Its taking over my tank!

[Lowryder]

 

[jeffwisely]

if im not mistaking there are some fish that will clean that up for you. but if you want to get rid of it now you need to take out what ever it on and scrub it off. after that add some algee fix to help control it till you can get a fish to control the algee. how long do you have your lights on for

 

[Lowryder]

My lights are on a 12/12 cycle. I do have a BN pleco but he is fairly new and is hiding in a cave.

 

[Lowryder]

What exactly is this stuff?

 

[jeffwisely]

cut your light cycle down to 10/14 or 8/16 that way you have less of a chance for an algae bloom like you have. just take out what ever the algae is on and scrub it off then put it back in your tank. how often do you do water changes.

 

[jeffwisely]

What exactly is this stuff?

not sure on exactly what kind of algae it is

 

[BigJim]

That looks like hair algae. It likes excess nutrients very much. Twirl it up on an old toothbrush or filter cleaning brush.

 

[Lowryder]

That looks like hair algae. It likes excess nutrients very much. Twirl it up on an old toothbrush or filter cleaning brush.

Will my pleco eat this?

I have heard that this is caused by silicate to phosphorous ratio, any truth?

If so would a phosphate removing filter be best? Would that effect my plants?

 

[BigJim]

Don't know if a pleco will eat it. My otos don't touch it. I think my RCS pick at it a little, but they don't really make a dent. My wife's mystery snail seems to like it.

I have no idea about silicates or phosphates. I haven't tested my water for either. I do know that I only get that kind of algae in my higher light tanks. I suspect that it is an imbalance of certain nutrients, but I haven't really tried to figure out which ones are off. It seems to have receded since I switched from the bargain bin ferts to Flourish.

 

[Lowryder]

I heard that larger dosing of flourish excel will help? I mean it make sense, excel has an algacide.

 

[CA_BroncoFan]

Id just get a mystery snail as bigjim said, they will enjoy it. I would just take it out by hand if you want to but I'm not a huge fan of treatments for something you can control yourself or getting fish for a specific problem. Jmo though

 

[BigJim]

I'm not aware of any algaecide in Flourish Excel. I could be wrong. As far as I know, it's just a liquid carbon supplement. It's useful for getting rid of BBA. I suppose it could help even out your nutrient balance, but I don't think it'll nuke hair algae all by itself.

 

[neilanh]

See if this helps you
Greater Washington Aquatic Plant Association » Algae in the Planted Aquarium

 

[Lowryder]

See if this helps you
Greater Washington Aquatic Plant Association » Algae in the Planted Aquarium

Beautiful!

 

[WhiteDevil]

H2o2 will help more then excel will


also get some SAE's they love that hair algae, or send it to me and ill feed it to mine lol

 

[mfdrookie516]

also looks like diatoms on the rock. if it were me, i would cut the lighting cycle to 4 on 4 off 4 on... i got rid of bba that way