# Beard and Hair Algae Issues



## Eric Tran (Jul 7, 2016)

Are you dosing co2 or just excel? Ei level ferts without co2 can be a dangerous combination.

If just dosing excel I would double the normal dose, up to 3x normal dose, not the initial dose, reduce lighting to 6 hours, and dose half or less ei depending on plant mass. Pics of your tank would help.


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## tempestuousfury (May 7, 2013)

Eric Tran said:


> Are you dosing co2 or just excel? Ei level ferts without co2 can be a dangerous combination.
> 
> If just dosing excel I would double the normal dose, up to 3x normal dose, not the initial dose, reduce lighting to 6 hours, and dose half or less ei depending on plant mass. Pics of your tank would help.


I have changed my original post. I have CO2 running on high. I have added pictures. The sword is in the main tank. The algae on the glass of the 10 gallon is just due to lack of regular glass cleaning. The issue is the hair algae.


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## Eric Tran (Jul 7, 2016)

How is the flow in your tank? How often are you changing water and cleaning the substrate? When was the last time you deep cleaned your filter and all the tubing? Do you have fish in there and how often do you feed? All these are factors that can lead to algae.


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## tempestuousfury (May 7, 2013)

Eric Tran said:


> How is the flow in your tank? How often are you changing water and cleaning the substrate? When was the last time you deep cleaned your filter and all the tubing? Do you have fish in there and how often do you feed? All these are factors that can lead to algae.


There is low flow because of have CPD in there; it's a plastic mesh that is also supposed to keep the cherry shrimp in. I can increase the flow; I have read the CPD prefer stiller waters. I deep clean the filter every 2-3 months. Most recently I did it last week. The substrate is pure sand, so I don't really do anything with it. I feed daily as much as they'll eat during the feeding; I rarely overfeed. It is overstocked but also overplanted. The tank rarely gets over 10ppm on nitrates (also pointing towards adequate feeding I feel), but I assume there are other factors linked to densely stocking the tank that I don't really test for.


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## Eric Tran (Jul 7, 2016)

Increase flow and bump your co2 a bit. You may be surprised that even when drop checker is showing yellow, you’re actually still not getting enough co2 in the tank. If you can get a good quality ph pen like milwaukee to test ph (runs about $40), you can accurately measure a 1.2-1.4 ph drop from morning degassed, until right when your lights turn on. And maintain that drop throughout the photoperiod. Also you’re doing 50% water changes a week right? You can also use a clean up of the substrate a bit by blowing it lightly with a turkey baster and sucking all that mulm out during water change.


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## MoreliaViridis (May 19, 2021)

If you are dosing EI you shouldn't think excess ferts is causing algae 
since EI is based on belief that excess nutrients is not the cause of algae. (And its not.)

What you should do is make circulation better and pump in more CO2.
Its not just increasung flow. Pull plants out and trim them. Do deep vaccum on substrate as you do that.

Measure your KH and PH change. 
If your KH is below 1 your pH change between fully gassed and fully de-gassed should be over 1.5.
If your KH is over 1 then 1 pH drop is fine.
And no it doesn't hurt fish as long as there is decent surface movement.

Introduce some algae eaters. Amano shrimps are good ones.

You could cut fert and photoperiod in half(or even in one third) and do large% WCs for couple of weeks.
While excess ferts do not cause algae, if your tank is already dealing with algae it also feeds algae.
Whenever you do WCs make sure you clean your substrate like person above stated. Getting rid of organics is main goal of WC.


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## tempestuousfury (May 7, 2013)

MoreliaViridis said:


> If you are dosing EI you shouldn't think excess ferts is causing algae
> since EI is based on belief that excess nutrients is not the cause of algae. (And its not.)
> 
> What you should do is make circulation better and pump in more CO2.
> ...


I did add amanos recently (2); I am hoping to see some changes. The KH is 5-7 depending on the day/tank, and I definitely notice a large shift (and have been assured it's fine). My 5 gallon embers were gasping a few days ago due to the high CO2, but it also has the least amount of algae, so this is heartening. I had been doing 25% changes weekly on the 10 gallon due to the cherry shrimp and that molts are triggered with large water changes (just going off of online readings); every 2 for the 55.



