Anacharis looks hairy?

[Shiina107]

My anacharis is growing but it looks all hairy on the leaves, the newer shoots don’t look nearly as bad, some have none at all. But the older stems looked really rough and almost brown looking, thoughts? I since have propagated and pruned the plants to have short stalks but have one piece of an older plant that is the first image, and the second is a newer plant that grew from the old ones. I have cats and a dog and sometimes I find a hair or two floating in my tanks but this seems like too much to be pet hair.

 

[SaraB]

Could just be algae, how long are your lights on? Is it just on those particular plants?

 

[Shiina107]

Could just be algae, how long are your lights on? Is it just on those particular plants?

My lights are on for 6 hours a day, and it’s on those 2 plants and a few other anacharis but the 2 echinodorus I have in there don’t even have a spec on them :O

 

[SaraB]

That's weird

 

[Shiina107]

More recently I think I’m having a small Cyanobacteria outbreak :/ it’s on the sand ONLY and I continue to remove it but it keeps coming back in small bits, I’m starting to think my lights are too strong/bright and I might need to start dosing liquid ferts or invest in a co2 system for the tank so my plants can grow big and strong enough to outcompete the algae.

 

[King Fisher]

50% water change weekly. Thrive liquid fertilizer. Light vacuum of the top layer of sand with your water changes. Rub the leaves with your fingers and manually remove the algae right before your water change.

If it's a newer tank you could be getting diatoms (brown looking stuff) on the sand. It should go away once your tank gets more established. Stir the top layer of sand around so it doesn't look as bad in the meantime. If you have silicates in your water you will be dealing with diatoms constantly.

 

[Shiina107]

Thank you Fisher!! I am getting ThriveC in tomorrow~ So with any luck it'll help my anacharis shoot up in growth! The good news in both of the echinodorus in the tank are literally exploding in growth! Today i am doing a deep clean (50% water change, making sure i remove ALL detritus, decaying matter, etc. that i might have missed on Sunday's routine water change) I am getting small amounts of Diatoms as i had with my other 2 tanks, but they are not severe at all, and simply cling to my glass and sand here and there. No, this is a blue-green(mostly blue) algae that is lying on the sand and i have continuously removed it but it returns so i might need to nuke the tank with erythromycin (if it is indeed cyanobacteria) or a similar antibiotic if growth of it doesnt slow after a week or so.. However, i am willing to try the black out method first before i resort to chemicals i just have read a lot of people have had no success with it. I am of course going to dose with ferts and see if i can get my plants to eat out the algae first for a week or so, and then evaluate the situation. Thank you for the reply!

 

[King Fisher]

If you do a deep clean of the substrate, only do 1/3 of the tank bottom. Wait a week and do the next 1/3 and so on until it's clean. This will keep you from removing to much BB.

Chemiclean for cyano has helped some people.