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Very long hair algae

james3200

Member
Joined
13 Aug 2007
Messages
296
Location
CROYDON
Hi all,

I have just noticed that my discus tank has started to get some very long strands ( 4 - 5+") of fine green hair algae. It is manageable but a real pain as usual.

I cant work out what is the cause. Lighting is low, only T5s for 7.5hrs/day, co2 is at a high level and i am dosing as usual, nothing has changed in the setup recently either. Dosing step 3 and brighty k still, i am thinking of stopping the step ferts and see what happens? Never had this type before and i have had plenty of algae :)

Any thoughts?

Many thanks,
James
 
Where it occurs not great. It has started on the left of the tenellus lawn & high up by the ferns.. The right of the lawn has good flow because of a separate filter.
 
Hi James,i suggest you try and get the circulation round the tank more even,if you cant get rid of it then siamese flying foxes absolutley love the stuff,regards john
 
It does seem the likely cause. I have ordered a couple of koralia 1 pumps and will have them on Tuesday, so hopefully that will help. Now just got to get rid of the offending bits, excel doesn't help :( Might see if i can "borrow" some foxes from my LFS
 
From JamesC's Website:

Once it has appeared it can be very hard to clear as it thrives in the same conditions as plants. Pick out as much as possible and do a three day blackout with CO2 turned off and doing large daily water changes. Dose back with macros after the water change. Afterwards I found normal dosing Excel also helped. Rosy barbs will eat it if made hungry. Also try reducing the lighting.
Another method to try is to try lean dosing at around 1/4 to 1/8 Estimative Index levels for a few weeks. I had good success doing this.


Cheers,
 
Thanks

I will give all the suggestions a go. I have about 10 days till i pick up my new wilds so fingers crossed i will eradicate it by then.

Rgds,
James
 
Di you get rid of it 100%?

Its very concentrated at the moment so hopefully i have caught it early..

Wont be getting much work done next week :p

James
 
I caught it in one particular spot and its not growing anywhere else in the tank, I have tried everything even dosing EC on it directly but it doesn't seem to go away! So i just remove it manually when I can spot it, very annoying though.
 
Sounds it, hopefully the better flow and removing it manually will help with a few big WCs. The flow theory also makes sense as it has occurred in areas with low flow only.
 
james3200 said:
Di you get rid of it 100%?

Its very concentrated at the moment so hopefully i have caught it early..

Wont be getting much work done next week :p

James

yes, the reason it come on aswell is because i had just rescaped the tank and i disturbed the substrate alot but never folowed up with water changes after to keep the ammonia levels down :rolleyes:
 
That is good news. I haven't touched the layout in months so i could probably rule that out. I am hoping its a flow problem. Going to wait a few days and if it continues the tank will get a black out.
 
Just because it is green and long and thin, doesn't mean it's spirogyra. It might be Ulothrix (which is hard to tell apart from Spirogyra, without a microscope). I had Ulothrix recently. Hassling it before a water change, to get it water-bourne, then syphoning it up, was how I handled it, in the short term.

I did a couple of things, before it vanished completely. I upped the power of my filter. At the same time, I started dosing GH booster. My water is very soft. The Ulothrix vanished completely, almost overnight. The amount of plants was also increased around the time it disappeared.

Obviously if you're water isn't soft, like mine, GH booster probably won't do anything. That leaves increasing the circulation, or increasing the plant load.
 
Thanks,

I am hesitant to say its definitely Spirogyra after looking online, unfortunately i do not have a microscope. My water is soft as i use RO and HMA filters for my discus, might add extra HMA filtered water and i think i have some seachem equilibrium. I am going to trim the tenellus its attached to and remove it, its only minor on the ferns. The tank is heavily planted & i think as its got denser it has effected the flow around the tank, especially in the areas its grown.
 
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