Eric Tran said:


> Increase flow and bump your co2 a bit. You may be surprised that even when drop checker is showing yellow, you’re actually still not getting enough co2 in the tank. If you can get a good quality ph pen like milwaukee to test ph (runs about $40), you can accurately measure a 1.2-1.4 ph drop from morning degassed, until right when your lights turn on. And maintain that drop throughout the photoperiod. Also you’re doing 50% water changes a week right? You can also use a clean up of the substrate a bit by blowing it lightly with a turkey baster and sucking all that mulm out during water change.


Thanks for the suggestion. I have been doing 25% for the smaller tanks (due to the cherry shrimp liking stable conditions based on my readings) and every 2 weeks 50% on the 55. I'll try upping them and increasing the circulation.

Also, I looked for milwaukee pH meter and found nothing under $100. Do you have a link?


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## Eric Tran (Jul 7, 2016)

Milwaukee pH51 Waterproof pH Tester with Replaceable Probe


Milwaukee is your best source for pH, TDS, ORP testers, meters, monitors and controllers. Upgrade to Milwaukee for affordable, high performance digital measurement.




milwaukeeinstruments.com





Although now thinking it’s a built up organics and mulm issue. If you’re not changing 50% water weekly and dosing ei level ferts you’ll have algae take over fast. Clean up your tank a bit. Algae love dirty tanks. No problem for me with changing 50% water weekly on my high tech tank with high quality neos in them. They actually breed much faster than my dedicated shrimp tank with water changes every month.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

For me it's always the organics. It's just a matter of how much the system can tolerate based on light and plant uptake. 

If excess ferts caused algae the vast majority of tanks would have uncontrollable algae since they vast majority of tanks have excess ferts. I really don't think algae would care if the excess is 10ppm or 100pm.


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## Eric Tran (Jul 7, 2016)

I agree well said. It’s mostly always an organics issue. Cleaning up you tank or organics, trimming down plants a bit, improving flow and keeping up with fertilizing, weekly water changes, lowering light to 6 hours a day will get you back on the right track. When things are in balance you can start upping light again.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

I, too, would look to clean water (low organics) as being one of the issues. Also, any inconsistency in CO2, lighting or ferts can be equally bad.

I try to measure things to ensure consistency and do regular bi-weekly 50% water changes (weekly, for you, since you’re doing EI), cleaning the filter with every water change. Check with shrimp experts on water change frequency and quantities. Use the pH-drop method, as mentioned above, to get at CO2 levels. If you take a sample of water from the tank, at maximum CO2 saturation, immediately measure the pH and then take another pH reading a day or two later from that sample, you won’t have to be concerned about KH levels affecting the reading. In addition to NO3, PO4 and KH, if you can get GH (we’ll assume Ca and Mg are correctly balanced) and TDS readings, it would add more info. Initially, take these readings every 3-4 days to see if they drift much. Again, this is part of the consistency aspect.

Since you are injecting CO2, you don’t need Excel, as it is not a good idea to use it daily to suppress algae. It’s better to let a well-balanced plant mass control algae. However, I would recommend using Ecell to knock down the hair algae so that you can get a hair-algae-free start (Excel only works on hair/BBA algae, AKA: red algae). To do this, it is a one-event shot of 1.5-2ml/gal of Excel that can be repeated in a week, if needed. On the day you do it, maximize circulation, maximize gas exchange (surface rippling, skimmers, etc.) and turn off UV sterilizers.


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## tempestuousfury (May 7, 2013)

Thanks everyone! I will keep on the weekly water changes and work towards keeping the conditions stable. I've trimmed the plants and done an extensive cleaning and hope to see improvement soon. I'll get back on here if it doesn't improve after making all the relevant changes.


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## LidijaPN (Jan 15, 2022)

This doesn’t help you at all but every time I read your thread title I think ‘how did he get the algae in his beard and hair...?’ before it clicks a second later 😂


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## herns (May 6, 2008)

tempestuousfury said:


> I have three tanks; one is covered in hair algae and some beard algae, and the main tank has beard algae but no other real issues. I've tried ot figure out what's going on by looking up answers online. Lights are on for 6-8 hours with medium-ish light in the main tank and medium high in the hair algae tank. I reduced the intensity and have started using fluorish excel. I have also done a water change and not added ferts for over a week. I read that phosphates are a culprit with beard algae, and the tanks have over 10ppm. My tap has 1.0 ppm so I am not sure what remedies to use. Any ideas are appreciated!
> 
> Stats:
> 
> ...



