help Hairaglae

jed11

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 23, 2008
66
0
0
hawaii
i have hair algae on my hairgrass and i can't get rid of it! i've tried using a tooth brush to pull it out but it's still there, tried upping co2 to 8bps, and i am dosing excel directly on to the algae. Plz help my hairgrass is looking brown and fuzzy.:cry:
 

rye

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 13, 2008
38
0
0
Tennessee
if you dont have any fish or plants sensitive too it, enough excel will torch that stuff, just add the recommended levels for a week and take any carbon out of your filter. If that doesnt work add more. the stuff will die and be in slimy clumps that look like jello. be careful though enough excel will also kill your fish! speaking from experience there lol.

the city got rid of mine for me. in one week the tap water went from kh:7 gh:0 to kh:7 gh: 12. killed my algae and a bunch of plants and some fish too. nice of them.
 

jed11

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 23, 2008
66
0
0
hawaii
I don't want to over do it because i have fish. i've already doubled the dosage of excel and use a syringe to apply it directly to the algae and yet it's still thriving
 

rye

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 13, 2008
38
0
0
Tennessee
well, where you put it in the tank probably wouldnt make much difference. I just dumped the amount I needed right into the top of the tank. If you have carbon or zeolite or something in your filter it could be taking the excel out. I've used it to kill thread algae before

another thing is, the excel will kill thread algae without a problem, but I dont think it works well on hair algae. There is always a lot of confusion between the two. Thread algae should be sort of olive green and is thick and made of tiny tiny threads. it sort of looks like wool. Hair algae is usually brighter green or teal colored and the you can easily make out the individual threads and they grow less clumpy. Hair algae usually grows on plant leaves, especially sort of shooting out from the edges of leaves but also in the middle. thread algae just covers everything like a thick mat. thread algae pulls of very easily and hair algae you really have to tug at it, sometimes taking the leaf off with it if it is a more delicate plant. So if you're sure its thread algae the excel should kill it, if its hair algae though you'll need another solution.

It may take a little time, I'd go with the recommended daily dosage for a week or two every day. when it dies it will look like jello and detach from stuff and come to rest wherever it lies instead of gently swaying in the current.

One thing I learned from experience is that when you do kill it, especially if there is a lot, it will rot very quickly so you gotta get it out of there asap cause it will poison the water in short order.

I finally got rid of mine completely when the city upped the GH of the tap water from 0 to 12. If you think your fish and plants will be okay with hard water you can over time add kent essential elements or some other water hardner and that may work, then back off gradually once the thread algae has been totally gone for a few weeks so you're sure there are no more 'seeds' or anything.

One thing I have learned about algae is that you absolutely have to control the level and length of time on the lighting. when i was first doing it, I turned on the lights before work when I got up, around 630 AM, and turned them off when I went to bed, around 10 or 11, it was just too much light. I used chemicals and fish to eat and kill off algae, but no fish that I know of eats every type of algae there is (maybe SAE, never have owned one) and no chemical can kill every type of algae permenantly. I killed off my thread algae and that just made room for the hair algae, kill it off and you make room for BBA, and so on. If the light and nutrients are there, some kind of algae will set in, kill it off and it just opens up that opportunity for another type of algae that the new fish or chemical can't deal with, and so on.

I think there will always be some type of algae, but you can keep it to a minimum so it isnt unsightly. Soft green algae on driftwood or rocks even looks very natural and nice in my opinion. I stand by the best way to control algae is to control the light and nutrients. You can control the nutrients by using fast growing plants and plants that get all of their nutrients from the water column rather than from roots, marimo balls are very good for this, and by adding liquid fertilizer very sparingly or not at all, I dont use it at all anymore and only use substrate tabs. I still have a little algae but it isnt a big problem and it isnt unsightly and I've gotten rid of all algae eaters in my big tank. The final solution was to add more plants, stop using liquid ferts, and cut back on the length of time of the light.
 
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