# Hair Algae BLOOM!



## ThaiP (Oct 1, 2014)

I'm having a nasty hair algae party in my tank for half a week now and they starting to cover everything.

Parameters:

55 Gallon tank
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
ph: 7.1 new water, 6.7 with CO2 injection.
gh: 9~10
Fish: 20+ corydoras and some blue rams. All are healthy :red_mouth.
Ferts: Seachem liquid fert (all of them except excel and only 1/2 recommended dose of phosphate)
Plants: mostly healthy except that they are covered by hair algae.
Light: 2x Finnex Ray2 Daylight, 48 Inches - 14h a day.

There are a few things that I think might be the cause.

Lack of CO2: I have CO2 injection in my tank but I notice that my plants keep pearling less and less everyday. This was probably caused by Stress Coat+ that made my water more slimy and harder for co2 to disolve.

Lack of Phosphate: ???

Iron overload: I've read from a few places that high gH + regular dosing of Iron might cause hair algae. (I'm dosing 5ml per day as instructed on the bottle)

Light overload: I'm a bit confused on this one. 
- Too much light --> algae
- Light + plants + ferts + co2 = no algae?
But this is not working in this case.

I've had spot algae and green dust algae but they seem to be dying off rather quickly now after co2 injection. Only a few grey spot algae in the corner and no green dust algae anymore.

So that's my guess. Too many possibilities to try out at the same time so I hope to get your help on which one is most likely. Or your suggestion if you think none of these are the cause. :icon_redf

Please help! :bounce:

Thanks


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Too much light - 2x Ray 2 for 14 hours is way too much. That is basically doing planted tanks on 'expert difficulty' with no margin for error. 1 Ray 2 is in the lower end of high-light range. Two Ray 2 is ultra-high light range. Even if you can handle 2x Ray 2 you should absolutely not have a photoperiod that long.

Light / CO2 imbalances are the cause of algae 95% of the time.

Just to be sure I would make sure your ferts are on point - you will need a lot of CO2 / ferts to handle that amount of light - even with a reduced photoperiod. Use a calculator to make sure that dosing liquid ferts at recommended amounts is enough. Without checking I am guessing that full EI dosing would require more than the amounts on the label. I would just switch to dry ferts though if I were you.

In response to your guesses:
Light + CO2 + plants + ferts = no algae is simply not reality. If you have the CO2 / ferts / plant mass to support the amount of light you have then you should not get algae. however - you are using a LOT of light for a VERY long photoperiod. Your lights are on 2x as long as I run mine.

Bottom line is that you do not need that much light to grow healthy plants.

Your photoperiod is the main culprit though IMO. Maybe try running one fixture for 8 hours and have the second come on for 4 hours in the middle.


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## StrangeDejavu (Jun 23, 2014)

ThaiP said:


> This was probably caused by *Stress Coat+* that made my water more slimy and harder for co2 to disolve.


It's funny you mention Stress Coat+. Earlier this year, I planted my bettas 10g. I was running 2.5 WPG CFLs, 8 hours a day and dosing Seachem Flourish. All was well for over a month until one day my betta got sick. I treated him in a medicine tank and added a fake plant for cover... bad move. He shredded his tail to pieces in such tight swimming quarters. Anyway, put him back in his tank and picked up some Stress Coat+ since it was advertised as having aloe vera. It healed his tail super quick, but after a few days I had a hair algae bloom. I was pulling golf ball sized amounts every 3 days and finally gave up after weeks of fighting it. I did a black out and even bumped my lights down to 6 hours a day and nothing worked. I eventually tore that tank down and started with new everything.


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## ThaiP (Oct 1, 2014)

Thank you, kilbs.:thumbsup:

How much light would you recommend? I'm planning 8 ~ 10 hours a day with 2 hours break in the middle.

Should I start dosing Excel to kill the algae?


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## r45t4m4n (Feb 12, 2014)

I would say 7 hours, I run 6 hours and my plants are happy. For hair algae you can remove manually with a toothbrush. I don't think Excel has an affect on hair algae.


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## ThaiP (Oct 1, 2014)

klibs said:


> *Your photoperiod is the main culprit though IMO. Maybe try running one fixture for 8 hours and have the second come on for 4 hours in the middle.*


I apologize, somehow I missed these lines while reading your reply. :icon_redf

I have a small problem with this, I only have 1 timer that works for both fixtures so in order to maintain both of them for 8 hours does it mean I have to crank up my co2 and ferts? Or just use 1 fixture for 2 weeks till my plants grow out more?

Bump:


r45t4m4n said:


> *I would say 7 hours, I run 6 hours and my plants are happy. For hair algae you can remove manually with a toothbrush. I don't think Excel has an affect on hair algae.*


Thank you for replying! 

I'm very bad with biology so please excuse me for asking this :icon_lol:: Do plants only grow during photoperiod? I'm trying to get my Dwarf Hornwort to fully cover the bottom quickly and I feel like 6 ~ 7 hours is too little for max grow speed. I would probably be doing this when my plants get to equilibrium state of beauty.

This is only my assumption since I did not pay much attention in biology class in highschool.


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## r45t4m4n (Feb 12, 2014)

Photosynthesis does not occur in the dark. A lot of plants actually close their leaves at night (point upwards and not outwards). Get your ferts/light/CO2 dialed in first and then start increasing them.


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## ThaiP (Oct 1, 2014)

Something weird just happened. Just yesterday the hair algae was all over the place, I even get green water algae aswell. After the water change, the green water came back almost instantly and the hair algae obviously was still there.

I woke up today... and 90% the hair algae was gone. MAGICALLY. I don't know what happened.

Things that I did:
- Lower light intensity as adviced.
- I accidentally overdose CO2. My fish are still mad at me.
- I dose a full dose of phosphate this time.
I don't think any of these helped though. What do you guys think?


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## salman (Apr 16, 2013)

I am having same issue with my newly setup 25gl tank(3 weeks old). It came from the plants that i had in other tank. my fault, thought i cleaned it. Anyways i reduced the light intensity and photoperiod. Today i'll do another water change, try to increase CO2 a little and dose phosphate.


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## ThaiP (Oct 1, 2014)

Hey salman, I'm sorry to hear you got the same problem. 

I don't think what I did was the cure because the change happened almost instantly. I mean the night before they were all over the place, next morning they were gone (isn't that defined instantly when dealing with algae?). More importantly CO2 and phosphate aren't recommended cure for hair algae (It was an accident on the CO2 and the phosphate... I don't know wth happened with phosphate). I've read multiple places that lower nutrient & algae eaters & lower light intensity & time combination is the cure.

There were a couple of other things that I think contributed to that result: 

When I did the WC, I took out more water than intended so the water level was much lower than the my filters' outputs => much stronger current. (According to this stronger current makes hair algae uncomfortable)
Lower water level => stronger light intensity plus the CO2 accident => plants discharged more of the stuff that is harmful to algae (I read somewhere that plants do that)

TL;DR: It was pretty weird what happened so please don't be the victim of false experiment result.


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