Get a sprayer bottle filled with hyrogen peroxide.
Remove water to the level where algae get exposed and spray. Wait for 5~15 mins before water top up.


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## Anon (Mar 16, 2014)

Asteroid said:


> For me it's always the organics.


Yes - and it's difficult to define _exactly_ what we mean by the term 'organics', let alone quantify this, isn't it? Anything that contains carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Everything from simple carbohydrates to humic compounds. Yikes! And, the sources are typically food waste, fish faeces and 'stuff' leaching from healthy plants or those in a state of decay. Following much experimentation and measurements, there appears to be a correlation between TOC* and ORP**. So, I like to monitor ORP and keep it at around +400mV.

I'm trying to follow the path of prevention instead of cure.

Anon

* Total Organic Carbon
** Oxidation-Reduction Potential


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Anon said:


> I'm trying to follow the path of prevention instead of cure.


Prevention is the best approach IMO. You can't really define it as you said, because there are too many moving variables to know when a threshold would be breached. Preventing algae and having algae are very different as once you have algae it's not that much different from the plants you grow in terms of their needs. 

You can't over science it, you prevent it by being redundant in things you know that cause it. In any given tank it could be light, organics, co2, plant mass, overfeeding, poor maintenance, etc, etc.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

LidijaPN said:


> This doesn’t help you at all but every time I read your thread title I think ‘how did he get the algae in his beard and hair...?’ before it clicks a second later 😂


 Guilty also. I was going to suggested changing up shampoo


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## LidijaPN (Jan 15, 2022)

mourip said:


> Guilty also. I was going to suggested changing up shampoo


"Have you tried showering with Excel?" 😂 😂 😂 Lol please do not do this Excel is NOT healthy for you


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## cloozoe (Feb 28, 2010)

I'm in the high organics/dirty tank is the culprit camp.

An additional comment: 10 ppm PO4 is a lot of PO4. I mention it not to say that excess PO4 _per se_ is a problem (I've no idea if it is or isn't) but if you are dosing ei, you'd be adding about 2.5 to 5 ppm a week. Assuming the plants are consuming some of that, you're generating perhaps 6-8 ppm/wk (or more) and the reason you're generating so much is that the tank is funky. So while, again, the elevated PO4 levels might not matter in themselves, they are useful as an indicator of a heavy organic load.

As a comparison, my heavily planted, heavily stocked tank generates about .25-.5 ppm PO4/week over and above what the plants use.

Tank needs an overhaul.

what will _not_ work (specifically as an algae solution):

More fertilizer
Different fertilizer 
New fertilizing "system"
Algae-B-Gone, or other magic nostrum
Algae eating critters

in short, you can't buy your way out of it


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## tempestuousfury (May 7, 2013)

cloozoe said:


> I'm in the high organics/dirty tank is the culprit camp.
> 
> An additional comment: 10 ppm PO4 is a lot of PO4. I mention it not to say that excess PO4 _per se_ is a problem (I've no idea if it is or isn't) but if you are dosing ei, you'd be adding about 2.5 to 5 ppm a week. Assuming the plants are consuming some of that, you're generating perhaps 6-8 ppm/wk (or more) and the reason you're generating so much is that the tank is funky. So while, again, the elevated PO4 levels might not matter in themselves, they are useful as an indicator of a heavy organic load.
> 
> ...


I am not sure why the phosphate is so high. I hadn't dosed EI in 2 weeks and done two 50% water changes. 

There was definitely a mulm problem; I uprooted all the plants and pruned heavily and the tank was filthy. It seemed that vacuuming in the carpet plants still wasn't enough.

Thanks for the help! It looks ok now 3 days in, but I will keep an eye on it. Now to start on the 55, which will be a huge project...


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## cloozoe (Feb 28, 2010)

Glad to hear about the progress-best of luck with the 55!


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