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Is a blackout necessary?

Excel or Easycarbo should help knock these back coupled with removing as much as you can manually.
 
Excel overdose should remove it as a short term fix.

I experienced Spirogyra in my 11 galls medium-light. This aquarium is dosed with Easy Carbo 5-6 times a week and Tropica+NP 2-3x a week. Planted mostly with Cryptos. The only plant which got this algae was a few remaining stems of Rotala rotundifolia which didn't show deficiency symptoms.
Easy Carbo didn't help in my case since it was dosed regularly. Actually at that time I was dosing EC with the original EC dosing cup, which makes dosing difficult for smaller tanks because it is hard to see 2ml, and for that reason I would always go with 2,5ml at least sometimes even more (nowadays I use a syringe for precise dosing).

As stated earlier, I dosed EI for this tank but didn't perform often 50% WC. Also, my surface agitation wasn't that good.
I removed all the algae manually (which was very easy), performed a 50% WC, improved the surface agitation and the algae didn't return.
There is one thing I did at the same time but didn't pay any attention to it and could also be very important, KH.
You see, my tap water is very soft 3.5-4KH (4GH) and I never dosed any bicarbonates to this tank until the algae appeared. Could this be one of the reasons which triggered Spirogyra?

Some might say it was the NH4. I am not sure because I have a clay based substrate in this tank from Aquatic Nature "Ferti Soil". Clay has the ability to bind NH4. Hmm... It could be the dirty filter accumulating organics + reducing flow and low O2 levels in combination with low KH.

Regards, Dusko
 
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