Should I just give up and start over?

[RoboFish808]

The hair algae and black beard in conjunction is just impossible. I spent 45$ on a mother sword and now it’s completely covered in disgusting black algae that I can’t even remove without shredding the plant it’s so well on there. I already lost all my rotala to this algae. The hair algae chokes out everything, it literally ties it up and binds it and the plants cannot grow. Should I ditch the hard scape and get rid of all the infested plants I can and start fresh? Or what can I do? There’s hundreds of dollars of plants in here and only my wild harvested creeping Jenny hasn’t become completely overrun. Help!View attachment 1View attachment 1View attachment 1

I’ve never seen algae like this. It was under control until I left the tank in someone else’s care for a week and apparently they just left the light on. What do I do?

 

[ColdKoi]

At this point it probably isn’t going to hurt the plants any more to just do a couple day blackout and see if that can get the algae under control. But, you still have to be able to remove the live or dead algae from the plant before it can recover from this.

I haven’t had hair algae issues yet, but I’m always reading up on things to try and stay ahead of the game. It sounds like amano shrimp or Siamese algae eaters are some of the better options for hair algae control. But even then I don’t know if they stand a chance at fixing this, even if you slow the algae with a blackout, there’s just so much of it!

Maybe someone has a magic fix for something like this but I think I’d try the above and if things weren’t changing for the better in short order, I would personally just cut my losses, and start over.

It sucks to waste money and start over, but how much time and money do you want to spend trying to save it?

Also, I’d highly recommend getting a timer for the light. Best money you’ll ever spend. A consistent light schedule is the best thing you can do for a plant, and not having to worry about someone else leaving it on (or off!) is priceless! I even have my tanks all on auto feeders even when I’m home, not that it’s necessary, just a routine/schedule thing. Don’t have to worry about missed or overfeeding while you’re gone and once the fish get used to the feeding times it’s funny to watch them all come to the surface in anticipation of food just minutes before the feeder drops food!

 

[RoboFish808]

At this point it probably isn’t going to hurt the plants any more to just do a couple day blackout and see if that can get the algae under control. But, you still have to be able to remove the live or dead algae from the plant before it can recover from this.

I haven’t had hair algae issues yet, but I’m always reading up on things to try and stay ahead of the game. It sounds like amano shrimp or Siamese algae eaters are some of the better options for hair algae control. But even then I don’t know if they stand a chance at fixing this, even if you slow the algae with a blackout, there’s just so much of it!

Maybe someone has a magic fix for something like this but I think I’d try the above and if things weren’t changing for the better in short order, I would personally just cut my losses, and start over.

It sucks to waste money and start over, but how much time and money do you want to spend trying to save it?

Also, I’d highly recommend getting a timer for the light. Best money you’ll ever spend. A consistent light schedule is the best thing you can do for a plant, and not having to worry about someone else leaving it on (or off!) is priceless! I even have my tanks all on auto feeders even when I’m home, not that it’s necessary, just a routine/schedule thing. Don’t have to worry about missed or overfeeding while you’re gone and once the fish get used to the feeding times it’s funny to watch them all come to the surface in anticipation of food just minutes before the feeder drops food!

A year on almost from this post, I am happy to say the 20g is cured of all algae

I got rid of the fake rock for lava rock, added multiple aqua soils to the substrate and cut back feeding a little bit

 

[Andy Sager]

A year on almost from this post, I am happy to say the 20g is cured of all algae

I got rid of the fake rock for lava rock, added multiple aqua soils to the substrate and cut back feeding a little bit

Congrats!!