# dwarf hair grass, hair algae (solved)



## pinkman (May 16, 2013)

ive been dealing with a bad case of hair algae on my dhg. a few days after i first
planted it, had a hair algae explosion, but just on the new dhg. i read to give it
a trim then should do fine after. so i gave it a good trim. i had no problem until
now again that the grass has some length 3-4cm, another explosion. so i did
more research some advised 3 day blackout, heavy doses of excel, daily water
changes, and removing what could be removed. this method seemed to have
some affect, but not much. the algae is not affecting any of my other plants just 
the dhg. im almost to the point of just pulling it. 

any suggestions.

*edit

just did some test nitrates are pretty high between 40-80ppm
via - api test

i did a water change earlier today also.


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## G0rkhe (Mar 3, 2014)

Whats your lighting like? Not an expert but I feel hair algae is mainly due to high light and your following stuff not being balanced enough for it / not enough plants to compete for it.


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## Sluuuder (Feb 7, 2012)

Yeah im battling BBA atm and it has really attacked my DHG as well. Best thing is to do water changes, and turn back the amount of light or the time its exposed to light. Water changes really help as well. hope you find the culprit!!!


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## devilduck (May 9, 2012)

A combination of manual removal and hydrogen peroxide worked for me


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Part of this is not from personal exp.
But I have been reading lots of threads about hair algae and when it is on this DHG it
seems to me that one thing is in common/w all or most of the tanks that have it.
They all have less plants in general, other than the DHG.
The ones that seem to have less problems/w it have more plants in them by
percent or another way to put it a smaller aria of the DHG.
99.5 percent of the time lighting plays a part in most any algae problem.
Either too intense or too many hrs of it.
In the last two years I have been cultivating the hair algae in one of my tanks.
I do not have DHG but do grow a bog grass that closely resembles it in this tank.
In all fairness the bog gass grows very slowly if at all and mostly just maintains.
I mentioned this because I now can regulate the amount of hair algae almost at will
depending on the amount of fast growing plants(reguar baby tears) that I allow to grow in there. This I believe supports what I said about the DHG needing lots of other plants in the tank to use up nutrients which helps to keep out the hair algae.
If you look at many pictures of tanks in the gallery you will notice that the ones/w
few larger plants tend to use Glosso or other carpet plants instead of DHG.


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## G0rkhe (Mar 3, 2014)

Just removing it, whether by manually or blackout or H2O2 wouldn't solve the problem. You would have to experiment with different lighting (time and intensity) ,co2 amount and nutrients you are putting in to get the right balance.

Although H2O2 is the best way to get rid of the algae for now, I would only resort to this last. Manually remove it first and then try to fix your problem. If you have to use H2O2 use very very little amount of H2O2. People say upto 3ml / gallon but I would say don't exceed 1ml whatsoever, specially if you have sensitive fish. I tell you this by experience, I have killed all the living crap out of every fish I had in the tank + all the jungle vals overdosing h2o2. All my fish died but my plants were great, except for jungle val.

Good luck.


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## iano7000 (Apr 21, 2012)

You mention that the hair grass was fine after a trim. Can’t you just trim it again? Or it could be that the grass requires more nutrients once it’s larger in size. With the tank filling in you might be limiting a specific fertilizers which is causing the algae outbreak.


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## pinkman (May 16, 2013)

thanks for the replies
im adjusting the lighting, from 8 to 6 hours and see how it goes. finnex fugeray 20inch.
i dose with flourish, and using osmocote+ tabs, diy co2. hopefully lighting adjustment will
help.


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## G0rkhe (Mar 3, 2014)

Osmocote+ and flourish alone might not be enough ferts for them. You might wanna look into npk dry ferts. They are as important as the trace elements you dose through flourish. Just a thought.


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## pinkman (May 16, 2013)

thanks for all the replies and info.

adjusting my lighting time frame has worked, i cut back to 6 hours. all the algae
has disappeared. im still going to look into the dry ferts, but the lighting has resolved
my hair algae issue as of now.


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## G0rkhe (Mar 3, 2014)

Nice to hear it worked out 

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk


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