Green hair algae & cleaning tips

[ellamay]

If you scour Thinternet, you'll find some even go as low as 30 seconds for the food to be eaten.
Personally, I look at a minute, depending what I'm feeding. Lobbing a cube of frozen can last as long as 5 minutes, maybe even more, before the cube finally melts at the outflow from the filter scatters it all over the tank. (I usually do a fasting day after).

I’ll just do a few flakes and pellets at a time and get to about a minute and go from there! Thanks for the advice!

 

[Byron]

I’m not using fertilisers. And it’s summer here so that makes a lot of sense!! I work nights actually so a lot of the time my blinds are closed during the night. I’m not sure what intensity my bulb is, it came with the tank. I’ll try and find out. It’s been fine up until now though so hopefully it’s the time of year I used to have floaters but I found they just grew out of control so fast and it was hard to clear the floating bits out of the tank with the net because they were all in the way

More substantial floating plants are best. Water Sprite, Frogbit, Water Lettuce, and some stem plants can be left floating, Pennywort is good for this. None of these cause issues, they get fairly large, are easily culled, and provide the benefits aforementioned.

Is the light LED, or fluorescent (T8 or T5)? LED I know vey little about, but it should last years so far as I have read. T8 (or T5) fluorescent tubes are a very different story. T8 needs replacing every 12 months because by that point the intensity has weakened; I did once leave the tube longer, and not surprising, problem algae increased but stopped with a new tube.

 

[Avel1896]

The sine qua non hair algae tool remover is bottle-brush

 

[ellamay]

More substantial floating plants are best. Water Sprite, Frogbit, Water Lettuce, and some stem plants can be left floating, Pennywort is good for this. None of these cause issues, they get fairly large, are easily culled, and provide the benefits aforementioned.

Is the light LED, or fluorescent (T8 or T5)? LED I know vey little about, but it should last years so far as I have read. T8 (or T5) fluorescent tubes are a very different story. T8 needs replacing every 12 months because by that point the intensity has weakened; I did once leave the tube longer, and not surprising, problem algae increased but stopped with a new tube.

I’m going to get some plants today so I’ll have a look for some good floaters I’m pretty sure it’s LED

 

[PygmyMitch]

Just to add on to this thread, I decided to leave my tank light off for about 3 days and didn’t feed the fish for the 3 days. And now the majority of the algae has gone (obviously the snail and/or shrimp has ate it) I am now going to leave my blinds shut through the day and just turn the tank light on when i get home from work, and then turn it off when i go to sleep. Hopefully this should stop the growth of the algae

 

[Byron]

Just to add on to this thread, I decided to leave my tank light off for about 3 days and didn’t feed the fish for the 3 days. And now the majority of the algae has gone (obviously the snail and/or shrimp has ate it) I am now going to leave my blinds shut through the day and just turn the tank light on when i get home from work, and then turn it off when i go to sleep. Hopefully this should stop the growth of the algae

Put the tank light on a timer, as consistent "daylight" each 24 hours also helps keep problem algae in check. The "daylight" period can be whatever works best for you to view the tank. Just make sure ther is ambient light in the room (daylight, or artificial light) when the tank light comes on and goes off, as this can startle fish. The duration can be as little as six hours if this is what it takes to keep the problem algae from increasing; and that is the goal, to stop the increase.

Blackouts can do as you mention, but if the underlying issue is not resolved, the algae will return. Floating plants also make a huge difference here, both from the light reduction and the uptake of nutrients.