What is this?

[cyris69]

Ok so yesterday there was not nearly this much of whatever this is in my tank.
I'm at my wits end with this crap, my water parameters are great, I have high light ~200 watts t5ho 6700k on my 40g breeder but lots of plants and daily ferts plus do 75% WC each week.


How can i get rid of it

I'm about to start cutting off all the leaves with it on it

 

[George9]

Looks like some type of hair algae to me. You have super high light with no co2. I recommend cutting your lights down by at least half to about 100 watts.

 

[cyris69]

I'm doing diy Co2 have been since the start.going pressurized soon

 

[aqua_chem]

Epic Algae you've got there. I see hair algae, staghorn algae, brush algae, blanketing GSA. Honestly, that's probably one of the worst infestations I've seen.

DIY CO2 starts to loose effectiveness beyond about 30g, and a 40B is about 45g. Not to mention that you have, what 4-5 T5HO bulbs above the tank? That's ridiculously high light. I've seen tanks where two T5HO bulbs caused algae issues without CO2. I'm not sure what you were expecting to happen with all that light, but this is what I would have expected.


Long story short, dramatically reduce the light and go pressurized CO2 ASAP.

 

[cyris69]

What can I do to get rid of it while I reduce lighting? I have a 36" quad 156 total wattage fixture and a 20" 40 watt dual fixture.

So exactly how many watts should I use for dwarf hair, baby tears, crips, swords, ferns.

 

[cyris69]

Ok I cut out all but 80 Watts

 

[aqua_chem]

Bringing it down to two bulbs (2x39 I assume?) would have been my recommendation. If you have excel, you might try dosing that for a few days assuming you don't have anything Excel sensitive (Moss balls, vals, some stems). That should help with the algae. H2O2 is another viable option. Once you get your pressurized CO2 running (as per your other thread) you should be golden, although I would look at dry ferts as well.

 

[cyris69]

Ok, excel or Tetra Algae Control at PETCO

Other forums show the tetra stuff works wonders and is much cheaper until I get my co2 situation all set.
"Broad spectrum algae controls green water as well as blue-green algae, brown algae, hair algae or blanketweed"

 

[aqua_chem]

I would never recommend a designated algae control chemical. They are generally not very plant or fauna safe.

 

[M1k3y_gumi]

Yup. Chemicals for killing stuff is the last thing to want to put in a fish tank. Algae eaters like amano shrimp could probably clean it up. I also hear that rooibos tea might be worth looking into. But just make sure your dealing with the source of the problem too.

 

[cyris69]

I think way to much lighting without pressurized co2 did it. Going to grab some excel later today and give it a go, how much of an OD dose should I use? Since at the moment money is preventing me from using my co2 tank. Those shrimp I've yet to find anywhere near me. Only shrimp sold that I can find are ghost and rcs I have both but only ghost in this tank, the rcs are for breeding and have their own tank.

Do I need to lay off daily ei dosing while I'm using excel?

.

 

[jetajockey]

It is definitely a too much light issue. I've run into this on my 40b's also when playing around with lighting levels. As far as removal goes, manual removal is best. (i.e. clipping affected leaves) Coupled with that, the more plants you can remove to treat, the better. That way you can do direct h2o2 or direct excel dosing without ODing the tank. ODing excel or h2o2 can also nuke your fish/inverts.

Fert dosing and excel compliment one another, since excel is utilized as a carbon source, but at this point I'd lay off of fert dosing completely since the algae is going insane.

 

[cyris69]

So peroxide well kill algae? I've used it to spot treat bga when I had that never noticed it affect algae. I've pulled the plants up once a few weeks back since I added a top later of pool filter sand over my fluorite since looking at the tank would stir up dust. They all have quite extensive roots and don't want to shock our hurt them more? Can I spot treat it like I did with peroxide but use excel? Then again I'm sure that would still od the tank...

If you feel the only real way is to pull them and treat I will. None if my fish or shrimp died from peroxide treatment however my snails almost died.

 

[jetajockey]

It just looks like a ton of algae in those pics, so I assume it'll take quite a bit of extensive treatment to get it all. Another option would be to move out the stock until you can treat the tank and do a big water change. Both excel and h2o2 are good algae killers but they can also kill other stuff as well so better safe than sorry.

 

[hcourts]

So when removing and treating with h2o2 what is the proper course for treatment?? How much and for how long??

 

[jetajockey]

I've just directly applied it at 3% trying to avoid the roots if applicable. There are various methods though, and some plants are more sensitive than others. Have a look at this thread.

Another alternative would be potassium permanganate but I've not used it for this purpose.

h2o2 dip thread

 

[cyris69]

I have groomed heavily removing most affected areas. Wattage is at 80 using two bulbs. I went ahead with the excel treatment as my dwarf hair is starting to carpet as well as lot of the plants are sprouting up new growths via runners and don't want to disturb that.

So with pruning and a 3x excel dose today I'm going to stick it out with excel for the next three days.

Do I need to continue light break cycles? I have them on for 3 hours off for 1.5 then on for 9.

 

[cyris69]

Ok guys after a hard two days work and a weeks worth of excel treatment its finally over

Fixed the problems with lighting and hopefully have co2 injection in the coming months.

Here is a quick look at my tank now and telling you guys thanks for the advice and help.

Hoping if I land this new job with more pay I can upgrade to a 300 gallon tank, would it be cheaper to diy or buy?

Planted tank update #2 - YouTube

 

[Batt4Christ]

That is ULTRA High light, even if you had pressurized CO2! Even with heavy planting + pressurized CO2, my 55g can get a bit of BBA on hard surfaces. I have "fixed" that with water lilies and Salvinia which covers a lot of water surface.

 

[cyris69]

So when would that wattage be applicable? Is that high light more for coral and reef tanks. I assumed high light was around 4 Watts per gallon? So my 156 watt fixture would be fine... So I've been using only 80 Watts after advice from others. What would be the proper wattage with co2 injection?