Hair algae tends to bug folks more than others, good nutrients alone often cannot eradicate it. But good nutrients can prevent it from infesting your tank. The problem: how to get rid of what's there.
Prevention:
Sterile techinque: Dip everything in H2O2/Bleach etc, prevent any water, fish waste from allowing any spores into the tank.Thuis can work if you do not plan on adding, removing plant species from this or other sterile tanks. All it takes is one forgetful moment. This has some benefits, but also has trade offs, most fail in this apporach over time.
Once the algae does make it past this line of defense:
Rapid response:
This is where many fail, they hope it'll just go away. Seldom does that occur. Many think it'll be taken care 5 days from now when they do a water change, that typically works. But if you see algae, that means something else is wrong, something that affects plant growth. Algae will respond first to these changes, so it's wise to check things when see the algae and do the water change later that week. This is my main method.
Negelected tank with bad infestation:
Okay, so you have slacked off, now you have a nice infestation. Hair algae that infest gravel pieces: rotate the gravel's top 1" under, no light, no growth, bury the algae alive(think cheesy horror film). This is fairly easy.
You can do sections of the gravel each week if the tank is large and spread out the work and disturbance to the tank.
Plants: prune the stuff off, pick and preen. If this is bothersome, remember the rapid response next time, it's easier to deal with a small patch rather than ignoring a problem and hoping it goes away. Uproots the plants and give them a good inspection, work each section of the tank, perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 of the bottom surface at a time each week, after a couple of three weeks, algae will be gone. Adding good nutrients during that time will select for the plants even further.
Ebnd result from this: the plants have good healthy growth and leaves/roots/stems etc left, no so so looking plant leaves, the tank looks well groomed!
Now no herbicide or snake oil will ever do this for you, the end result looks better and you target ONLY the algae and decay on the plants, no herbicide will ever do that either 100%.
Pull up everything from each section(say do 1/2 or 1/3 sections) of the tank at each water change-always prune first then do the water change at the end.
This stresses the algae that's there, then they produce spores in 1-4 hours and then these spores can be removed before having a chance to settle and attach to a plant. Also a good idea to run a UV the first 24 hours after a water change/pruning. Also clean glass top to bottom, this will prevent glass scratches and is the way you clean your home (hopefully
Clean the filter, net out any dead leaves, fluff the plants, and any dirt that's around the tank after you are done trimming. Get everything out of there. Use a fine brine shrimp net to get things out. Clean your equipment,driftwood and rocks. Bleach and H2O2 are good for this. H2O2 on wood, the rest: bleach. Add some Amano shrimps etc.
Now if you remove all the algae or most of it, then you add good nutrients, after a few repeats of this, algae will not do very well no matter what.
You have totally reduce the biomass fo algae, increased the ability of the plants to grow and be healthy, removed the algae from surfaces, only young wimpy zoospores are left looking to grow on surfaces. They take a while to grow up into harder to eradicate adults, so by the next 3-4 days or week, you hit them again, they will die off and only very resistent seasonal spores will remain. These spores are not like the zoospores, they need a large change in the conditions to thrive and bloom/activate their growth.
Generally things like a decline in CO2 or O2 levels, increased light(with no increase in CO2/nutrients etc), NH4 and temperature.
Of course neglect helps these things occur in our tanks.
If you keep up on it, then things go well, if you do not want to keep up on it or find you don't... even if you want to, try less light, then if that's still not enough, go non CO2.
Hair algae is much like duckweed or other plant like weeds. Cladophora is a lot like a plant and is in Plantae: this species possesses: Chl a and b, starch as a storgae product, same chloroplast type as vascular plants and pigments. Green spot algae and Chara are both green algae that are highly evolved and do well in most plant tanks. Hair algae is not far behind. Now what does ahir do to smaller algae that can live on less nutrients? It blocks the light below, same deal with plants, they out compete algae for light, so at lower lighting, the plants do very well. Rather than breaking the light cycle up, it's a question of competing for the light itself.
You can run a UV after a good pruning/cleaning, you can run a diatom, you can add Excel, you can add H2O2, you can add copper at lower doses(just like H2O2).
Once you get things settled and do this the following week, these are not needed. I don't need them and simply don't use them any longer. I know the tank will balabce out and in favor of the plants.
Folks that have done reworks and teried this know things will be okay and you do not need to use other things other than pruning, water changes, good nutriernt levels. It's the same old thing 1000 times.
If the issue is bad or you are motivated, do this routine every 3-4 days and you can knock out about any algae issue inside a 2 week peroid and have a very nice looking tank quickly.
Keep up this effort for 8 weeks, and you can have an Amano tank.
