA1946 (Jul 28, 2009)

"Houston I think we have a problem"!!

Its called Cladaphora. What do you do to try and rid your aquarium of this insidious algae?
Do Amano Shrimp eat this algae.?
Does Flourish Excel kill this algae?

I do not have any CO2 deficiency, anymore and my fish will be gasping.
Plenty of light, 6 55W PC's over 125 gal.
I have been told that it is not a nutrient problem, but an imbalance of CO2 and light.

If I try to manually remove the stuff I would be at it all day.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Regards,
Bob


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## armedbiggiet (May 6, 2006)

Excel might, Amano no(Amano is more like for prevention in this case). Such big tank, turn off your light for 2 days than do water change more often and trim off the leafs that is infected. Keep your CO2 1.5 to 2 bubbles per sec. Get some reall good algae eater like Farlowella, who would work very hard on these guys.


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## rhodophyta (Jan 23, 2006)

I got some rosy barbs. They seem to eat every kind of algae, maybe a few softer leaved plants, the shrimp, and the eggs the corydoras lay all over the glass and driftwood.


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## fishaquatics (Aug 2, 2009)

Take some pictures, I may have the same problem as you.


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## edwardn (Nov 8, 2008)

I had quite a bit of Cladophora in my 180 until I introduced 20 Amanos there. In three days there was none left and now I grow Cladophora in small tanks to spice Amanos diet...


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

In my experience nothing, and I mean nothing touches clado. Excel doesn't really work on it either, unless you really vigorously go after it at very high dosages and then even so the results are marginal at best. Clado grows like a plant so there is no nutrient, light, CO2 etc... cause for it. 

The best way to get rid of it (and in fact one of the only ways) is to first manually remove as much of it as possible and then use peroxide (H2O2) on what remains. Take a baby food syringe and suck up 10 mL at a time, then squirt it on the clado as slow as possible. The clado should instantly start to release bubbles, this is how you know it is working. Keep doing this treatment for 2-3 days until the clado is dead. Don't try dump H2O2 into the tank and hope it dies, it must be spot treated to work. Yes this isn't a passive fix, but it will work and once the clado has been beaten back it tends to go dormant and doesn't come back, or if it does come back it grows submissively. Submissively because it knows what will happen if it misbehaves... 

H2O2 is safe to put in your aquarium. 2-3 mL per gallon is the upper range of what you want to be adding in a 24 hour period. I have noticed that my fish actually enjoy the oxygen bubbles that come off the dying algae. But perhaps in reality the fish are actually just enjoying the alga's death throws...?

Peroxide also kills green spot algae (the hard algae that tends to coat rocks and leaves and things, though you might need to treat an affected area more then once).


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## rhodophyta (Jan 23, 2006)

A German company (Soechting) makes a hydrogen peroxide doser that over time kills or starves out all algae and oxydizes fish waste and mulm. I used to use them in unplanted tanks. I never tried them in planted tanks but they should work, just requiring a different approach since you would not use fish or shrimp to eat the algae. It stopped being available near me so I don't know if it's being imported to the US still or not. I was pretty upset when I couldn't get any more peroxide made for it. Higher concentrate than the drug store stuff.


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## rhodophyta (Jan 23, 2006)

Some updates. The Soechthing doser is once again available in the US, through an internet company. The EPA has designated one brand of hydrogen peroxide as the only one permitted for use with fish. Besides rosy barbs, Ameca splendens will eat hair algae and the hard green algae dots that grow on glass and other hard surfaces.


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