Hair Algae

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kyektulu

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Sep 8, 2005
Messages
388
Location
manchester uk
Over the last few months my show tank has started getting awful ugly hair algae growing everywhere.
I have tried removing it but it keeps coming back.
Sometimes sprouting practically overnight.
Although I do love fishkeeping I just dont have time to clean the glass everyday, plus I have aglae eating fish and dont want to completely eradicate thier food supply.
My questions are:
Is it something I am doing (feeding 2much food, syphoning 2 infrequently... etc) to make this algae suddenly appear.
And is thier a type of fish which eats this algae?

Thanks Guys.
 
The only fish I have ever come acorss that eats hair algae is the Rainbow cichlid, herotilapia multispinosa.
 
I have heard that SAE's will eat hair/thread algae

I have also been trying to find the conditions that trigger the growth of hair algae.
 
add plants equals hair algae... i never had it in my 55 gallon adn its EVERYWHERE in my 10 gallon planted. Both have the exact same water.. the only difference is the live plants...

I added 2 SAE a few days ago and its significantly reduced the amount and i haven't fed the tank for 2 days.
 
Mollies and Amano Shrimp will also devour hair algae.

If you fertilize or add supplements to your planted tank, that may be your problem. Excess iron is a probable cause of excessive hair algae. Excess iron can also be found in tap water, which will feed hair algae.
 
Mollies eat hair algae??? really??? maybe i should get one.. lol. (it would also eat my excess baby guppies right :twisted: ) Does'nt it have to be a black molly?
 
American Flag fish (Jordanella floridae) and Ameca splendens also eat hair algae. I got Flag fish to eat hair algae and the even cleaned it out of the java moss. Flag fish do nibble plants though.
 
well im gonna let my SAE's do the job for now... but thats nice to know about the molly's.
 
Thanks for the advice guys, I personally have never kept Mollies, my partner dosent want them.
Although all my tanks are planted (I want the enviroment to be as close to natural as possible for my fish, I personally dislike plastic plants and ugly ornaments , the only decoration is my tanks is mopani wood and slate) I only have this problem in my show tank.
I will look into SAE's I will have to consider the growth and my show tank, it is rather full at the moment but alot of my fish are fully grown and getting on a bit now.

I will look into the excess iron to see if it is a problem 2, cheers everyone!
 
i highly reccomend the sae. i had a really nasty problem with hair algea in my planted tank and i threw in 2 of these guys and less than a week later it was completly cleaned out and they didnt harm my plants at all. just make sure u get an sae and not a flying fox. there is a thread right now that is going over the difference if u are interested.
 
Mollies can eat hair algae.

Other fish that do as well are as follows:
SAE (True ones)
American Flagfish
Otocinclus Catfish
Farowella Catfish have been rumored to eat it.
Ameca Splendens
 
otocinclus.. yea right.. lol. The 4 in my 10 gallon didn't touch it. LOL
 
ya otos dont even get near the stuff. i have seen them going up and down the leaves sometimes but they have never actually ate any of it. the sae's on the other hand are machines lol. they eat that stuff faster than it can grow which means it actually goes away.
 
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