# Hair algae is beating me



## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

5.5g nano

*Flora* 
Dwarf rotala
dwarf baby tears
dwarf four leaf clover
red cryptocoryne
s.repens
glosso (hardly any)

*Fauna*
1 Scarlet Badis
4 Cherry Shrimp

Fluval COB 15w - photoperiod, if I remember correctly is 11 hours
Co2 injection - no issue keeping it at 30ppm
Ovation 210 filter

I originally though my issue was lack of phosphorus because I was dosing all other macros and micros and having slow plant and algae growth. I started dosing P and the plants exploded in growth for 4-5 days, then the algae exploded along with it and it's gotten out of control. I was dosing every day, I'm hoping my issue is overdosing ferts.

My parameters say my ammonia is at 1.0ppm, nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 20. Not sure why things seemed to de-cycle as I prime my water.


So, I'm getting pretty frustrated. Any and all help is appreciated. As you can see my plants are swarmed, especially my dwarf four leaf clover and baby tears.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

How long has the tank been set up like this?

11hrs is A LOT of light. I'd start off somewhere around 5-6hrs and only increase once everything else is tuned in. 

How do you measure your CO2 level?


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

From your post you are dosing N and P and they are probably OK. But what about the other 12 nutrients? We need more information. It would be helpful to list all fertilizers you use and how much you add of each and how often. Also how often do you do a water change and how much water do you replace?


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

MCFC said:


> How long has the tank been set up like this?
> 
> 11hrs is A LOT of light. I'd start off somewhere around 5-6hrs and only increase once everything else is tuned in.
> 
> How do you measure your CO2 level?


The tank has been set up since April 16th. So almost 3 months. It was cycled and everything was going decent while I was using excel and dosing micros but growth was lacking. I got injected co2 and a new light and somehow I decycled the tank. 

I'll reduce my photoperiod tonight to 6 hours after I clean the algae. I use a drop checker to monitor co2 levels. 



Surf said:


> From your post you are dosing N and P and they are probably OK. But what about the other 12 nutrients? We need more information. It would be helpful to list all fertilizers you use and how much you add of each and how often. Also how often do you do a water change and how much water do you replace?


Sorry, I dose seachem P, Leaf Zone for Fe & K, and flourish for micros. I dose according to the instructions. If it says half a cap for 10 gallons, I do 1/4 cap and I do that every other day. I also grabbed some seachem advance to just test out so I dose that too.

I find water changes problematic. I try to do once a week 30% change, though fighting the algae manually means I need to vacuum so I end up removing more like 50%. I'm not sure if it's better to leave more algae in the tank or vacuum as much as I can at the cost of changing a lot of water.



I appreciate the replies


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## usaftropics (Jun 9, 2018)

I also experienced that in my tank. I was dosing liquid ferts and had osmocote+ in my substrate. The plants were growing so big and so fast until the algae took over, like what happened in your tank. I upped my water changes to try to get the extra nutrients out of my tank. I stopped using ferts. I manually took out the algae, as much as I could. 

I also bought Potassium Permanganate to make a dip as it can kill algae.
Link: https://www.aquariumplants.com/Articles.asp?ID=267
Do your own research on this, I don't know much about as when I tried the dip, I was so hopeless I just tried anything.

Maybe try putting a plant like a pothos plant or bamboo plants inside of your filter to take out even more of the extra nutrients.
Just keep at it and make sure to manually remove as much of the algae out, when you do, immediately suck out what you took off.

It's a pain but it does get better so just keep at it!


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

> Sorry, I dose seachem P, Leaf Zone for Fe & K, and flourish for micros. I dose according to the instructions. If it says half a cap for 10 gallons, I do 1/4 cap and I do that every other day. I also grabbed some seachem advance to just test out so I dose that too.


One important note on hair algae.  It thrives in water with very low nutrient levels. Levels so low that most plants cannot grow or grow very slowly. In higher nutrient levels, sufficient for plant growth, it doesn't do well and may die off.

Also one important note on fertilizers, Most are missing some nutrients Some a lot of nutrients. 

I would recommend you tank the Leaf zone fertilizer and throw it in the garbage. It has only 2 (Fe and K) of the 14 nutrients plants need to grow. There are two flourish products for micro Flourish comprehensive, and Flourish trace. While flourish comprehensive has a lot of nutrients listed on the bottle, Some are only present at levels less than 1part per billion. It essentially has no copper or zinc in it. It is also poorly balanced with little to no nitrogen phosphate and calcium. Plant need about 3 times more calcium than magnesium to grow. but Flourish Comprehensive has a little bit of magnesium and even less calcium. Flourish trace has the same balance problems as comprehensive. 

I would recommend you get Thrive fertilizer (available at Nilocg.com. It doesn't have calcium and sulfur but most tap water has enough. If you are in a soft water area or are using RO or distilled water you can add a sulfate GH booster to add calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and potassium. For soft water add enough to increase your GH by 2 degrees should be more than enough for the plants. I would also recommend getting a GH KH test kit. 

Sachem does sell aa good sulfate GH booster, Equilibrium, and Nilocg.com also sells one. Nilocg.com also sells Thrive fertilizer. For small tanks I would get a syringe so that you can accurately measure the dose. Using the cap thread si very inaccurate.

