Algae in plants! Help

[big_al01]

How do I get this algae off my plants?


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[candymancan]

That's black beard hair algae... Get some flourish excel they sell it in petsmart at least in my petsmart or im sure your local fish store will have it... and overdose your tank.. Itll turn it red in a few days and then white and itll be gone in a week or so trust me.. works great.. I use it all the time to kill that kind of algae.

What size tank do you have ? When I say overdose I mean like 2-3 capfuls for a 30g every day

 

[big_al01]

55 gallon


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[RightTurnClyde]

You could also get yourself an oral syringe from your local drug store and use it to spot treat the algae directly with Excel. Just slowly squirt a bit right on all the affected areas. I'm not sure I would go much over 2X the dosage for the tank though. Someone more knowledgeable can speak to that. I'm guessing if you've got moderate or high light, it's probably OK.

 

[candymancan]

Overdosing doesn't do anything... trust me I have personally done this to my 3 main tanks.. I have a 55g, a 30g and 27g they all at one time had black beard hair algae on my plants... Even the bottle of excel says if you do a water change to add 1 capful PER 10 GALLONS.. that's 5-6 cap fulls for a 55g.. lol

for the 55g I would use 3-4 capful every single day and keep an eye on the algae garuntee itll turn red within 3-4 days, and when its red its dead. as for the syringe.. eh... black beard can be all over the tank a syringe doesn't really do much.

I once had hair algae ALL over my driftwood.. like I mean covering it you could see it sway in the current.. and once I used excel it died in a week or two and never came back

 

[azmodan]

How do I get this algae off my plants?


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I'd trim off the leaves where it is very bad. Spot treating with excel, glut, or h2o2 via a syringe is a good idea, just make sure you turn your filter/powerhead a off for ~20 min so there's time for the magic to happen. Wait a day and you should start to see it dying, and keep repeating as necessary. You can spot treat different areas of the tank on different days and I try to vacuum up any dead algae I see lying around too.

Can you tell us more about your tank? Parameters, lights, photoperiod, PWC amount and schedule, ferts, co2/glut, natural sunlight, etc. This way we can help eliminate what's causing the algae in the first place.


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