Hair algae?

[PaperDoves]

One of my tanks has developed a problem with hair algae. I don't know where it came from, but it completely infiltrated a large growth of moss (not sure on ID on the moss, but it's been doing fabulously well for a year and a half, growing from the size of a golf ball to the size of my head). There have been no additions to the tank for months, and suddenly this hair algae appeared, within a week or two the entire 20 gallon tank was entirely choked off.

I've been ill, and didn't realize the speed of what was happening. I finally was able to get out of bed, and the first thing I did was just yank all of the moss/algae ball out. It was bad, I lost some fish because there was literally no room for them to swim. But all of my plecos (a few L129 that will stay, and a couple of L387 that I'm growing out before moving them to a 75 gallon). The tank is set up with only nano species.

I separated as much algae as I could from the moss, rinsed the moss well to try to remove spores, and put the moss along with some baby java ferns that got yanked out as well, into a bucket in the bathroom to black it out. I have some questions that I'm hoping that someone can help me with.

I have been hand picking little bits of algae every day, and clearing the filter intake of free floating algae that gets sucked on to it, daily. Today was the first day that there was almost no algae on the intake. But there are still little bits here and there around the tank.

My plan is to take out any driftwood or other furnishings upon which it is growing and 'paint' H2O2 onto the algae, leaving it for 15 minutes then rinsing and replacing. I will also be doing a large water change.

But there are spots where it is growing where I am not able to do this with. Does anyone have any suggestions? When I had a bba overgrowth (tank came with it) I used H2O2 directly in the tank but the tank was sold to me as a 29 gal and it looked a bit small but I never thought to measure it. Turns out that it's a 20, so I severely overdosed the tank, killing all fish instantly. It did work on the algae, but I do not want to kill my fish again.

Are there any fish which I can put in the tank temporarily to help by eating some of the bits that are left? I have full sized whiptails and twigs in another tank, also bns. I just got some Acestridium dichromum but I don't expect these tiny guys to eat hair algae, or even if they went to town on it I can't imagine that it would make any noticeable difference as they are very, very small fish.

Or am I better off using some H2O2? If so, what is the correct dosage for a 20 gallon tank?

Or I could black out the tank, but how long should I do this? I also have this question as it pertains to the bucket of moss and baby plants in the bathroom.

Any help would be very much appreciated. I have a real problem, and I'm not sure what to do to completely eradicate it.

[PaperDoves]

I remembered that Flourish Excel is an algaecide at double dosage, so I just ordered some. Will this be safer for my fish and effective against green hair algae?

I'm having some difficulty finding a lot of info about green hair algae in a freshwater tank, most articles that I'm finding are for salt/reef tanks.

[Shane]

All algae issues basically come down to light and nutrients which are the two things algae need to grow. So to best help we would need to know how many watts are over the tank, what is the photoperiod, and does the tank receive ambient light. Second, what are the frequency and volume of water changes as well as the type of filtration.

Review all of the above and you will likely figure out the source of your algae issue.

-Shane

[Bas Pels]

What Shane wrote is correct.

However, hair algae are the most closely rtelated to higher plants of all algae. That is, if you try to get rid of them with chemicals, most likely these chemcals will kill all your plants too.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

One of my tanks has developed a problem with hair algae. I don't know where it came from, but it completely infiltrated a large growth of moss ...........There have been no additions to the tank for months, and suddenly this hair algae appeared, within a week or two the entire 20 gallon tank was entirely choked off.

I've been ill, and didn't realize the speed of what was happening. I finally was able to get out of bed, and the first thing I did was just yank all of the moss/algae ball out. It was bad, I lost some fish because there was literally no room for them to swim. ...........

You didn't lose your fish because they run out of room to swim, both the algae flush and the fish deaths are symptoms of underlying nutrient issues, and very possibly a spike in ammonia. Often ammonia issues are really oxygen issues, and there are a number of reasons for these.

The green algae are closely related to all the other plants, they share the same photosystems and basic physiology. If you create conditions that favour the growth of your plants, you have also created conditions that favour the growth of green algae. They aren't really any different, they are just the plants you want ("aquarium plants") and plants you don't ("algae").