Continue doing the water change and remove was much hair algae as possible. I would also do 50% water changes consistently.


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

> I also grabbed some seachem advance to just test out so I dose that too.


I forgot to address this. While I have not used it, Looking at the label it only PK,Ca, and Mg. In my opinion it belongs in the same place as API leaf zone, in the garbage. Go ahead and try it but it will probably not help.


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## OVT (Nov 29, 2011)

I had the same algae for a couple of months in 2 tanks (there are a couple of threads on it). 1 ml of Metro 14 (it's 1.7 x strength of Excel) per 10g daily for 1 week completely cleared both tanks. Go figure.


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

Thanks for the help guys. I reduced my photoperiod to 7 hours and reduced the lights by 20%. The algae has slowed but is still very aggressive. My shrimp are eating it and leaving poop everywhere like mad but they can't keep up. It's hard to vacuum and clean without removing more than half the water and hugely affecting water chemistry. 

I'm going to pick up a bottle of thrive. I'm also going to stuff as many plants as I can into the tank


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Rnasty said:


> I use a drop checker to monitor co2 levels.


I would recommend getting a pH pen and using the 1 point drop method. It's probably not the cause of any issues but it really helps to know that you have stable CO2 levels. The drop checker is good as an emergency back up just to visually check that things aren't waaayyy out of whack, but the pH pen is definitely the better way to go. 



Rnasty said:


> I'm not sure if it's better to leave more algae in the tank or vacuum as much as I can at the cost of changing a lot of water.


Getting as much algae out of the tank as possible is best. Most plants love big water changes, just make sure to add the appropriate amount of ferts back in with the new water


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

I just ordered ThriveS, should be here in a couple days. I really hope it fixes my issues


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

OOOOOOOkay, I got the bottle of ThriveS this weekend and proceeded to clean out the algae. It had gotten much worse and it took hours but I finally got most of it. I had a few shrimp die and the ammonia spiked, causing me to lose my scarlet badis. I am happy to see though that at least some of my shrimp made it. I went out and bought some mini dwarf hairgrass, more s.repens, and my lfs finally had some hydrocotyle japan so I grabbed that too.

I double dosed excel and left the lights off, cleaned the filter and replaced floss as well as added purigen. 

This morning I checked the tank and noticed I'm having a bacterial bloom. The lights are still off so I wont be able to relly get a good look till my lunch today. 

I have my lights on for 6 hours now - 3pm-9pm.

Here is a pic of the tank currently.


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## peterphonic (May 9, 2018)

Surf said:


> I would recommend you get Thrive fertilizer (available at Nilocg.com. It doesn't have calcium and sulfur


Are you sure? True that Rotala calculator doesn`t show those two nutrients, but oddly enough, thrive web page says that it has :


_Guaranteed Analysis
Total Nitrogen(N)...................2.56%
2.56% Water Soluble Nitrogen(N)
Available Phosphate(P2O5).......1.58%
Soluble Potash(K2O)..................9.74%
Magnesium(Mg)...........................0.32%
0.32% Water Soluble Magnesium(Mg)

*Calcium(Ca)..................................0.02%
Sulfur(S).......................................0.54%*
0.54% Combined Sulfur(S)
Boron(B)......................................0.008%
Copper(Cu)..................................0.0002%
0.0002% Water Soluble Copper(Cu)
Iron(Fe)........................................0.42%
0.42% Water Soluble Iron(Fe)
Manganese(Mn)..........................0.168%
0.168% Water Soluble Manganese(Mn)
Molybdenum(Mo)........................0.0006%
Zinc(Zn).......................................0.0038%
0.0038% Water Soluble Zinc(Zn)_

Maybe this has been added recently?


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

> Are you sure? True that Rotala calculator doesn`t show those two nutrients, but oddly enough, thrive web page says that it has :
> 
> 
> Guaranteed Analysis
> ...


Normally you want 3 times more calcium than magnesium. Plants need more calcium than magnesium And calcium need is just a little bit less than potassium need. According to the information above there is 16 times more magnesium than calcium. Also there is 22 times more iron than calcium. The amount of calcium in the bottle is simply not enough.


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

If you want a great algae removal tool and you have a Sally beauty supply in your area - go buy some mascara applicators. They're amazing for removing filamentous algae.



Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

So I beat back the bulk of the hair algae and it has receded. Manual cleaning, water changes, and the ferts @Surf recommended.

I'm still dealing with some algal issue however. I'm not sure what any of these are. I find the stuff on the driftwood especially hard to get rid of. It's in my other tank too and I have to do a heavy manual clean to remove it. 

My rotala is doing poorly too. I'm not sure why other than it is covered in algae. The tank has good fertilizer, light, and co2 and I do water changes every other day 30%. Even when I clean the rotala, it looks nothing like the stuff in the tanks at my LFS which is very compact and pink. 

Here are pics of what I'm dealing with now

Again, thanks for the help

edit: Also, I was going to get an eheim 2211, but my LFS was having clearance on a aquaclear 20 with a busted up box, got it for $10. So now my filtration and especially flow all over the tank is significantly upgraded too from the ovation 210. I believe the greatly increased flow has been very helpful in keep the algae from taking over again


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