Hair Algae

Firstly hope everyone had a good christmas

Since Santa was kind enough to fetch me a new camera for christmas i am now able to post pics which makes life easier especially when trying to describe my current problem.
For some time now i have suffered from what i am calling Hair Algae although i may be well off the mark, this stuff is taking over my plants to the point where i have to trim them down when they get too much covering them. I have tried changing the light patterns and introducing more plants but none of this seems to be doing the trick.

Included below are my pics of what i have and i have also taken a water sample this evening to see where things are up to there

Nitrate 20ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
PH 7
Ammonia 0ppm
KH 7? I always class this by the amount of drops it takes to change the water from blue to yellow
Co2 21ppm (based on 7KH and 7PH)

Water temp is 26c

Lighting consists of 2 x 18w Arcadia
1 x 20w Hagen life glo

12 hrs daily with a differing pattern over the weekend

Tank is a 28 UKG

I know that i have a possible issue with the the lighting and i would like to swap the arcadia's for something a bit brighter

Any ideas / suggestions based on what i have said above and my current readings?

Thanks for any advice that you can give as i hate the sight of this stuff


Ste

Another pic

And another

And just to see how it fits into the scheme of things here is my tank

Sorry about the quality of pic but i'm still trying to work out my camera

i'm no plant expert or anything i'm going by what i was told but i think your leaving your lights on for too long, i was leaving my lights on 12 hours a day and i got hair algae REALLY badly but now i have it on a timer so my lights are on 4 hours, then off 4 hours then on again 4 hours and the algae is dwindling down to nothing but it seems to be taking the plant down with it

oh and i was also told to grab a Phosphate test kit and check for that

i had the same type of algae out break and what got me threw it was heavy fertilization with phosphate free fertilizer. it made the plants use all the phosphate in the tanks and starved the algae out. i also cut off any growth that had that algae on it....

xXMrBonesXx said:

my lights are on 4 hours, then off 4 hours then on again 4 hours and the algae is dwindling down to nothing but it seems to be taking the plant down with it

Click to expand...

With you saying that your plant is going down with it could this indicate that it's not getting enough light since the times have changed?

My tank seems to prefer longer lighting periods but the hair is driving me nuts

Any other ideas?

djdotnet said:

i had the same type of algae out break and what got me threw it was heavy fertilization with phosphate free fertilizer. it made the plants use all the phosphate in the tanks and starved the algae out. i also cut off any growth that had that algae on it....

Click to expand...

I'll give this a go and see if it does the trick, i've been using nutrafin for a while so i will hunt round for some alternatives

Lowering Lights

OTTOS!

Ive never seen my ottos eat hair algae, but there sure to cut down on the amount of new growth!!

and am i the only one who thinks these pictures are really cool

I use to havemuch more hair algae in my tanks than that, and it was my nitrates being high, 80-100ppm, but I can tell you what I did o remove mine..

1. Light times.. I used my timer to set the lights from 6-10am and then from 4-10, this seemed to reduce the growth by more that 80%.

2. added more CO2 I use to have a single DIY 2l soda setup, I now have 3x2l soda bottles

3. reduced my nitrate, by useing 50% R/O water at water changes

4. adding fast growing plant like watersprite..

There is a solution by useing peroxide try google it

Control of Red Algae in the Freshwater Aquarium

Ste_J said:

xXMrBonesXx said:

my lights are on 4 hours, then off 4 hours then on again 4 hours and the algae is dwindling down to nothing but it seems to be taking the plant down with it

Click to expand...

With you saying that your plant is going down with it could this indicate that it's not getting enough light since the times have changed?

My tank seems to prefer longer lighting periods but the hair is driving me nuts

Any other ideas?

Click to expand...

well it was only the leaves that was over run by it but that was most of them

If you're looking for a fish to eat the hair algae, try 1 or more Siamese Algae Eater's (NOT Chinese Algae eater's). SAE's are also known as Siamese Flying Fox. The latin name is Crossocheilus siamensis. I have two of these. If i have a hair algae bloom in a tank, I put 1 or both of these in the tank. Once when I had a divider in my 29G seperating my pulchers (FKA krib's) and fry from the rest of the tank, I had a massive hair algae bloom on the pulcher side. It was all over eveything. My heater had a thick coat of it. Within a couple hours of the SAE being introduced to that side, most the hair algae was gone. They do not always eat the hair algae that quickly. SAE will eat anything I put in my tank. I usually feed my fish (other than fry or conditioning to breed) every 2 days. If I want to encourage the SAE to eat the hair algae, I may stretch the time between feedings out more to make the algae look more appealing as it's the only available food.

That will help to get rid of current algae, but you should really look into the source of the algae. Excessive phosphates is quite likely a factor. Test for that if you haven't already.

Colin

Thanks for the input and i shall try to obtain a phosphate test kit although i shall steer clear of my lfs as the last time i mentioned it to them the guy there laughed and said "i can tell you how much you will have - lots!"

And as to the fish eating factor i don't really want to go down that road due to stocking levels etc and i have fry appearing all over at the moment so i will need to get rid of those soon.
Would shrimp eat hair algae? i may get a couple of those as i can't see that a couple of shrimp would know the stocking of my tank too much.

Once again Thanks for the advice and i shall have a look at my timers to see if i can get a lighting routine going that the algae wont like!


Ste

I've had hair algae problems in the recent past.

I tried algae eating shrimp, but they hid most of the time and ate very little algae - probably scared of my fast swimming bala sharks.
I tried an algae treatment from esha - no visible effect.

My problem was due to high phosphate levels (high in my tap water), so I got a phosphate removing filter media (RowaPhos) which removed the phosphate very well.

The algae does come back when I'm slack on maintenance especially when I forget to fertilise the plants but it's much better than it was.

I would also suggest cutting down on your lighting by a couple of hours to help.

Ottos won't eat hair algae - they'll eat all the rest.