# Fur? algae



## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

I have the algae in the pictures growing in my tank. I really like the way it looks but last week I rescaped my tank and removed a Rubin Sword and all the Duckweed because they were too much for my ten gallon. Now I'm seeing the algae spike a bit (BBA and this type). I'm worried because the furry stuff is starting to grow on the plants. I am dosing 2 times per week Flourish and I have a Hagan Plant-Gro system. I had stopped both for three months because plant growth was out of control and restarted last week. I am doing 30% water changes every 5 to 7 days until the algae subsides. Substrate is Fluorite, light is 3 watts per G in a ten gallon tank. I checked this sites algae links but couldn't be sure.


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## Simpte 27 (Jul 16, 2004)

OOOH pretty algae 

All jokes aside it looks like thread algae.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

That is the prettest algae I have ever seen. Makes the wood look like a little palm tree.


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## stepheus (Jun 13, 2006)

If I were you, I would isolate the algae to another tank and let it take over! Lol. After I get a really nice scape and inspire some ppl to do the same, I ll sell it online for $10 per 10 grams. Haha. Nice algae


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## psidriven (Feb 21, 2004)

Think that's Chladophora (moss ball) algae. Hair and beard algae is darker, almost blackish in color. Did you ever have a moss ball in the tank or got driftwood from someone who did?


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

Actually, I'm thinking about submersing some Chia Pets and growing on them. I could make a fortune!

Re the driftwood question. The driftwood was in my unplanted Cichlid tank for a year with no growth. Its been in this tank for 8 months. This algae first showed up around the end of August. The only thing I've added since April is fish, tap water, and food. Theres no way it could come from an algae wafer, right?

So I'm taking that no matter how nice it looks its not good. What do I do about it?


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Since it is on driftwood, take the driftwood out and bleach it! That will take care of the algea. To keep it from coming back, address the needs of the plants...make sure to provide plenty of CO2, NO3, PO4, K and traces and you shouldn't have any problems.

The Flourish you are dosing twice a week probably isn't enough for a ten gallon tank with 3wpg let alone a 10g with 3wpg and CO2. Either continue with your current dosing and stop the CO2 or continue with the CO2 and be prepared to add more Flourish and trim the tank more often


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

Before I started CO2 and Fluorish I was only dosing Fluorish excel. Things didn't look so good. Alot of BBA, Staghorn algae, and Green Spot algae. My leaves were growing but looked yellow. I started doing more WC's and added CO2 and changed to Fluorish and things got much better. The Staghorn was 100% gone. Things were going well but then my Rubin took over...well it shared power with the Duckweed, so I stopped CO2 and dosing three months ago. Then that green stuff popped up. 10 Days ago I removed the Sword and the Duckweed, the latter is not an easy task, and restarted the CO2 and Dosing. Since then Growth has been ok but my Ludwigia Rupens has lost its redness and the new growth is very light in color. The algae also seemed to kick up a bit. Removing the Driftwood won't be fun. Iy has a slate base buried under the Fluorite. If I remove it I may not put it back. I think what your telling me is that this new algae won't go away easy.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Hurriken said:


> Before I started CO2 and Fluorish I was only dosing Fluorish excel. Things didn't look so good. Alot of BBA, Staghorn algae, and Green Spot algae. My leaves were growing but looked yellow.


By dosing Excel you sped up the rate at which the plants take up nutrients from the water. Since you did not provide any other nutrients (NO3, PO4, K or Traces) your plants did not grow well and algae began to enter the picture.



Hurriken said:


> I started doing more WC's and added CO2 and changed to Fluorish and things got much better. The Staghorn was 100% gone. Things were going well but then my Rubin took over...well it shared power with the Duckweed, so I stopped CO2 and dosing three months ago. Then that green stuff popped up.


By adding in some extra nutrients that the plants needed you got better growth and the plants were happy. Then, your sword took over the tank which is typical of most sword plants. When you stopped CO2 and dosing, you began to get algae because the plants were not growing well. See the pattern?



Hurriken said:


> 10 Days ago I removed the Sword and the Duckweed, the latter is not an easy task, and restarted the CO2 and Dosing. Since then Growth has been ok but my Ludwigia Rupens has lost its redness and the new growth is very light in color. The algae also seemed to kick up a bit.


You should probably dose a bit more of the Flourish if you are still adding it. How much Flourish are you adding now? Light colored leaves could be either a NO3 deficiency or Iron deficiency. When I had my 10g running with 3wpg (normal output flourescent lights) I dosed 2-3 ml of Flourish every day. In my opinion, the directions on most Flourish products are not for tanks using any form of carbon. They simply don't supply enough nutrients for a carbon enriched tank.

Again, if you are getting algae in the tank you are low on something, either CO2 or nutrients. Nutrients are easy to rule out by simply adding a bit more. CO2 addition can be a bit more difficult especially with DIY.



Hurriken said:


> Removing the Driftwood won't be fun. Iy has a slate base buried under the Fluorite. If I remove it I may not put it back. I think what your telling me is that this new algae won't go away easy.


If you can't remove the driftwood you can try using a spot treatment with either Excel or H2O2. You can do a search on here if you need more info. You can also drain the water below the level of the algae. Excel and H2O2 should work very well when applied directly to the algae.

I don't think this algae will go away easily on it's own. I would manually remove of much of the algae as I can and then I would do the spot treatment. In my opinion, most algae does not go away on it's own (Diatom and Green Dust seem to be the exceptions) It takes manual removal and harrassment for a week or two to get most algae out of the tank. Good good plant growth (along with manual removal and weekly pruning) allows the plants plants to outgrow the algae.

If you focus on providing the plants with what they need instead of trying to rid the tank of algae you will have better results


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

Thank you for taking the time to answer my post. I really am glad this happened because its helping me learn.