Actively growing plants are an enormous asset to an aquarium, and they make the maintenance of water quality much easier.

I separated as much algae as I could from the moss, rinsed the moss well to try to remove spores, and put the moss along with some baby java ferns that got yanked out as well, into a bucket in the bathroom to black it out. ........I have been hand picking little bits of algae every day, and clearing the filter intake of free floating algae that gets sucked on to it, daily. Today was the first day that there was almost no algae on the intake. But there are still little bits here and there around the tank.

My plan is to take out any driftwood or other furnishings upon which it is growing and 'paint' H2O2 onto the algae, leaving it for 15 minutes then rinsing and replacing. I will also be doing a large water change...... But there are spots where it is growing where I am not able to do this with. Does anyone have any suggestions? When I had a bba overgrowth (tank came with it) I used H2O2 directly in the tank but the tank was sold to me as a 29 gal and it looked a bit small but I never thought to measure it. Turns out that it's a 20, so I severely overdosed the tank, killing all fish instantly. It did work on the algae, but I do not want to kill my fish again....Or am I better off using some H2O2? If so, what is the correct dosage for a 20 gallon tank?

Or I could black out the tank, but how long should I do this? I also have this question as it pertains to the bucket of moss and baby plants in the bathroom.

Any help would be very much appreciated. I have a real problem, and I'm not sure what to do to completely eradicate it.

You can't get rid of the algal spores (or small fragments), but you can carry on removing the longer strands. Green Algae, Cyanobacteria, Diatoms etc are present in every tank, and pretty much every body of water on the planet, it is just some times they aren't visible to the naked eye.

This next bit is really important.

My advice would be that you don't do anything else to the tank, don't remove any plants, don't remove the hardscape and definitely don't use a black out, or H2O2. You need some stability, if you carry on intervening you run the real risk that the tank will crash and you will lose all its inhabitants.

The algae is a cosmetic issue, it is a symptom, it isn't the underlying problem.

Are there any fish which I can put in the tank temporarily to help by eating some of the bits that are left? I have full sized whiptails and twigs in another tank, also bns. I just got some Acestridium dichromum but I don't expect these tiny guys to eat hair algae, or even if they went to town on it I can't imagine that it would make any noticeable difference as they are very, very small fish.

You could try Cherry Shrimps and snails, I have molluscs and crustacean in all my tanks.

As far as I know it is only @Jools who has managed to keep

Acestridium dichromum

alive for any length of time, you could try pm'ing him.

cheers Darrel

[Jools]

Yeah, well I kept them in a mature tank with old amazon sword, high oxygenation, reasonably high temp with strong lights. I never saw them feed but they were reasonably active. They like vertical structures like, for example, bamboo stems of about 1cm diameter.

Jools

[PaperDoves]

Thank you. I seem to have gotten rid of the algae. I did a moderately large water change and did spot treatments on any algae that I could find, with Flourish Excel. I only treated in this way twice, both times using less than the maximum recommended amount for my size tank. The plants are doing much better now that they are not competing for nutrients with the algae, I can see visible growth already on a couple of baby Java Ferns. All of the algae turned greyish white within 24 hours of treatment, and I have not seen any sign of algae since two days after having started this thread.

The acestridium dichromum came in looking great, with nice pillowy bellies and active. They have settled in nicely, I am feeding them raw zucchini as well as Repashy, which I have seen them each eating. So I'm hopeful that they will continue to do well for me (or rather, that I will be able to provide for them properly). I attached a picture that I just took. They are more green than my camera will pick up, and for scale that cory habrosus that is behind the a. dichromum is about 2/3 the adult size for a habrosus.

[PaperDoves]

I had put a nice algae-covered rock in the tank prior to receiving them, as I had read that this is the only thing that they will eat. I'm going to be setting up an algae farm outside in a bucket in the sun, but so far the fish have shown no interest in the rock but are definitely eating Repashy, I watched them eating it last night. So, we'll see, I'm going to continue to do my best for them and hopefully they will have a nice long life with me.