# Thread Algae



## Unexpected (5 Feb 2022)

Hello all,
One goal I wanted to achieve in 2022 is the enter the 2022 AGA Dutch competition. And so I have converted this 40Breeder for the competition. 
I replaced the substrate with Landen Aquasoil about 6 weeks ago, maybe 7 weeks ago and cycled the tank with the previous filter.
My concern is, I have not experienced this particular type of algae and I'm wondering if I should make any changes or continue along my path as it should resolve itself when the substrate matures?
I have been moving plants in and out and I do know doing so is disruptive, but I'm not familiar with all the plants I want to try using.
I appreciate any insight,
Mike 






Here's a few pictures and data.


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## Unexpected (6 Feb 2022)

Update, the algae is getting worse and I want to add that my PO4 is undetectable even with dosing the 4ppm. I know this Landen Soil has an affinity for PO4, but I'm not sure if I should do a mid week dose or let the plants pull it from the substrate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Mike


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## Hufsa (6 Feb 2022)

Well, the good news is that green thread algae usually likes the same conditions as plants, so your plants should be doing fairly ok. The bad news is that it likes the same conditions as plants so it can be hard to get rid of 😅
I only have experience with low tech but the only time I got this much hair algae was when my light was running too high intensity, driving the plants too hard in relation to the available CO2


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## Unexpected (6 Feb 2022)

Hufsa said:


> Well, the good news is that green thread algae usually likes the same conditions as plants, so your plants should be doing fairly ok. The bad news is that it likes the same conditions as plants so it can be hard to get rid of 😅
> I only have experience with low tech but the only time I got this much hair algae was when my light was running too high intensity, driving the plants too hard in relation to the available CO2


Thank you for replying. 
Alright, I will drop the light a bit and see if I can squeeze in more CO2. I believe I have some room to push more in. Should I try CO2 first maybe and see? Or go both routes?


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## Hufsa (6 Feb 2022)

Light is #1, it drives the demand for everything else. If you also want more CO2 make sure you dont exceed the CO2 level your fish are comfortable with. Sometimes its not about more but the distribution of it


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## Unexpected (6 Feb 2022)

Will do, thank you again.
This tank has given me more problems than my other tanks combined! 😡


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## MichaelJ (6 Feb 2022)

Hi @Unexpected Yes, lower your light intensity a bit and  make sure your CO2 is stable.   It may not be practical in your case, but it's fairly easy to remove thread algae by winding them up on a fork - just like you  wind up string spaghetti.

Love what your doing there in the back of the tank! Will look great when it grows out.

Cheers,
Michael


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## Unexpected (6 Feb 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> Hi @Unexpected Yes, lower your light intensity a bit and  make sure your CO2 is stable.   It may not be practical in your case, but it's fairly easy to remove thread algae by winding them up on a fork - just like you  wind up string spaghetti.
> 
> Love what your doing there in the back of the tank! Will look great when it grows out.
> 
> ...


Maintenance day is tomorrow, I'll be giving it one heck of a twirling. Thank you for the help.


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## shangman (6 Feb 2022)

I got rid of this algae in my hightech tank by lowering the light intensity to 40% until it was gone, along with blackouts. No plants or fish were harmed ni the process, and no extra chemicals used. <I did the method explained in this link> and it worked really well for me, the algae went away in the blackouts (it detatches and goes into the filter where you can remove it) and never returned. Over the past few months I have raised the light and it has still not returned. This was in a hightech tank however, in lowtech I couldn't get rid of it at all.


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## Unexpected (6 Feb 2022)

shangman said:


> I got rid of this algae in my hightech tank by lowering the light intensity to 40% until it was gone, along with blackouts. No plants or fish were harmed ni the process, and no extra chemicals used. <I did the method explained in this link> and it worked really well for me, the algae went away in the blackouts (it detatches and goes into the filter where you can remove it) and never returned. Over the past few months I have raised the light and it has still not returned. This was in a hightech tank however, in lowtech I couldn't get rid of it at all.


Would I resume CO2 at the same rate once the blackout is finished?


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## shangman (6 Feb 2022)

Unexpected said:


> Would I resume CO2 at the same rate once the blackout is finished?


