The Best Way To Get Rid Of Hair Algae

[lowee]

My tank is now full to the brim with fast growers, ive got 14 shrimp and everything looks stable. The hair algae growth has slown down considerably but there is still remnants from when it was thriving. Its is virtually impossible to get rid of these last bits. Im looking at 3 options:

1. Overdosing Excel
2. H202
3. An algaecide like JBL algol

What does everyone think would be the best option?

Thanks

 

[nry]

My suggestion is to gradually remove the affected leaves/plants as time progresses. If it is no longer spreading then hopefully the plants will grow better and you can trim, replant, and remove the older affected bits.

Algaecides can have a majorly detrimental affect if everything I read is true, they can impact on more than algae.

Flourish Excel will stop new algae growth in many cases but it won't remove old stuff (though it may at least kill it). Bleach will again affect more than the algae.

 

[lowee]

Ok, thanks. The main problem is the algae on the substrate, it just falls apart when i try to take it out and my gravel cleaner doesnt suck it out. It really is impossible to remove!

 

[nry]

I've been through a patch of having a reasonable amount of quite tough hair-like algae on my gravel. All I can do to remove it is to manually pull it out, usually bringing some gravel with it. Over a few weeks there is less and less of it and it doesn't appear to be growing back much, if at all now.

 

[ming30galon]

My own experience is that Excel kills staghorn algae very efficiently but has very little effect on hair algae. I got rid off hair algae with on-the-spot H2O2 treatment. It seems to be very safe. I have a 30-galon tank, with some platy fries and ghost shrimp. A little amount of H2O2 doesn't seem to bother them at all.

 

[Themuleous]

Two quick things, excel can also kill some of your plants, like ricca so be careful with it. If you can't physically grip the affected bits of substrate to get them out use a bit of airline tubing during a water change to siphon it out or I find disturbing the substrate and effectively burying the top layer with the stuff below works quite well, although that does leave the algae in the tank still.

Sam