# Hair algae on Fissidens Fontanus - Use Excel?



## Nightgardener (Apr 13, 2014)

Hello gang, I've got a lava rock that I glued some fissidens Fontanus onto, and it's been growing really well in my 12G long. However, it keeps getting some algae that looks a lot like human hairs....brown and single strings. Any suggestions on how to get rid of it? I try to remove it manually and keep the moss clean (it tends to accumulate dirt particles), but that's a lot of work. Would it be safe to immerse the rock in a weak excel solution?


----------



## Yukiharu (May 3, 2014)

Single, brown strings sounds like diatom algae. As far as I know mosses do not respond well at all to excel.


----------



## DennisSingh (Nov 8, 2004)

h2o2 dip would work, but no more than 30 seconds, you can either rinse out the moss really well or let the tank water take care of it.


----------



## Nightgardener (Apr 13, 2014)

Yukiharu said:


> Single, brown strings sounds like diatom algae. As far as I know mosses do not respond well at all to excel.


Thank you Yukiharu; you're probably right. In the past I prepared a plant bath consisting of a solution of 2.5 ml Excel to 500 ml water. I immersed the plants for about 20 minutes, and rinsed. It worked really well with some plants, but killed some more delicate ones. I paid so much for the Fissidens at my local fish store that I won't chance it! :wink2:

Bump:


StrungOut said:


> h2o2 dip would work, but no more than 30 seconds, you can either rinse out the moss really well or let the tank water take care of it.



Thank you, StrungOut, that's an excellent idea - I'll try it and report back! :smile2:


----------



## doylecolmdoyle (Sep 22, 2015)

I dipped my fiss in excel and it turned brown and didnt recover, if you can remove the moss, put it in a blacked out container for a week, that did the trick for me!


----------



## Rare (Jul 18, 2016)

You can dip in diluted h202, like 30% h202 and 70% water for 30 seconds. Any longer and itll burn the moss! Good luck!


----------



## Nightgardener (Apr 13, 2014)

doylecolmdoyle said:


> I dipped my fiss in excel and it turned brown and didnt recover, if you can remove the moss, put it in a blacked out container for a week, that did the trick for me!


Thanks, Doyle!



Rare said:


> You can dip in diluted h202, like 30% h202 and 70% water for 30 seconds. Any longer and itll burn the moss! Good luck!


Thanks for that piece of info, Rare! I actualy have not had time to try the H2O2 trick yet, but I will try it. I'm glade you posted this, as I was going to use straight H202. Just to be clear, the H202 commonly comes in a 3% solution. So I will try using 3 parts of this solution to 7 parts of water. I can always increase the strength if that doesn't work. Thanks again for the tip, this was important! :wink2:


----------

