# Hair Algae vs Excel (H2O2 Works!)



## dr.tran

oh my a god

Ok if u got a spare tank remove the RCS and start double dosing excel. Remove the shrimp just incase. I know moss can stand excel pretty well but im not sure about the shrimp at double dose. Also try using hydrogen peroxide at 2 ml a gal. 

I know hydrogen peroxide can take care of hair algae pretty well


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## willbldrco

I'm currently on day 4 of double dosing Excel to fight hair and BBA that I got from some new plants in a high light tank. I have 5 adult and about 20 baby (between 6 and 15mm in length) shrimp which I think are Neocaridina sp. and all are doing just fine running around the tank eating the dying algae.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4029/4374506444_2127f2668b_o.jpg

The plants look fantastic too with the exception of the HC which I had in pots. I squirted the Excel from a syrenge directly onto the pots to kill the intermingled algae. I also cut the light to 5 hours a day (3 in the afternoon, 2 in the eve with 3 hours between). I don't know if it was the direct squirt of Excel or the lack of light that hurt the HC. I'm thinking it's the Excel since I have 4 HC pots, I squirted 3 and the un-squirted pot looks better than the other three.

Anyway, double dose of Excel didn't hurt my shrimp.

Will

P.S. The tufts of BBA that I squirted with Excel are dead, dead, dead. The unsquirted tufts look about the same. The hair algae looks sad too, but I just up-ed the light to 7 hours (to hopefully help the HC), so we'll see how that goes... I bought a 60ml syringe from Phramica for $3 and dosed 1ml/g Excel.


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## amcoffeegirl

i overdosed excel to kill some algae and killed 4 mini cories

i suggest to treat outside the tank.


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## ezcry4t3d

dr.tran said:


> I know hydrogen peroxide can take care of hair algae pretty well


I had read this on this forum, and it was the first thing I tried because H2O2 is so cheap. I removed a portion of the algae into a container and dosed H2O2 for a few days and it had no effect on the algae.
I tried the same thing with "Algae Destroyer" by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals - Active ingredient: Poly(oxyethylene(dimethyliminio)ethylene(dimethyliminio)ethylene dichloride) - Seriously...
No effect on this algae.



amcoffeegirl said:


> i suggest to treat outside the tank.


There's was so few livestock in this tank that it was actually easier to move them out to other tanks than try to put the moss/algae mountain somewhere else to treat. I'm on day 3 of standard Excel dosing. If the moss doesn't start dying I'll just keep ramping up the dose until the algae dies. I'll post updated pictures when(if) I start to get results.


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## dhavoc

there are 2 types of hair algae, one is easily killable with double doses of excel, the other is a long fast growing one that is slimy to the touch when you remove it from the tank. it actually grows better with double doses of excel. i got rid of mine by upping co2 and ferts, plus dosing 1ml/g excel AND 2ml/gal of peroxide. do this for 3-4 days or until the algae dies. manually remove as much as you can with a toothbrush or similar as well. its still there, but once you get it under control and the plants can out compete it again, it stays in the background. ottos love eating the dying algae as well.

as someone mentioned above, remove any dwarf cory's (pygmaeus, habrosus and especially hastatus) they do not like excel overdoses and die rather quickly. i have killed close to a hundred of them in various tanks. dont know why they are suceptable, as my sterbai and other medium cories do just fine.


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## pianofish

dhavoc said:


> as someone mentioned above, remove any dwarf cory's (pygmaeus, habrosus and especially hastatus) they do not like excel overdoses and die rather quickly. i have killed close to a hundred of them in various tanks. dont know why they are suceptable, as my sterbai and other medium cories do just fine.


Sorry for the off question, but if you normal dose excel will Cory Habrosus do okay?


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## Amazonfish

I had a hair algae problem in one of my tanks a few weeks ago, and then I saw this thread.

I followed MrJG's method (see page 2), and it worked like a charm. Unlike his experience, it took about 3 days before the hair algae in my tank started receding. Within 8 days or so, it was completely gone.


