Not sure what to call it - but it is in long strands that tend to get everywhere and when you remove it from the water it forms a green slime. I don't think it is blue-green algae - I have been given an antibiotic for that and it hasn't worked.

Conditions are -

Tank - Aqua-one 850

Nitrates 5ppm

Phosphate 0.5ppm

Ammonia 0

PH 6.6

3 lights on 10 hours per day.

I am keeping a couple of discus, 3 clown loaches, 2 bristle-nose plecs and 12 cardinals. All the plecs do is murder my sword plants. Tank is heavily planted and has CO2.

Any help?

hmm.....what size is the tank? might wanna try turning the lights off or down abit or not on so long. try useing flourish excel it will get rid of the hair alagae, alternativley you could get a UV light, which does not premote alagae growth at all.

Cheers

Shae 250

I think the tank is 180l.

I use Flourish Excel twice a week.

I tried less light for a couple of weeks - no difference.

Can you get UV bulbs and do they work as a UV steriliser?

Any further help would be appreciated.

I had a very very bad algae problem. I did a few heavy water changes and that fixed it.

Just my 2cents, telling you how I got rid of it.

I change 25% per week. I don't want to change more than that if all levels appear OK.

If it's green hair algae (and you'll know because it looks like 'green hair' and isn't as slimy as the blue-green 'algae') try to get as much out of the tank by taking e.g. a pencil and wrapping the long hairs around it by rolling the pencil. (Hope this makes sense). Just keep removing it when it gets bad. Add some more fast growing plants to compete with it (sounds like you already have). Perhaps cut down your fertilizer (flourish excel) a little.

Fwiw The best green hair algae remover I ever had was a male dwarf gourami. He would pick up the stuff and build a bubble nest with it. Every night I would remove the nest. Next day he was at it again. Took about 2 weeks and after that all those long threads of green algae were gone.

Yeah I wind it up on a long piece of dowel - but that will get very tedious after a while.

I have exactly the same stuff in my 300L tank. It's definitely hair algae. The only stuff I find that rids you of it (with ease) is Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Algae Fix, but this is always only temporary. I'm trying adding it everyday at the moment to hopefully eradicate it totally. It's terrible stuff to be doomed with.

I found keeping the lights off for a couple of days knocked it back. After that I shorten the period the lights are on and made sure the plants grew well (added CO2, fertiliser). Ths hasn't rid me of it completely, but it definitely improved the situation. Of course I cut back to 10 hours/day with the same lights (I have the same tank) so there is probably not a lot more you can do in that direction.

The canonical way to beat algae is to have the plants out-compete it, but it seems they are getting all they could need. Is it possible you are over-fertilising?

I read somewhere (might have been on here but can't remember now) that the hair algae needs 12 hours uninterrupted a day and a good way to get rid of it was to turn the lights off after 6 hours, wait a few hours and then turn them back on again for another 6 hours.

So I fixed my timer to turn the lights off for 2 hours in the middle of the day and so far that seems to have fixed it! However, just to make sure I use Algae Cure every 14 days also.

It hasn't harmed the plants and they are still getting their 12 hours a day.

Try Siamese Algae Eaters they will eat hair algae.

frenchy

I'm reluctant to add any more fish - I just wanted Discus and Cardinals - but now have bristlenose for algae and clown loaches for snails. BTW how big do the loaches get? I was told you need 3 and now they tend to dominate the scenery.

how bigs the tank, cuz they do get queit big!

Shae

Clown loaches get over a foot. But most don't survive that long because it takes a decade or so.

You'll find siamese algae eaters don't do enough work to rid you of it. Apparently the American Flag fish does an amazing job at it but then every algae eating fish you read about says that and most are pretty crap at it in reality. Yeah you need at least 3 clowns and they can get big as Ira says which i think is cool cuz you can try grow them out for years. Completely subjective but some say clowns aren't a good mix with discus as clowns are quite active at night while the discus try to sleep. It seems the more clowns you get the more active they are, e.g i added 3 more to my bunch of 3 and they are much more active now.

Conditions are -

Tank - Aqua-one 850

Nitrates 5ppm

Phosphate 0.5ppm

Ammonia 0

PH 6.6

3 lights on 10 hours per day.

Any help?

The problem is the Phosphate at 0.5ppm. You need to find out where the phosphate is coming from and remove the source. Next you need to do water changes until phosphate no longer reads on your test kit. Green algae will go away, no need to reduce light, add algae killers or use flourish excel (other than as a carbon source)...

Phosphate may be in your waterchange water, one of the fertilisers you use or in the food. If you use solid fertiliser in the substrate it may be leaching into the tank water. Excess waste in the tank or filter will release phosphate as well.

What is your nitrate level? If it's over 30ppm this will add to the problem as well...

Thanks for everytones help on this.

The nitrate level is 5ppm.

The phosphate (.5ppm) reading is the lowest my test kit will show - in fact it is propbably less than that.

I have increased the lighting duration and that seems to have done some good.

5ppm nitrate will be ok. Any reading on the phosphate kit is bad. It should stay clear...

sorry to hijack thread, but

i've got a bala shark and 1 clown loach, they tend to bicker abit, but on the whole seem fine,

is this a bad combo?

doesn't seem like it so far

I know that a good school of rosy barbs will eat hair algae. they are the only fish that I have heard of that will control black algae.

Also I have heard that clown loaches can live up to 30 years in the wild.... perhaps yours can become family heirlooms.

Oops wrong thread. :oops:

From what I have read, the siamese algae eater will eat algae when it is young, but will not eat much once it gets older. the algae eater that I had was a pain in the butt. he was always agressive and territorial and chased other fish around the tank.

I've had an hair algae problem in my pond and to fix it I chucked in a tablet of Augmentin (Antibiotic) and that killed off the hair algae really well and it didn't harm my orandas one bit.

Worth a try if you have either erythromycin or Augmentin in your medicine cabinet. For your small tank you should only use a 1/4 of a tablet.

Others may disagree.

Hair algae is an algae not a bacteria like blue/green algae, I could be wrong but the only why I can see this working is by killing off all the good bacteria that was converting your nitrite to nitrate (i.e. algae food). A pond might survive this cause pond fish are hardy and the water volume is high, but in a fish tank surely you would start off the whole new tank cycle again and proberly kill every thing in the tank in the process?

Listen to Warren, work on getting the Phosphate down.

No one should have erythromycin or augmentin in their medicine cabinet! If you have been prescribed these drugs it is important you finish the whole course!