> You should probably dose a bit more of the Flourish if you are still adding it. How much Flourish are you adding now?


I was adding 2-3ml two times a week. I am now going to add it everyday that I can. I travel so its impossible sometimes.



> If you can't remove the driftwood you can try using a spot treatment with either Excel or H2O2. You can do a search on here if you need more info. You can also drain the water below the level of the algae. Excel and H2O2 should work very well when applied directly to the algae.


I'll look into this. I should scrape as much as I can off of the wood then?



> If you focus on providing the plants with what they need instead of trying to rid the tank of algae you will have better results


Statement of the year! I like the glass half full approach, after all its a hobby.

So I'll dose every day and trim and scrape Saturday. Should I add excel also or just use it when I do my direct treatment of the wood?

FYI I want to change the aquascape and add some different plants But that should'nt change my actions for now, right?


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## jude_uc (Feb 7, 2006)

In my opinion, adding Excel shouldn't hurt, and it should help a bit by evening out flucuations in carbon due to inconsistent CO2. I think it's ok to change up your plants as long as you start the regimen you described.

-Adam


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Hurriken said:


> I was adding 2-3ml two times a week. I am now going to add it everyday that I can. I travel so its impossible sometimes.


It can be difficult to add ferts while you are traveling. You can always turn off one bulb assuming you have two 15w bulbs on the tank) when you will be away or lessen the time they are on each day.



Hurriken said:


> I'll look into this. I should scrape as much as I can off of the wood then?


I would get as much off as you can prior to using either Excel or H2O2 unless you just want to watch it die! It will probably be more amusing if you leave it all on the wood and watch it wither away 



Hurriken said:


> Statement of the year! I like the glass half full approach, after all its a hobby.


I can't take credit for the statement. I did not come up with that one. You are correct though, it is just a hobby 



Hurriken said:


> So I'll dose every day and trim and scrape Saturday. Should I add excel also or just use it when I do my direct treatment of the wood?


I would add the Excel if you plan on dosing everyday with the Flourish. You can probably get by with twice a week Flourish if you don't want to use Excel. Just remember, the Excel will speed up the plant growth meaning you need to add more ferts. It all depends on the growth you want.



Hurriken said:


> FYI I want to change the aquascape and add some different plants But that should'nt change my actions for now, right?


No changes, the new plants may need the fertilizer more than the ones already in the tank, depending on where you get them. Just plan to do a large water change after uprooting a lot of plants.


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

You suggested dipping things in a bleach bath. What about Potassium Permanganate? Would that be better?


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

Update:
I have been adding Fluorish every day except one for the past 7 days. I have added Excel every other day. The Plant-Gro CO2 is still going. I did a water change last Sunday. I took action against my algae again yesterday. 

I first removed all of the Wisteria (I didn't like how it was growing). I clipped away anything that had algae. I then clipped it so that I only had plants (Wisteria) with tops. No more stubs with side shoots. I then soaked it in Potassium Permanagate for about an hour. I scraped all of the Cladophora algae I could find off of the driftwood etc. I also clipped away any leaves with algae, I have some BBA also. I did not clip the Coffee even though it does have BBA on some of the leaves. I just rubbed the leaves with my fingers. I used a net to skim as much algae and debris from the water. Note that I did not remove any water at this point. 

I then siphoned water from the tank getting cleaning out any loose mulm, debri, and algae chunks. I then applied Excel directly to the exposed driftwood areas that were affected by algae. I let it sit while I rinsed the filter and Wistera. I replanted the Wisteria and refilled the tank with water. 

I dosed Fluorish and excel again this morning. I'm going to keep up the dosing hoping for the algae to go down. If I understand correctly I may be able to stop the Excel then at which time I would reduce the Fluorish dosing. 

We will see what happens


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

Now its been two weeks. The BBA is almost nil and the other algae has not come back. Plant growth is fast, but I do notice there is a yellow tint to alot of the leaves. 

Should I change anything?


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

If the leaves are starting to yellow, you may be short on NO3. If the new growth is coming in a whitish color, it is probably an iron deficiency. How much Flourish are you adding for each dose. If it were me, I would up the Flourish dosing a bit more or add some KNO3 to the tank


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

The new growth is yellow or light green except my Coffefolia which has yellowing on established leaves. I am adding 1/3 to 2/3's of a capful of fluorish everyday that I'm home and a 1/3 to 2/3's of a cap of Excel every other day...when I'm home. Is it possible that I'm over dosing something?

Is KNO3 Potassium Nitrate? I guess I need to search the site library. My knowledge of this some of this stuff is pea sized!


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Expecting aquatic plants to grow well without nitrates and phosphates is like expecting your child to grow tall like Shaq without meat and milk. Plants use nitrates and phosphates as a primary food source, so you really have to provide them either by dosing or by fish poop, and that means a lot of fish poop.


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

Is there a recipe or article I can read? Does this vary tank to tank?
What exactly am I providing with Excel and Fluorish?
Could it be that I'm changing the water too much? (30-40% once per week)

The Xfactor: I plan on changing out almost every plant. Should I do that now or wait until...?


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

I was looking at The plantfinder. My Zosterfolia looks alot like this photo from there. Is this healthy? Notice the yellowing.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

What kind of algae was this in the first place? Hair algae?

I have a small clump that looks exactly like that...a nice, pretty, green color.


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## Hurriken (Oct 15, 2006)

My best guess is Cladophora or Green Thread Algae but I'm leaning towards Cladophora.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Aren't algae balls Cladophora? Or is this a different species of Cladophora?

PlantGeek.net - Cladophora aegagrophila

edit: I know Cladophora is a horrible algae to get rid of, so they're different species between the invasive kind and the kind that's in the algae balls?


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