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## ezcry4t3d

Amazonfish said:


> I had a hair algae problem in one of my tanks a few weeks ago, and then I saw this thread.
> 
> I followed MrJG's method (see page 2), and it worked like a charm. Unlike his experience, it took about 3 days before the hair algae in my tank started receding. Within 8 days or so, it was completely gone.


Thanks for that link. I didn't realize that the dosing for killing the algae is double the post water change dosage, not the standard daily dosage. This is 5x more excel than the daily dose. I also wasn't doing H2O2 at the same time.

So for my 10gal tank I should be doing >40% water changes daily with a 10mL dose of Excel and a 20mL dose of H2O2. I will start H2O2 dosing now, and do a water change and filter cleaning tomorrow. I'm not sure I'm willing to dose excel quite that high (or do daily water changes in that tank), but we'll see if adding the H2O2 dose will impact the algae.


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## Amazonfish

I actually dosed the post water change dose daily only. I didn't feel comfortable dosing more than that. Still worked like a charm  Also killed all the green spot algae I had on the glass! Nice added bonus.


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## dhavoc

pianofish said:


> Sorry for the off question, but if you normal dose excel will Cory Habrosus do okay?


normal daily dosage does not bother them IME. only when you up it to kill algae. some are immune and it doesnt bother them, and others flip over and die after a day or so. from past experience about 20% will turn out immune to excel od's. not a very good way to stock your tank with them.


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## ezcry4t3d

After about a week of Excel with some H2O2 thrown in too I'm finally starting to get some results. I manually removed all of the algae that wasn't tangled up in the Christmas moss. The people that are killing hair algae with just 1-3 days of treatments either have a much weaker algae than I do, or they're overdosing their tank a lot more than they realize. The algae I have is not slimy at all. Mine is coarse, has strong filaments, and is almost impossible to untangle and remove manually.


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## captain_bu

If it comes out in clumps, feels dry and coarse it is cladophora not hair algae.

If it was my tank I would toss the moss... not like it is a rare plant or anything and it is going to be almost impossible to get all of the clado out of the moss. Clado can be difficult to kill, you really need to remove it manually, I don't think Excel is going to get rid of it. I had a bad infestation a few years back after neglecting my tank. I pulled out every bit that I could find even if it meant removing what was left of the plants. I wasn't using CO2 at the time but went back to using Excel daily and started EI dosing the tank (wasn't adding a balance of ferts up until that point). After adding new plants, dosing ferts and Excel and working on keeping the tank and filter clean the tank turned around really well.


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## plantbrain

ezcry4t3d said:


> 10 Gallon, eco-complete substrate. Christmas moss, crypts, java fern.
> 
> Spectacularly too much light, 2x15W CFL in the stock hood. Putting together a 7W LED DIY hood is on my to do list...
> 
> So, now that I've screwed it up this bad, I was trying to figure out if there's any chance of saving the Christmas Moss. I was considering starting Seachem Flourish Excel in the tank.
> 
> What are the odds that the Excel will kill the algae?
> What are the odds that the Excel will kill the moss?
> Should I follow the recommended dosing directions?
> Should I remove the RCS from the tank to try this?
> Would it just be better to trash all the moss/algae and start over?


Ahahahaa, hehe, this is a good example of hair algae. :thumbsup:

No, Excel is not going to do much.
Turn the light off, change the water 2-3x over the next week, cover so no ambient light gets in, fix the light/CO2 issue.

Regards, 
Tom Barr

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## ezcry4t3d

6 months later,

Still two 15W 6500K CFL spirals at 12 hours a day.

No Dosing of anything since I killed the algae.

I did add a few Zebra Nerites, but they don't eat the kind of algae I was having the problem with anyway.

The hair/cladophora whatever it was, coarse nasty algae was completely decimated by the week of 2mL/gal H2O2 dosing. There has been NO recurrence of this algae even though I'm still breaking all the 'rules' of lighting. So, I'm absolutely sure at this point that the H2O2 completely kills this stuff.

10 gallons of 100% Christmas Moss.
As they like to say, pics or it didn't happen. :icon_mrgr


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## Bubble Boy

Sweet!


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