Enjoy
Tom Barr
[email protected] Get connected
www.BarrReport.com Get the information
Prevention:
Sterile techinque: Dip everything in H2O2/Bleach etc, prevent any water, fish waste from allowing any spores into the tank.Thuis can work if you do not plan on adding, removing plant species from this or other sterile tanks. All it takes is one forgetful moment. This has some benefits, but also has trade offs, most fail in this apporach over time.
Once the algae does make it past this line of defense:
Rapid response:
This is where many fail, they hope it'll just go away. Seldom does that occur. Many think it'll be taken care 5 days from now when they do a water change, that typically works. But if you see algae, that means something else is wrong, something that affects plant growth. Algae will respond first to these changes, so it's wise to check things when see the algae and do the water change later that week. This is my main method.
Negelected tank with bad infestation:
Okay, so you have slacked off, now you have a nice infestation. Hair algae that infest gravel pieces: rotate the gravel's top 1" under, no light, no growth, bury the algae alive(think cheesy horror film). This is fairly easy.
You can do sections of the gravel each week if the tank is large and spread out the work and disturbance to the tank.
Plants: prune the stuff off, pick and preen. If this is bothersome, remember the rapid response next time, it's easier to deal with a small patch rather than ignoring a problem and hoping it goes away. Uproots the plants and give them a good inspection, work each section of the tank, perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 of the bottom surface at a time each week, after a couple of three weeks, algae will be gone. Adding good nutrients during that time will select for the plants even further.
Ebnd result from this: the plants have good healthy growth and leaves/roots/stems etc left, no so so looking plant leaves, the tank looks well groomed!
Now no herbicide or snake oil will ever do this for you, the end result looks better and you target ONLY the algae and decay on the plants, no herbicide will ever do that either 100%.
Pull up everything from each section(say do 1/2 or 1/3 sections) of the tank at each water change-always prune first then do the water change at the end.
This stresses the algae that's there, then they produce spores in 1-4 hours and then these spores can be removed before having a chance to settle and attach to a plant. Also a good idea to run a UV the first 24 hours after a water change/pruning. Also clean glass top to bottom, this will prevent glass scratches and is the way you clean your home (hopefully
Clean the filter, net out any dead leaves, fluff the plants, and any dirt that's around the tank after you are done trimming. Get everything out of there. Use a fine brine shrimp net to get things out. Clean your equipment,driftwood and rocks. Bleach and H2O2 are good for this. H2O2 on wood, the rest: bleach. Add some Amano shrimps etc.
Now if you remove all the algae or most of it, then you add good nutrients, after a few repeats of this, algae will not do very well no matter what.
You have totally reduce the biomass fo algae, increased the ability of the plants to grow and be healthy, removed the algae from surfaces, only young wimpy zoospores are left looking to grow on surfaces. They take a while to grow up into harder to eradicate adults, so by the next 3-4 days or week, you hit them again, they will die off and only very resistent seasonal spores will remain. These spores are not like the zoospores, they need a large change in the conditions to thrive and bloom/activate their growth.
Generally things like a decline in CO2 or O2 levels, increased light(with no increase in CO2/nutrients etc), NH4 and temperature.
Of course neglect helps these things occur in our tanks.
If you keep up on it, then things go well, if you do not want to keep up on it or find you don't... even if you want to, try less light, then if that's still not enough, go non CO2.
Hair algae is much like duckweed or other plant like weeds. Cladophora is a lot like a plant and is in Plantae: this species possesses: Chl a and b, starch as a storgae product, same chloroplast type as vascular plants and pigments. Green spot algae and Chara are both green algae that are highly evolved and do well in most plant tanks. Hair algae is not far behind. Now what does ahir do to smaller algae that can live on less nutrients? It blocks the light below, same deal with plants, they out compete algae for light, so at lower lighting, the plants do very well. Rather than breaking the light cycle up, it's a question of competing for the light itself.
You can run a UV after a good pruning/cleaning, you can run a diatom, you can add Excel, you can add H2O2, you can add copper at lower doses(just like H2O2).
Once you get things settled and do this the following week, these are not needed. I don't need them and simply don't use them any longer. I know the tank will balabce out and in favor of the plants.
Folks that have done reworks and teried this know things will be okay and you do not need to use other things other than pruning, water changes, good nutriernt levels. It's the same old thing 1000 times.
If the issue is bad or you are motivated, do this routine every 3-4 days and you can knock out about any algae issue inside a 2 week peroid and have a very nice looking tank quickly.
Keep up this effort for 8 weeks, and you can have an Amano tank.
Enjoy
Tom Barr
[email protected] Get connected
www.BarrReport.com Get the information
