Algae

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ConanTheLibraia

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Apr 25, 2003
Messages
582
Location
D.C.
I've got green algae growing around the edges of my plants and its stringy and hairy. I do water changes once a week. What can I do to clean this off of my plants, or is there a chemical I need to use, also, if I put a chemical in there, I wouldn't want to wipe out all the algae and leave some for my pleco....(algae wafers I guess, never tried them though)
 
Hows it goin? Ahh...the ol' hairy algae problem.

Well, there was a very recent post in the Planted Tank forum where many people(including myself) posted helpful information for this somewhat common problem. I would check that post.
 
I too had problem with long green stringy algae. The long stuff is commonly caused by too much iron in the tank. Are you dosing any kinds of fertilizer that have iron in it?

I got rid of my hair algae but cutting the light duration back to 10 hours and going to once a day feedings. I also stopped dosing any kinds of fertilizers.

I think it is important that people know that introducing fertilizers into a planted tank within the first 1 to 2 weeks is useless. The plants have not had time to establish themselves yet. Putting in ferts will only cause an algae bloom. I also think it is important to know that if you have a substrate that has a high iron content (i.e. flourite) you don't need to dose any ferts at all that have iron in them. The plants will get all the iron they need from the substrate. Adding it to the water column will only give the algae food to grow.

Most of the advice one sees is always about keeping phosphates out of the water. While this is good advice and phosphate appears to be a limiting nutrient in freshwater systems, don't count out the iron. It is nearly impossible to rid the tank of phosphate as every living cell needs it to grow. However, iron is easy to control in an aquarium environment. If you do dose iron, make sure the plants are assimilating it before the algae are. If you are still getting algae blooms with the iron ferts, keep cutting back on the dosage until the algae slows (will never stop in a planted aquarium). This will be the balance one is looking for.
 
Good posting Biggen, I too stoped dosing, and cut back the lighting period, and the feeding to once every other day, but this has had no effect
 
You have any kind of algae eating fish, d9hp? I only use SAE to control the algae in my tanks. They do a wonderful job.
 
I have two ottos and an algae eating shrimp, i never see any of them doing anything. The tank is only a 5.5 gallon. Unfortunately I am thinking of making it a seahorse tank.
 
I would say put in some SAE, but because of the size of the tank, I think it may be a bit crowded. The SAE will get up to a max size of 6 inches. You could always remove the ottos and add the SAE.
 
do SAE actually eat that stuff... what sucks is that I just put in fertilizer after my 10 gallon had a crisis while I was gone. I cleaned and scrapped a bunch of algae off but the stringy wire-like ones are still on the plants. They almost feel like a hardened root. I have one otto in there, three others died way earlier. I will cut the light hours back and stop dosing, pray that helps some. But should push come to shove, should I invest into a SAE. I am lucky that I will soon have an empty 37 gallon tank, which should help the SAE out for a bigger home. I am thinking of making it a glosso tank, but right now after all the stupid things that have happened I am not quite sure what I want, let alone fish!
 
SAE are a God send for planted aquaria. They are the type of fish that no planted aquarium should be without. Mine constantly clean all the decorations in my planted tank. They never seem to get tired.
 
Not any more shy than your average fish.

Will never dig up plants. Sometimes they may appear to be eating plants, but they are actually cleaning algae off the plants. They will never eat plants.
 
Thats awesome... I'll be hauling to the LFS soon, argh I just hope it isn't half dead when I get it like most of their fish!
 
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