help! alage attacking crayfish

[kristen]

i have been fighting some nasty brown hair alage for quite awile now and seem to be losing the battle...i did a bleach dip on my vals and anubis and it seemed to work, but I think it had already spread to my eco complete so now its back. Since my blue crayfish hides most of the time i didnt notice at first but he has this alage growing all over one of his antena. How do I get rid of this stuff and help my cray, I'm not sure if I can just cut off the affected antane or not? Help!

 

[TankGirl]

I'm no crayfish expert, but I would say do not cut off his antenna.

The algae needs nutrients, so cutting back on feeding (will help keep your nitrate down among other things), cutting back on the light cycle if it is overly long, and increasing water changes will all help.

You can try the blackout method, by covering your tank for 3-4 days, no peeking, no feeding, and the algae should be gone. However, if the conditions that brought on the algae are still present, it will just come back.

BTW, does the crayfish eat the plants?

 

[kristen]

thanks for the advice, i am going to try a blackout and see if that does the trick. The cray does nibble on the plants ocasionaly, he likes some varieties more than others so right now i have an anubis and some vals. He digs them up once and while.

 

[William]

Algae growing on shellfish is nothing new.

He'll get rid of the algae when he molts next time.

Its nothing to fret over

 

[deeni0z]

You can try the blackout method, by covering your tank for 3-4 days, no peeking, no feeding, and the algae should be gone. However, if the conditions that brought on the algae are still present, it will just come back.

Does this work with brown diatom algae?

 

[TankGirl]

I would imagine so, but I have never tried it for this, since diatoms can be wiped so easily and generally go away over time.

 

[Madame_X]

I've been fighting it in my 29 gallon tank for quite a while now (several months, in fact) and I think I've finally found something that works, at least for me. I recently bought TONS of stem plants and packed the tank with them.

It looks a little crowded, but the hair algae that has been growing all over my driftwood (which I can't really remove without really upsetting my peppermint pleco) is clearly dying.

What I was hoping to accomplish (and seem to have done) is for the plants to outcompete the algae for nutrients. As soon as its gone, I'll start to remove the stem plants a little at a time so I can keep things in balance.

For what its worth, I used six bunches of giant hygro.

 

[TankGirl]

That's great! Hygro is one of those "algae buster" type plants, and maybe I'll do the same because after a recent (much too aggressive) pruning/redo of my planted tank, I am getting algae - I knew better than to remove too much plant material from the tank at once, but I was so anxious to redecorate....

 

[illuminum]

I've got a hair algae problem as well. Will the blackout method hurt of kill and of my plants? I have Anubias Barteri's, Jungle Val's, amazon swords, and two of something else which I can't remember the name of right now.

 

[TankGirl]

The blackout method might set them back just a bit, and if you have crypts it "might" cause a bit of melt, but nothing to harm them - they'll bounce right on back.