# Algae I.D. and cure needed. good luck.



## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

neither co2 or excel seem to have an affect on it.

h202 at 1ml/gallon every other day for 3-4 has no affect on it.

reducing light doesn't seem to affect it much either.

there must be a fix.


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## Digsy (Mar 4, 2006)

Hmmmm, I used to see something very much like this for a few hours immediately after every water change but, somewhere along the line, it just stopped happening. Sorry I can't be anymore help than that.


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## Casty (Sep 28, 2006)

I got that crap too, WC and manual removal removes a lot, but it keeps coming back for me. I was using water from my bathtub (softened) and I've switched over to hard water from tap, we'll see if it fixes it. You aren't using water softener water are you?


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## darkfury18 (Apr 1, 2006)

I'm not sure what it is, but cherry shrimps or Amano shrimps will take care of it in no time. From my experience, it does fine in low light and seems to be caused by an excess of ammonia or nitrates.


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

nope, never used a water softener.

no ammonia present in the tank. nitrates however, run at ~40ppm. not really in excess.

bump for more ideas.


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## hooha (Mar 14, 2004)

my guess is thread algae from too much micros.....


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

hooha said:


> my guess is thread algae from too much micros.....


if so, solution would be??

bump for more ideas.


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## CampCreekTexas (Feb 28, 2007)

Ummmm ... lower your micros?


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

ha. i normally don't find humor in sarcasm, but did in that one. maybe because i put my foot in my mouth. i guess i was thinking in terms of H2O2, excel, lighting period, etc.


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## CampCreekTexas (Feb 28, 2007)

I'm glad you found the humor in it because that's honestly how I meant it.  I'm having a brain fart day today, too, so you're not alone.  :icon_lol:


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

Was there a sudden change in your lighting intensity/duration. The same stuff overtook my 40 gallon by storm almost overnight when I upgraded lighting from 90 watts to 110 watts with all other things being equal including c02 injection. Excel had no effect on it, the otos don't care for it, the SAE seems to have grown lazy in his old age and also does not care for it, the Kribs love it so much that they are literally shredding the leaves on the hygrophilia to totally get it all. My guess is that if I had dropped the photoperiod by at least 3 hours to compesate for such a dramatic increase in lighting intensity, then it "may" have prevented the outbreak in the first place, but I I guess I will never know now.









Oh well, live and learn


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

when the algae appeared, nothing was in the process of changing. the only possible way it could have entered was from new plants. but it's finding what causes it and what will control it that i am dying to know.


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## Ukrainetz (Jul 11, 2007)

I think I have this same stuff, looks like thread algae. Except your's is a little more brown (mine is bright green). When I try to take it off, it feels like a wet cotton ball (very filamentous). I think its caused by excess nitrates and other things in the water, especially in high light. Shrimp and SAE's should eat some, but this stuff grows way too quick for them to get it all. 

The other thought I have is could you have killed most of it by now? Because I had hair algae in a tank BAD, but once I used Excel, it all died and turned brown within a week. The fish cleaned it all up. The way it falls apart in your hand indicates that too...dead algae...


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

neither excel nor H2O2 has an affect on it. it's very hard to describe the texture. to me, nothing like cotton. it's so fragile. if you try to pull it off, it breaks apart. when it's floating around, you can't grab it between fingers. it slips away. to get that piece, i had to cup it and carefully let the water out.


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## Ukrainetz (Jul 11, 2007)

yuck! That sounds slimy and nasty... does your tank smell at all? That sounds very much like the dead hair algae I had, but mine was thicker than your stuff. Did you try to spot it with excel? The other thing you can do, is a blackout... shut the lights off for a couple of days while treating it with excel or something... see what happens (shouldn't hurt the plants).


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

It apears to be hair algea.
A good fix for it would be shrimp. Even common glass shrimp AKA feeder shrimp should do. Just be aware that many fish consider glass shrimp treats, however 1$ per dozen they should be able to effectively remedy the problem even if they do get eaten.


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

spot treatment with excel didn't affect it either. the tank doesn't smell at all. the algae itself however, smells like fish. (example: when you go fishing and after catching a fish and your hands smell like fish). i don't know why the algae smells like that. GIO - it isn't hair algae. i'm very familiar with several types of algae including hair, and i can manage 99% of them with the exception of this one. unfortunately, i don't know if there is a specific name for it. that's what i'm hoping to gain by bumping this thread so many times. i figure someone who knows something will hopefully come along.


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## Casty (Sep 28, 2006)

Do you have Aquasoil or some Mopani wood in your tank? I have Amazonia II and 3 pieces of Mopani driftwood in my tank, maybe one of the two is the cause?


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

i have the regular aquasoil. that shouldn't be the problem. otherwise everyone with aquasoil would have it.


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## mrkookm (Apr 4, 2007)

See this Algae GUide Possibly Rhizoclonium?


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

Hmmm thats wierd. It looks like easy to kill hairstring algae, but its some sort of ultra resilient algae, what a nightmare. I really don't know what you could do about it. MORE POSTS PLEASE


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

lol. I specifically signed in just now to see if I could find out what this stuff is, and low and behold here is a thread about it.

