Hair Algae Trouble

[jonathan03]

I'm having a lot of trouble with hair algae and just looking for some advice. This is a new tank with CO2 inejction at one bubble per second. I have an active diffuser (PVC pipe and bio-balls). The tank is 38 gallons with 96 watts of CFL light left on about 8-10 hours per day. My nitrates are a bit high - 50 ppm now but reduced from 80 ppm since its a new tank. Trying to fix them with 30-50% water changes a week. I dose plantex every other day. I have some amazon swords that are getting holes in the leaves also.

Any ideas what I may be low on? The hair algae goes crazy. I remove it all then its back covering everything in 3 days. Thanks.

[Pyro]

When you say Plantex, are you referring to 'Plantex CSM+B' (the powder stuff)? That's a good trace mixture, but you still need to cover your macro nutrients (NPK, Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potassium).

As your nitrates sound pretty high, I wouldn't worry about that. Holes developing in the leaves of plants like an amazon sword is usually a potassium deficiency of some sort. The simplest thing would probably be to add something like K2SO4 (Potassium Sulfate) or a commercial product like Flourish Potassium (make sure to get the Flourish Potassium, not the standard Flourish...) If your plants are happy and healthy, your algae problems should improve.

You can also try Flourish Excel to knock off the algae. It's technically a carbon supplement for tanks without CO2 injection, but it works wonders as an algaecide, but it does melt some plants in higher quantities (mosses, vals, anacharis, and a few crypts...). It's worked fairly well for me without killing off any plants, but I'd just as directed. Other than that, for hair algae manual removal is a good first step.

[reefdive]

Hello Don't know a thing about fertizer or co2 but I do have 75 planted tanks and the only 2 that I have problem's with hair algea in and they are close to a light that light's more than half of my tanks . It is only in the area close to the light but man that stuff does grow quick . The back 2/3rds of the tanks have no hair algae growing at all . Could be the light's I suppose .

[sendthis]

Jonathan, have you tried Seachem Excel? Worked for me when I had a planted tank. I've also used hydrogen peroxide with a syringe (apply directly) with mixed results (worked sometimes, but was also a pain).

If you are going to the meeting, I have a bottle of Glutaraldehyde (generic Excel) you can use - at your own risk (do your research first). It's yours for free (just let me know ahead of time AND I can't guarantee I'll make it to the meeting but will try).

Shoot me a PM.

[Andy10115]

Jon,
You mentioned you tank is still new. I got insane amounts of hair algae when mine was new too. Hair algae thrives with light and nitrates above 20. Eventually one day mine just disappeared. It died overnight after a water changes. I also added a few plants to out compete it.

Only other things I'll mention is what sendthis mentioned. Hydrogen Peroxide can be used, but do some research first. Everything in my tank was thrown off a bit after i had some ich breakout about a month back, and some algae started taking over some of my plants. So I may dip them in some Hydrogen Peroxide, 1 part h202 to 5 parts h20, for a few minutes and rinse them in dechlorinated water.

Not sure about the holes in your swords but I think I read somewhere once before that that can be an iron deficiency. But I don't think I'd quote me on that.

That's my 2. Good luck.

[Rob Tetrazona]

Lots of good advice given already. Sounds like New Tank Syndrome. 4 bubbles per second is normal to get to 30ppm of CO2. Scale the light back to 6-8 hours. Dosing P-N-K is a must when using pressurzied CO2 & high light. The more plants you have will out compete the algae for nutrients. Get your nitrates down to 20ppm & phosphates down to 6ppm. Find some dry ferts and an online dosing calculator to figure out the amounts.

[reed.w]

if its BBA and you are lazy you can always get a Siamese Algae Eater, but due your research before you buy though, there are quite a few fish that look like SAE, and not all store employees know the difference, big things to look for in SAE, if they aren't swimming they are sinking, the black stripe runs through the tail, it has the fu-man-chu mustache/whiskers going on, it does not have a sucker mouth. aquatics and exotics got in some false ones and didn't realize it, monfort aquarium has false ones mixed in with real ones