Frustrated! Rhizoclonium / Hair Algae ..

[Gundy]

Alright, I've had my 20L planted for 3-4 months now and am getting REALLY frustrated with algae issues. So much so that I have all the supplies for my 55gal planted yet until I can get rid of the fricken algae im not setting up the tank. Basically I've got a horrid case of green hair algae growing on some swords, and a HORRIBLE case of what I believe is Rhizoclonium or some sort of beard algae.

Anyways, I've got 2x18W T5 6700K fixture, 15W 6500K T8 Fixture, and a 20W 6500K T12 Fixture that I currently have turned off. Timed lights to 8 hours. Substrate is flourite original, with seachem iron tabs, also use full line of seachem ferts according to their schedule. I've got two 10GAL HOB filters running on each end of the tank, as well as a magnum c-220 canister that I am currently seeding in order to get rid of the HOB's. I've also got a power head increasing circulation, and to distribute my DIY co2 throughout the tank. I've got drop checker that reads yellow which is an indication that my CO2 is ABOVE 30ppm. Water levels are decent from what I have been researching, Ammonia:0, NitrIte:0, NitrAte:10-20, Phosphates:1-2.

ANY input is welcomed, I've posted this on a couple of other planted forums and have yet to find a solution.

Couple images:

 

[travis74]

How old are the bulbs? Have you tried skipping iron? While I was dosing iron on my co2 injected 30g with 60w of T5 I got terrible hair algae. No problems after I stopped dosing and removed what was left. But I mention the bulbs because as they age the output can vary significantly. From what you stated for filtration I wouldn't guess it, but, are there any dead spots? Areas with poor water flow can be trouble also.

 

[An t-iasg]

20 liters is 5 gallons. I have 5 gallon tanks with one 18 watt, 10000K bulb. It seems to me like your light level is very, very high. I can't see any problems with the parameters that you've posted and it's always good to have more flow than what the filters provide. I had a water pump for some more flow in my 10 gallon. You say you have 2 10 gallon HOB filters on the tank, which makes me think that you really have a 20 gallon tank and not a 20 liter tank? I would also wonder about the age of the bulbs. A good rule of thumb is to change the bulbs every 8-10 months. I did let about a year go by between bulb changes and I did have horrible algae. If your bulbs are as old as the tank, 3-4 months, I would try lowering the light level and see what happens.

 

[SparKy697]

Iron and Phosphate can be issues here. I'm not familiar with the Seachem line of ferts, but if you can cut back on the phosphate it would be worth a try. I might stop using the iron tabs too. A little iron goes a long way. Remove as much by hand as you can to start with. I have had good results with dosing the startup rate of Excel for a week or two as well.

That's a lot of light and co2, it strikes me that you would be hard pressed to keep the nutrients up at any level. If you are meeting all your plants needs they should be straining to stay in the tank... Something seems missing. You have a small tank and we all know what goes on in small tanks.. Change happens and it can happen quite fast.

I agree with what An t-iasg said about your lighting. The 2x18W T5 6700K fixture should be plenty of light for that tank. You might want to go to a much lower lighting scheme or even a blackout to get the treatment kick started.

Here's a link with info about hair algae.

 

[Gundy]

Its not 20liters, 20long - 20 Gallons. I apologize for stating it wrong.

And yes I have stopped iron dosing, as well as cut back on the light to only 2.3wpg. I also didn't dose any iron or phosphate and still had an outbreak.

And no the bulbs are not new, they came from my workplace which had been using the fixture + bulb for almost a year I believe.

With the HOB filters and my canister, and the powerhead there aren't any dead spots that I can see. I would assume maybe underneath a piece of driftwood that my apisto's use for cave cover but other then that.... Forgot to mention that a week or so more back I tried to battle this algae and used excel as well as throughly cleaning the tank ( as well as filter media ) and changed the floss and everything. Still no avail.

 

[travis simonson]

It sounds like you've got a tough case of algae. In my experience, almost every case of algae I've ever dealt with was caused by nutrient imbalance, most often nitrates. I would recommend discontinuing the use of Flourish Nitrogen and Flourish Phosphate (if you are currently using them) for a couple of weeks to see if they are providing the fuel for the algae. I keep several planted tanks and do not dose nitrates in any of them because fish waste and other organic matter in the tanks provide sufficient nitrates. Also, what is your water temperature?