In my 30gl, the stuff is invisible, I thought it was hair algae of some sort at first. The only reason I can see it is the fact that mulm and bubbles are stuck to it, the bubbles made me think some kind of cyano, I seem to remember reading somewhere that cyano can have a thread appearance but I could be wrong. In any case, nothing has changed in my tank but increased CO2 (recharged DIY), a month long CO2 deficiency beforehand could have played a part (yes, I got lazy on the 30gl). Nitrates could be getting low, I've done more than the usual WCs on that tank lately, I'll have to test them. For now, I've increased flow since most of it seems to be in a dead spot.

Where are all the gurus?



Casty said:


> Do you have Aquasoil or some Mopani wood in your tank? I have Amazonia II and 3 pieces of Mopani driftwood in my tank, maybe one of the two is the cause?


I've had some type of driftwood in this tank for over a year and have never seen this stuff until now. No AS, just sand, which has also never caused a prob.


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

mrkookm - it looks like Rhizoclonium, however, it isn't that green in appearance and is no where near that thick.

in my first photo however, the color of it is very similar to the color in this specific photo.









i'm doing a pretty good job of getting rid of it at the moment, but i feel like i'm cheating. i've ripped out all my plants except my pennywort and have been doing something completely against the rules. i've been adding algaefix.  yes, i know. please don't crucify me. i just figured that if the pennywort doesn't make it cause of the algaefix, then so be it. fortunately, pennywort is a very tough plant and isn't being affected by the algaefix and is still growing pretty quick. i've since stopped adding CO2 to the tank due to an empty bottle and have been adding 10ml of Excel daily - not like i wasn't adding that when the algae first appeared. :icon_roll so far, i see only tiny remnants of the algae itself. i'm going to keep doing water changes, over-turning the soil, and keep adding the algaefix until i see no more, and hope that if in fact i do decide to add other plants, the crap won't come back. LET'S HOPE!


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## tusk (Jan 30, 2006)

It sounds like and looks like to me that you have what I had....
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/49273-any-thoughts-pics.html

VERY fragile, brown, and would almost disintegrate when touched? I did the peroxide thing. Then it changed to regular green hair algae :icon_conf BUT it was a lot better. Before that, it would overtake my tank in 2-3 days, but it's not nearly as bad now. 

I just did a 3 day blackout just trying to get back to square one and that didn't help as much as I would have liked but it did help a bit. Now I'm patiently awaiting my booster pump for my RO setup which better put an end to all of this. I have water that only comes softened with an extremely high kH.


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## mrkookm (Apr 4, 2007)

It would seem too little water movement if any, tank turnover rate too low, too little/infrequent water changes or undersized filter would be the possible suspect here. 

In my quest to grow plants I've had very low Co2, too much light, long photo periods, OD/Un'd on ferts, high fish load too and never had this type of algae. However the possible causes mentioned above did not apply to me then. Do any apply to your setup?


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

tusk said:


> It sounds like and looks like to me that you have what I had....
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/49273-any-thoughts-pics.html


 That looks like an advanced stage of what I have, sweeping around and slimy looking, nothing like the green clump in DP's post.


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

kind of wish Tom would chime in at this point to put in his 2 cents as to what it may be.


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

well, the crap is back. i ended up getting rid of alllllllll plants in the tank, and starting over. i've lowered the light down to 96w. put back the orbit fixture, so i've lost a lot of intensity (purposefully). and i've even added CO2 back to the tank - run that 24-7. dose 15ml of excel daily. i put a tiny pinch of PO4 in the tank in order to keep the *hard* green spot algae at bay. guess who knock at my door? the same annoying algae. i can't figure this out. it's wanting to make me quit this once and for all.


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## Carissa (Aug 19, 2007)

Have you tried dosing ei? The fact that you did nothing but it started all of a sudden seems to point to some kind of deficiency that took a while to take effect.


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## zergling (May 16, 2007)

I've had this (never figured out if it was Rhizoclonium or Spirogrya) twice - during the startup of my tank, and a couple of weeks back. 

Guess what were common between the 2 occurence?

Low/fluctuating CO2 levels and low macronutrient levels.

The first time it happened was during the first week of my tank. I thought it was ammonia leeched out by aquasoil, but tested 0 for both ammonia and nitrites (used lots of mulm from old tank and lots of fast growing stem plants). 
I was having problems with my CO2 regulator to keep the CO2 injection rate from going down (or going too high up) -- which was fixed by getting a new one. I was also "dosing" EI from the get-go and was surprised to see my nitrate barely hitting 5ppm. 
I looked back at the calculations on the dilluted solutions for my ferts and realized I made a mistake and was dosing 1/4 than what I should be  

The second time it happened was a few weeks back, noticed the algae growth, and also noticed that my glass diffuser was giving out too little CO2 bubbles -- I most likely bumped one of the knobs of the regulator by accident. This was also the time that I missed out on a water change, and did not dose at all (just to see how it goes).

For both incidents I just manually removed as much as I can using an old toothbrush right before my water change, and made sure CO2 levels are good, along with dosing correctly.....then I let my amano shrimp take care of what I failed to remove. Algae should be gone in a week or so.


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

Mine's been gone for a few weeks now. Besides the silght filter flow increase, CO2 has been going steadier, increased Excel dosing (regular doses every day), there might be a bit more micros than usual, and I added a handful of ghost shrimp.


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