# Hair algae in (very) low tech CRS tank (picture inside)



## tamsin (Jan 12, 2011)

How do the floaters look - got a pic? They are the best indication of nutrient deficiency. If they are a healthy green, with no decay and actively growing, that's not the issue.

Reducing your lights is a good idea - well done- you may be able to up them again once you get a good coverage of floaters. If you want to have them on longer you can also decrease the light by putting something under it e.g. a sheet of paper (if you've got a cover glass to rest it on).

I would hope that manually removing it, reducing the light and then recleaning it every couple of days for the next week or so might get rid of it now you've reduced the light. For the plants - you could take them out and dip them and then readd. For the wood, you could take it out and use a clean scouring pad.


----------



## triplus (Aug 30, 2017)

Hey thanks! No pic atm, at work 
They are mostly green, there is some decay but I think that is also due to the small surface they have so they keep getting stuck in the moss and under other floaters. I did just take out some floaters yesterday as the top filled up again in about 1,5 weeks (I took out half of the floaters then).

So you think just lowering the light should be sufficient? I can make that work even lowering lights to 2-3 hours (which is the time I am around the tank).

Problem is that manual removal is very hard as when I pull too hard the whole plant and attached wood comes with  and I don't want to destroy my scape too much


----------



## MultiTankGuy (Jan 8, 2018)

tri...

I control this problem with a lot of large, frequent water changes and keep the food to a minimum. I like some algae, it's one of the best natural water filters you can have in the tank.

M


----------



## triplus (Aug 30, 2017)

Yup I'm also doing water changes, however since CRS are a little bit touchy I don't want to do 50% water changes so I'm just doing 10-20% atm 
I agree that algae are nice, in my big tank I only clean my front window, however these hair algae are not what I want right now. They take up a lot of the view into my scape


----------



## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

In your case, you just want to leave it be. The tank probably needs more time to mature. You've already cut light back, so not much else you can do. It's difficult finding the balance in a small tank, especially when you are trying to raise sensitive shrimps like CRS that don't like fluctuating parameters. Fertilizing would help get the plants healthy but you need to keep levels really low as you don't want to raise TDS too much. There's products like Thrive-S that are geared towards shrimp tanks but I find that I can dose regular dry EI ferts in nano tanks when I make my own solution and use a dropper. I've had success with doing this in my 2.6G BKK tank. You'll also want to go easy on feeding. With 4 shrimp, your tank should provide all the food they need for awhile, at least until your colony triples in size. This is assuming you allowed the tank to mature enough to establish enough biofilm... which can be difficult depending on just how soft your water is. It would help if you listed KH, GH, TDS and pH.


----------



## triplus (Aug 30, 2017)

Hey, thanks  I assume i'll indeed just let it go with low photo period and some small water changes here and there.
From the top of my head parameters are:
KH: 0
GH: 6
PH: 5.5
TDS: 170-ish

I may have indeed been feeding a little more as needed, I used snow flakes and may have left them in the tank for a little too long even tough the shrimp didn't eat them. I have removed them now and i'll just go with water changes and maybe a small feeding once a week or every other week 

thanks!


----------



## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

Your water is really soft. That Akadama must buffer pretty darn good. That is ideal parameters for breeding TBs. I believe that crystals prefer a bit higher pH (6.0-6.5) but I'm not sure as I don't raise crystals myself. They should do fine but biofilm has a hard time establishing in such waters. I would recommend feeding only a small amount of Bacter AE or Magic Powder weekly to help with this. If you want to feed the adults a little something special, stick with leaves like mulberry, stinging nettles, dandelion, fruit tree leaves, IAL, alder cones, etc. These are easy to remove if they don't get eaten and they won't pollute your water like powder and pellet foods. 

As for water changes, less is definitely more in this case. I do like 10% every other week. I match temperature, TDS and pH as close as possible too. I like to drip my WC and top offs back into the tank too. Helps keep parameters stable this way. As long as you are under 200 ppm TDS, I wouldn't rush to change water out. Stability is key with sensitive shrimps, as you may already know. This is why overfeeding can be such a problem. It's difficult trying to siphon uneaten food in a 2.5 gallon tank. You could easily remove all the water before you get all the uneaten food.


----------



## triplus (Aug 30, 2017)

PH could also be closer to 6 (the 2 yellow look very similar on my test kit) but they should indeed have a little higher PH in optimal parameters. But for now everything seems to be going well (altough lost 1 during the hot weather here, small tanks have bigger temp swings).

For the food I'll have to make some changes then compared to usual, but indeed stability is key and that is my main priority 

For now i'll just do weekly water changes of 10% until algae lower (and probably stop when I leave on holiday for 3 weeks) and keep lights on for only 5-ish hours. Let's hope it makes the algae go away 

Bump: Also, I have a small glass feeding tray making siphoning much easier


----------



## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

Going by your pic, I'd say that was staghorn algae. Notice how the hairs branch out? Hair algae doesn't do that, it's thread-like appearance grows in linear pattern. Causes for this algae (staghorn) is usually related to detritus buildup,poor circulation or dirty filters (not in your case). As long as that little HOB is positioned right, it should provide ample circulation. Do you get slight surface movement across the whole tank? If not, you can play with flow adjustment (if that's an option) or raise/lower water line. If that's all good, then suspect overfeeding.


----------



## triplus (Aug 30, 2017)

interesting, thanks!
the tank is small but I recently added an air stone for more surface agitation (as the HOB wasn't providing a whole lot of movement due to the floating plants).
But I indeed also suspect overfeeding. I am cutting back on feeding & light for now and see how it goes 

Thanks!


----------

