Hair/thread algae going!

[waterwatereverywhere]

My tank was looking SO unsightly with all this stuff, it was growing much faster than I could pull it out. Two weeks ago I changed the lighting so that there's an 'off' period in the middle of the day. That seemed to slow it down. Then last week I added three SAEs which went to work straight away on it. Now, the war is being won and things are looking so much better! What a relief!

 

[tstenback]

They do a great job dont they. The combination of the SAE and the light schedule should keep everything in check.

 

[Bol]

Congratulations on the algae problem, wwe. And congrats on finding SAEs. I've been trying to find some for months.

But, personally, I'm skeptical about whether the "lights off period" does much, if any, good -- in fact, on the surface it seems like it would most likely compound the problem. I've never seen any scientific evidence to show that it would help, and most of the accounts that I've read about it "working" either have nothing to back it up, or (more commonly) the author has changed multiple things at one time, and conclude that the "lights off" period is the "cure".

I could be wrong, of course (it's happened once or twice before ), but I'm sort of thinking the idea is a myth. Or, at the least, I would think you'd be better off taking the "time out" period and subtracting it from the end of the light "day".

If anyone has any data they could cite, that would be appreciated.

 

[waterwatereverywhere]

I haven't seen the scientific evidence in detail, either. When I was thinking about trying it, one person (can't remember who) did say that it was due to the shorter photosynthetic period that algae have, which means that they have to keep "switching on and off" - I'd be interested to do a bit of research on that.

But I can tell you that it definitely had an effect in my case. I did it a week before adding the SAEs, and the growth of algae had slowed. I hadn't changed the total time of light, it was on for a continuous 10 hours before and is now on for two lots of 5 hours.

SAEs are not that common over here in the UK, either - I got mine from Trimar, which do mail order.

 

[noelberg]

good to hear you got rid of it!
my favorite lfs gets that stuff a lot and does look extremely unsightly. Unfortunately they rely on plecos and water changes to get rid of it - hasn't worked too well for them, but they try.

my friend got some in his tank because a pebble from the lfs slipped in with a fish he bought. -just something for everybody to look out for.