Getting Back In? - Hair Algae Barrier

[dskidmore]

I've been away awhile, so perhaps I should reintroduce myself.

I kept various freshwater aquariums for 15 years, slowly moving toward the natural aquarium/planted aquarium side. Then in 2003 I moved, and ever since almost every tank I've set up has had a major hair algae problem. I've since then been downgrading my tanks and letting them fall into disrepair in frustration.

It is somewhat controlled by large masses of moss, but what algae does grow in the moss is impossible to remove mechanically. I had one tank that was bare bottom with almost no maintenance and one ancient ghost shrimp that managed to stay hair algae free, but transferring the ghost shrimp to a nicer planted tank didn't produce any results. Increasing filtration did not help either.

Either my water supply is bad, or the substrate I'm using is bad, as these are the only things the same between the tanks I've had this issue with, and I think it's the water. I've maintained a smaller tank at work without the hair algae growing out of control, but I did tinker with it more than the home aquariums.

Brita filtration did nothing.

Any suggestions short of an RO/DI system? I'd like to continue using tap, as the python makes water changes so much easier.

I'm vaguely considering something like an algae filter, transplanting some of the mess to an intentional habitat for it and see if it can starve out the supply in the tank. Also considering a moss filter, since moss seems to compete well with it. I'm concerned though that either of these options will outcompete any plants in the display section of the system.

I'm itching to set up the 75 gallon again, and slowly build up a large school of something tiny and colorful, maybe cardnals, white clouds, or Endler's livebearers, with a bunch of cheap bunch plants, maybe vals, for them to weave through. But it makes no sense to invest in that idea if I can't beat this hair algae problem in one of the 10 gallon tanks.

The 75 gallon stand is currently configured with a shelf, so I could put a couple 10 gallons up there and do experiments. I've got one empty 10 gal, and one without anything I'd worry about loosing left in it. I also have a 2.5 gallon I'd like to revive.

 

[phatpaul]

Dunno if it will help but I heard a uv steriliser will kill algae spores and so it should help get rid of the algae

 

[jetajockey]

What's your lighting like? I think your focus needs to be on making an environment less conducive to algae growth.

 

[dskidmore]

I've had the issue in a range of lighting conditions. My 2.5 gallon is medium-high, my 75 gallon was medium, my 10 gallon is low.

 

[dskidmore]

...Hence me being convinced it's a nutrient imbalance in the tap water.

 

[jetajockey]

I've dealt with hair algae but in my case it was always due to a light imbalance. Is there any way to get a report on your local water supply?

Another thing to try in the better lit tanks is to deck it out with fast growers like anacharis or hornwort and see if it counters things.


One final thing to try is get some water from the store to do your wcs with for a few weeks and see if the problem gets better. Just remember to reintroduce trace if you use a substantial amount of ro/di

 

[dskidmore]

http://www.mcwa.com/pdf/2010FullWaterQualityDataSummary.pdf
My water comes seasonally from the Hemlock or Shoremont supply.

Bottled water is an option if I stick with the 10 gallon tanks, but not feasable if I upgrade back to the 75 gallon.

I believe I have some trace mineral mix from when I dabbled in ferts. Any idea what dosage I should use? I think I'm out of clay for making slow release tablets.

The moss seems to counter things, but not other fast growing bunch plants. The moss takes a while to grow, but at some critical mass starts supressing the hair algae. Bunch plants get all tangled up with bunches of hair algae. It's got to be some specific mineral the hair algae likes not an overall nutrient surplus.

 

[dskidmore]

Here's a 2.5 gallon tank overrun with enough moss to keep the algae at bay. Water changes reduced to the point of neglect also helps.

 

[dskidmore]

Someone else has a hair algae thread, which made me think about Florida Flag Fish. Some folks have had issues with agressiveness, but others don't. I've never seen them in a LFS, but I might be able to special order them. I'd rather not do direct mail order, as I'm never home to get packages, and don't have anyone local I can trust to take care of it.

I like the idea of amano shrimp, except they don't breed in fresh water and have short lifespans compared to fish.

 

[mfdrookie516]

I had hair algae bad when I over-dosed ferts. Have you tried dosing ferts? What's your nitrate reading?

 

[dskidmore]

I currently do not dose ferts. I have in the past, but I don't think I got it right, so I stopped. I had DIY CO2 with my ferts (a bit fancy DIY I might add) but had a little incident with the water bath breaking...

A link taken from the earlier mentioned other hair algae thread:
Greater Washington Aquatic Plant Association » Algae in the Planted Aquarium

They claim the problem is Iron>0.15ppm, water quality report says iron is 0-0.066 ug/L.

1 L = 1000 g = 1x10^3
1,000,000 = 1x10^6
1 ug = 1x10^-6 g
0.066 × 10^−6 g/ 1 x10^3 g = 0.066 x 10^-3 / 1x 10^6

So 0.000066 ppm??

But if that's the source value and not a tap value, I could still have high iron:
City of Rochester | Hemlock Lake
The water from hemlock lake runs 28 miles through an iron conduit to the local water resivior, which may have further iron pipe for the 5 miles to my house.

