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Permalink Reply by Nicolai (nicsaqualand) on February 15, 2012 at 2:57am

Not exactly sure what type of algae it is but here a a few basic guidelines that apply to all sorts of algae:

If you're using plant food, stop using it.

physically remove all plants that are infected (yes that means hacking down all your plants if it needs to be done)

reduce the light hours per day

feed your fish less

Basically do everything to leave the algae with absolutely no nutrients to grow.

You can get some duckweed, which will act as a great filter and will eat up all the left over nutrients before the algae get to it.

You can also get some snails. Neritina Puligeria is one of the most commonly used algae fighters.

However the cleanup crew is NOT the solution. You have to get rid of the actual source of the problem, which is purely and simply excess nutrients in your tank.

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Permalink Reply by PaducahFishFan on February 15, 2012 at 8:28am

That is hair algae and usually caused by too many nutrients in the tank.  So over feeding or just not doing regular water changes or a tank being over stocked.  That could help cause that.  I'm not sure if that type is caused by too much high light.  I would focus on water quality first.  When I had beard algae I had to cut it out of the plants.

I had a algae bloom on a new tank in January.  If you look on YouTube (same name) you can see what I did to fix it.

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by 2apes2gp667wr on February 15, 2012 at 10:02am

Both right. Thread algae. Caused by excess nutrients. Can't tell if it's Staghorn or not but that can be a little more stubborn to get rid of. Just want to clarify one thing. When Nicolai says "remove" the affected plants I think that should be the affected part of the plant. You don't need to start uprooting whole plants.

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Permalink Reply by PaducahFishFan on February 15, 2012 at 10:09am

That's good advice.  I was told if you removed a plant and dipped it in Sachem Flourish it would in a few seconds kill the algae and turn it red.  I would be VERY careful with that stuff.  You can't put a lot in your tank either or it could suffocate your fish.

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Permalink Reply by 2apes2gp667wr on February 15, 2012 at 1:34pm

I think your thinking of BBA.  If you dip a plant in a bleach solution, the tuft will turn white and die.  If you hit it with Excel or H2O2 it will turn red and die.

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Permalink Reply by Nicolai (nicsaqualand) on February 15, 2012 at 2:38pm

Yes I did indeed mean hack the part that has algae on it down by "remove".

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Wong on February 15, 2012 at 10:46pm

Thanks everyone

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