 

[Gundy]

79-80.

See the first outbreak of this crap I had, I used Nitrogen right before a short vacation trip. I had never used nitrogen the first couple of months. I came back a week later and saw this. Did a water change to reset everything and vowed never to use nitrogen again... Well it still popped up. I only have 9 fish in the tank.

 

[travis simonson]

Are you still dosing phosphates? I would guess so if your PO4 levels are in the 1-2 ppm range. Plants can easily get by on ~.2 ppm of PO4 if necessary, but algae prefers higher levels. Try to bring your PO4 levels as low as you can get them without hitting 0 ppm. This may help.

 

[Gundy]

Water changes to bring this down?

And yes I was still dosing phosphates at the time, I was told to up potassium and leave everything else going.. Oh and should I lay off nitrogen/iron as well?

What happens if phosphates hit 0? Algae?

 

[travis simonson]

Yes, water changes will bring it down unless your tap water has high levels of PO4. You might want to test it, just to be sure.

Definitely keep dosing potassium. It is the one macro that is not provided by fish waste, food, or decaying organic matter. It is very hard to over dose it but underdosing it can cause damage to plants: pinhole damage to leaves, deformed/yellowing new leaf growth, etc.

Plants have reserves of PO4 on which they can draw should PO4 hit zero, algae does not. This allows plants to handle low levels or the absence of PO4 for several days before any harmful effects occur.

 

[Gundy]

Well that would explain why most of my leafs got yellow and looked terrible after I stopped ferts for awhile.

Guess I will lay off the phosphate and keep dosing everything else? I might stop with nitrogen to.


Is it a possibility that my seachem line is expired? A couple of them are from my workplace, and were on the back shelf for quite awhile.. A buddy mentioned I should just pick up some dry ferts and try it as an experiment if this fails. But I had a perfectly good planted tank before I started dosing nitrogen... so I don't think they are expired.

 

[travis simonson]

I would stop dosing both NO3 and PO4.

 

[Gundy]

Ok I will give that a shot and report back.

Out of curiosity I tested the phosphate levels out of my tap, as well as the tank in its current state.

Out of Tap: .5-1
Tank:0

 

[Gundy]

Well its back. I even happened to do a 5 day blackout considering the Ice storm that hit KS here last week and still had the algae outbreak a day after I started turning the lights back on.

I stopped dosing Phosphates and Nitrogen, to no avail. I even changed both of my DIY co2 to blast some levels and try and see what happened but nothing.

Its getting frustrating as I have a 55gal I would love to setup - but this is turning into such a hassle.

Any more clues?

 

[gu2high]

Buy some Florida flag fish, and no more hair algae issue.

 

[Gundy]

I'd like to get rid of the algae without the help of fish, considering the algae will just return.

Anyways, I did a complete tear down and re-scapped the tank in order to get some dead fish out behind some driftwood. I kept dosing normally except minus the phosphate and nitrogen, and still had an outbreak.

I just did another water change today to get rid of the massive Rhizo on the substrate and my sword. Are there any ideas what seriously causes this? I'm tempted to not even fert at all and see what happens besides using flourish.

 

[Zezmo]

This is a tough algae for any who get it. If you search this and other forums you will find no-one has "the answer". And many from experienced to novice struggle with it. The tough thing is many have what on the surface sound like conflicting solutions for getting rid of it.

I have a couple tanks that if I let my nutrient routine slip, this stuff takes over. As soon as I get back into dosing full EI, and especially lots of K, it seems to go away. By that same token, I have tanks that never get nutrients, and yet I can put a plant covered in this stuff in there and within a week or two the plant is clear.

The only consistent thing I can really find is that if the plants are doing very well, that algae will not do so well. Which is funny, because in the end that is the real advice for any algae. Get the plants growing well and the algae won't have a chance.

 

[Gundy]

I guess its frustrating as I was doing great and all of a sudden it sparked up.

I tried dosing extra K and didn't get a improvement to be honest. I guess I could try triple the dosage..

 

[NoSvOrAx]

Black Mollies will knock that out in a day or two. Just don't feed em til its gone.

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

I just wanted to bump this thread b/c i have the same thing, except I have non CO2 injected tank 55G. This stuff is hard to remove manually as it just disintegrates, excel does not work on it. Seems like Zezmo hit the nail on the head and no one knows what to do about it.