Hi! I have this 50g tank with 4x36w light and pressurized c02 system. EI based ferts dosing with CSM-B and is been doing quite good for 4 months now:


That was its pic 2 weeks ago...before severe hair algae took over the tank. For a while I thought it already reached its so-called "balanced" state, plants growing lush and healthy, but I made I mistake(s) of:

- overfeeding
- not removing dead fauna
- delayed trimming of plants
- experimenting with diy c02 (4L setups, not the common 2L yeast reactor)


Reading from lots of articles/threads about hair algae, the common suggestions are increasing c02, manual removing as much of it as possible, cut back on fertz...and these is what I'm doing now. I already purchased a drop checker and am trying to keep it on green-yellow green status (using 4dkh solution). Tried manual removal of hair algae, using common toothbrush, but I think it's not efficient for I can't make a visible deduction of total hair algae mass. Made a major trimming of stem plants for better circulation and reduced dosing of fertz to half. Black mollies, sae and otos aren't helping either.

Now my question is, am I on the right track? If I continue to 'over' dose on c02, how long till I can see visible progress? Will these strands of algae just wither away? or they'll just 'be gone' after a while? I know patience is a must in combating this but at least I've to know if I'm doing right and what to expect. Thanks!

You may need to dose with Excel and do a 3 day total blackout to get rid of it completely

oh...what are the odds? won't this harm the plants?

The plants and the fish will be fine and will soon pick up again, remember no peeking and no feeding!

I think the daily Excel dose+ daily water changes+blackout for 3 days will work, so you need to due a water change daily, add excel and have the lights/CO2 off.

Lot of work.

Prior to doing this: trim the plants that tend to get the algae caught in it the most. Very aggressively prune them!
Clean the tank well, pick out as much as you can.

Then do the above.

CO2 is critical, and in well grown in tanks without Amano shrimps, the hair algae can get a hold, I'm talking about Cladophora specifically here, you should see branching on the algae if it's Caldophora.

Do not play with CO2 once it's set well, unless you want to induce algae. I can get away with a week's worth of poor CO2 before things go bad.

You might see BBA in a week or two after Green hair algae, but the hair alga seems to always come first.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Tom, can you detail out the Excel portion. On the first day with dosing Excel, dose it as per the instruction on the bottle? What about the 2nd and 3rd day ?

On the 4th day, do I need to do a WC before turning back the CO2 and light on ?

No advise in any way, but when I had hair algae (yeast CO2) I eradicated it increasing NPK and Mirco dosage.

May be Tom would comment wy that happend, but it worked that time for me.

My hair algae problem went away when I juiced up the CO2, for what it's worth. I used to have a substantial problem with it and GSA before that.

Oh, and what a lovely tank, BTW. Great work. Best of luck with this algae outbreak. I know what it's like to see a lovely tank waste away before a BBA onslaught and it's very disheartening. I am trying to get through some algae problems of my own with the BBA, and I can empathize with you that it is very frustrating. I really hope you are able to get rid of the algae before it takes out the more sensitive and the more slow-growing plants. Hair algae just hasn't been near a problem at all for me as the BBA; it is much less hardy. Take heart in that.

Yes, "CO2 juicing" will help.
You can cause an infestation via lowering the CO2, adding it intermittently etc.

If you keep doing that for sometime(weeks typically), you can induce BBA.
This is for higher light, well planted tanks that are doing well anyway(a control tank basically).

Hair will go away on it's own, I'm not sure why specifically however, but based on good CO2, inducement, it seems to respond well to CO2 changes, slightly poorer nutrient levels for the plants.

So over grown tanks, lack of pruning etc can cause this, CO2 declining........., leaving for a week or two without dosing/pruning, I've found hair algae in each case to appear. Smaller tanks with CO2 issues etc also.......I had a diffuser that just would not give me consistent CO2 and I never had issues in an identical tank with another good diffuser.

So some CO2 related mechanism seems pretty likely for a cause.
Excel might get rid of it for that reason(carbon addition if it was low via CO2 gas), rather than as an algicide........
Plants seem to perk up, start over growing the algae, pruning it out, and it goes into spore phases and the adults slowly die out.

Similar thing happens with BBA, takes longer and is more of an issue for many and BBA is much less limited by nutrients/less affected. Cladophora seems to like somewhat leaner nutrients.

In an ADA sediment tank, this is less likely to occur, but still can certainly......but then it's more CO2 related exclusively. With plain sand etc, flourite etc, you likely need more ferts as well.

Regards,
Tom Barr