# Christmas moss algea spreading



## F. Jeppesen (5 Oct 2016)

I started getting a little algea around my christmass moss. Which was rather easy to remove on a day to day basis, but it has spread lightning fast to the rest of my tank at this point. I haven't found an algea similar, and i have no idea how to get rid of it. It is about to consume my tank.


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## zozo (7 Oct 2016)

The plants in your tank, what i see now looks like fern (Bolbitis) and crypt? And also moss, do not require so much light, they also grow in lower light conditions.. Especialy in the first periode of the tank, these plants need some age to developed a desent mass.. And excesive algae growth is usualy to much light versus plantmass.. Reduce the light intensity and keep cleaning it out. You need to find a balance between, light intensity, the speed of plantgrowth and fertilization.. Algea doesn't need much ferts will also grow with non added and thrives if light is enough. You could reduce your light for 50% and keep cleaning out the algae, eventualy it will dissapear from view, this can take weeks.. At that point you can up your light again in small steps each week a bit more. Till you see it appear again that way you'll find that turning point.. Which isn't a constant, while plants develop more plantmass more light can be given in time. 

The moment you see it appear you know there is to much light for now, as long as this is the case it grows faster you can kill it, obviously you already experienced that.. Do not wait till it get's to the point your picture shows, this will only make the periode to get rid of it longer.

So investing in some way to play with light intensity is the most effective and save way to battle algae. Especialy if you only grow easy low light aquarium plants..


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## kadoxu (7 Oct 2016)

Mine completely disappeared after introducing them to some Nerite Snails and Red Cherry Shrimps.


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## PARAGUAY (11 Oct 2016)

Not much tank detail but they say inconsistent CO2 levels plus too much light too soon, I think it's meant if CO2 and flow and fertilisers are consistent plants then tell you that lighting is ready to be increased, as zozo indicates maybe you ramped the light up before this. If not using CO2 growth is considerably slower so increasing light is not required. I have this when occasions when running out of CO2 the plants look OK for a while so you forget light intensity and the slowdown allows hair algae in, physically removing and water changes sort of helps.I suppose it gets complicated when plants in the "difficult" category are involved


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## rebel (11 Oct 2016)

It looks like a filamentous diatom.


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## F. Jeppesen (28 Nov 2016)

rebel said:


> It looks like a filamentous diatom.


I think you are absolutely right. The ones i see on google looks completely similar. 
I had some luck the first month or so. I kept cleaning it really well, moved my light to the front on top of my cardinalis and repens. However they have really exploded again the last two weeks.
I can't get my co2 levels to stabilize completely anymore, which has made BBA and some form of staghorn/hairalgea bloom as well.. 
I'll give it one more try before i restart the tank. 
Ill completely prune down all my plants, get a light that i can regulate, completely clean my filtration, hoses and outlets.  
If this fails, ill try to do a total blackout and see what it does.. 
While im already doing a post, could someone point my to a webshop that sells API testkits within europe? I have found a few UK dealers, but they won't send it to Denmark ..


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## F. Jeppesen (28 Nov 2016)

And ill get out all the moss that is left, and replace the erectus.


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## NathanG (25 Mar 2017)

How did you get on?

Battling the same stuff myself. I did a 4day black out and it disappeared but couldn't get my light sorted so it's reared its head and really bad. This and green hair algae is killing me.


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