Further investigation says the pipe in my neighborhood will soon be lined with concrete, so I'll probably have ph issues while that cures...
City of Rochester | Water Main Cleaning and Lining Project

Perhaps I should wait on any experiments involving tap for awhile and stick with bottled and small tanks. Wet concrete takes a couple months to cure?

In the mean time, I should probably throw out my old test kits and pick up a new master test kit if I'm going to start messing with chemistry again. It's been a couple years since I worked on this and the kits are probably bad. I'll need an ammonia kit if I'm setting up a new tank anyway.

 

[dskidmore]

I've been reading through my old threads and putting things together with my memories.

1) I never had hair algae before moving to this house.
2) After moving I got hair algae, but using bottled water for water changes resolved hair algae issues.
3) When upgrading to the 75 gallon tank, I switched to mixed bottled and tap because of the quantity of water involved. I had some hair algae issues, but it was controlable with Amano shrimp and rosy barbs.
4) I decided to go medium light to increase my planting options. With increased light I decided I needed CO2 and fertilization to keep algae under control. I tinkered with it for awhile, but not long enough to say anything about the results.
5) Frustrated with some bad test kits and too many unknown varables, I switched to Estimative Index dosing, which requires regular 50% water changes. With this huge volume, bottled water was out of the question and I used straight tap. After this the hair alage went bonkers.
6) Ever since, my tanks have gone through phases of neglect. During the neclect phase, evaporation occurs, and the hair algae eventually consumes all it's fuel and slows down, allowing moss to outcompete it.
7) Each time I try to revive them, I've done large water changes thinking that there must be salt buildup after all that evaporation, which would be great if my tap water was not so unbalanced to begin with. These attempts always fail and the hair algae blooms under the increased care.

So. I'm proposing a new plan of action.

Phase 1: Rehab Exisiting Tanks
Bottled water only during rehab of the current 2.5 and 10 gallon tanks, but go ahead and do some large water changes. After pruning everything and redoing the layout, count the survivors (shrimp and snails sighted last night in the 2.5 gallon), start feeding the tank a little more and see what condition the nitrogen cycle bacteria are in and observe for a month. All maintenance in this phase to be done with bottled water.

Phase 2: Reintroduce Tap
If things are doing well in the maintenance phase, start including some tap water in water changes, in an increasing percentage, and tapering bottled water off to nothing. Observe the hair algae growth and find the maximum tolerable tap water change schedule. (Weekly small changes should provide more even nutrient balance than less frequent larger changes.)

Phase 3: Set up 75 gallon
If the maximum tolerable percentage is not too small, set up 75 gallon and attempt a studied neglect maintenance program, doing smaller than recomended water changes.

Phase 4: Downgrade lights
if hair algae is still an issue

 

[dskidmore]

Did a little pruning

 

[dskidmore]

Also in my old threads, I had tested for iron already with a new seachem kit, and found no detectable trace. Iron is easily bound and falls out of solution, but I would think it would not be available to the hair algae if it fell to the bottom of the aquarium.

 

[dskidmore]

I did a considerable amount of pruning in the Desktop 2.5 gallon last night. There were huge masses of moss, and no hair algae. Couple surviving shrimp and a bunch of pond snails. No MTS spotted yet.

Picked up a new test kit, but with all the huge water changes I'm doing with all the trim work (2.5 gallons is too small to stick your hands in without overflowing, so I do a 50% water change whenever I do major trim work) it should read pretty close to tap and not be worthwhile. I'll test after my next water change as a baseline, and test frequently for ammonia and nitrite since I'm going to be increasing feeding to try to get a population boom of the shrimp.

Since there is no hair algae in the 2.5 gallon, I'm going to stick with tap water changes and see if increased water changes causes a bloom, or if this tank is stable as is.

I saved all the moss trimmings in case I decide to make a moss filter for the larger tank.

 

[mfdrookie516]

I don't think I missed this. I'm not usually one for recommending 'chemical' fixes... but have you tried running purigen in your tank(s)? I've heard a lot of good things about it. Like I said, normally, I would never recommend something like that, but since it does appear to be your water, it may be worth a shot.

 

[dskidmore]

I'm not usually one for recommending 'chemical' fixes... but have you tried running purigen in your tank(s)?

Seachem. Purigen
"Purigen® generally ignores simple elemental compounds, having an extreme affinity for nitrogenous organics."
My nitrogenous organics usually test out very low. I think it's a trace element, not nitrogen that is the issue, but on the other hand rapidly growing hair algae might be absorbing nitrogen fast enough to cause the low numbers. But there has to be something else in play that makes hair alage compete better than the plants for that nitrogen when this was not an issue with a different water supply.

 

[dskidmore]

New thread related to rehab project:
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f24/moss-wall-substrate-153292.html#post1359812

 

[dskidmore]

32 hours after last water change, test shows trace ammonia. I've heard though the API kit calibration is frequently off, so I'll do a water change, test, and if it's not different test the tap. I also need to look at the scanty paperwork in the box again and see if I missed the instruction sheet, I went off of memory from my old kit which may be different and the #drops labeled on the bottles.

 

[dskidmore]

FYI, information on getting test kit expiration dates from API lot numbers.

http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/t...ion-api-freshwater-master-test-kit-users.html

I'm going to check my other kits before I ditch them. I'm hoping my hardness kit is still good, I never really tested my cuttlefish bone experiment properly.