Yes, along with ferts. I did this:
1. Clean tank, get rid of all much algae as possible, clean filters, waterchange where I siphon as much mulm out as possible. Did not dose any ferts after the waterchange like I usually do. Feed the fish.
2. Straight after water change - blackout. Turn off co2+light, keep filter going, cover in a blanket, towels, whatever really keeps the light of (black plastic sacks don't seem to keep all the light of, I tried this before and it was not very effective). Keep the blackout for 3 or 4 days. I did 4, add I've done 3 before and the fish were all fine but not all the algae went away.
3. Take off your blackout stuff, turn on the light (which should be at 50% max) and inspect. Is there less algae? There should be less, make sure to pull out any stuck around your inlet. Now clean the filters again (hopefully lots of algae in there), and do another water change where you siphon any floating algae you see. Dose ferts, turn on co2 and let things recover for 3 days to a week.

If the algae doesn't return, huzzah! Just continue as usual, but wait a good month or longer to increase your light intensity. If the algae isn't fully gone, then after 3 days - a week, repeat the process. My hair algae went after 2 blackouts.

Sometimes the hair algae gets worse because of dodgy co2, so that is another thing to consider needing adjustment, but I am not experienced in that so can't really advise.


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## Unexpected (6 Feb 2022)

shangman said:


> Yes, along with ferts. I did this:
> 1. Clean tank, get rid of all much algae as possible, clean filters, waterchange where I siphon as much mulm out as possible. Did not dose any ferts after the waterchange like I usually do. Feed the fish.
> 2. Straight after water change - blackout. Turn off co2+light, keep filter going, cover in a blanket, towels, whatever really keeps the light of (black plastic sacks don't seem to keep all the light of, I tried this before and it was not very effective). Keep the blackout for 3 or 4 days. I did 4, add I've done 3 before and the fish were all fine but not all the share went away.
> 3. Take off your blackout stuff, turn on the light (which should be at 50% max) and inspect. Is there less algae? There should be less, make sure to pull out any stuck around your inlet. Now clean the filters again (hopefully lots of algae in there), and do another water change where you siphon any floating algae you see. Dose ferts, turn on co2 and let things recover for 3 days to a week.
> ...


Thank you!


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## PARAGUAY (6 Feb 2022)

Hair algae is a good indicator of poor distribution in a  CO2 pressurized system like @Hufsa  says plants can look healthy so @shangman  advice as above in a low tech. So if going CO2 flow and distribution is important


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## Yugang (6 Feb 2022)

Unexpected said:


> see if I can squeeze in more CO2


I see you're having already 1.45 pH drop. Be careful with your lifestock.


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## Unexpected (7 Feb 2022)

Yugang said:


> I see you're having already 1.45 pH drop. Be careful with your lifestock.


I will, this Landen Soil, along with 0KH is making it difficult to get a degassed pH that feels right. So I'm taking that number with a grain of salt. My drop checker still shows I have room to increase it.


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## bazz (7 Feb 2022)

Unexpected said:


> I will, this Landen Soil, along with 0KH is making it difficult to get a degassed pH that feels right. So I'm taking that number with a grain of salt. My drop checker still shows I have room to increase it.


Measuring PH with 0 dKH is a very haphazard affair.


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## Unexpected (7 Feb 2022)

bazz said:


> Measuring PH with 0 dKH is a very haphazard affair.


For sure, the numbers I get just don't seem to make sense. I was hoping it was because the substrate is so new, and things would start to align with what I would expect to see. Unfortunately, this hasn't come to fruition.
I've only ever used inert substrates, and I was able to cheat my way into being semi successful with sands and Eco Complete. I thought if I could achieve some amount of success with those, aqua soils had to be even easier. Boy was I wrong.  All of my expectations are drawn from inert substrates, and as things are never so simple, I have been thrown off course completely by this aqua soil. Again, to all of you, thank you for the help.


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## hypnogogia (7 Feb 2022)

As implied above, when you lower the lights your plants will need less CO2.  As you already drop pH by 1.45 with CO2 injection, I’d not increase that.  Lowering lights should be sufficient.


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## Unexpected (30 May 2022)

I wanted to update what happened to this tank even though it's been a while. I tried most of the suggestions made here and avoided doing a blackout as I just didn't really want to do it.

Basically, I gave up on the tank and just manually removed as much algae as I could each water change. It would immediately come back of course. I also reduced my overall dosing and dropped light intensity just a little bit. Finally, one day I decided to cut all the plants back as much as I could and the algae never came back. This was right around the beginning of April.

I did loose all 20 of the tiger shrimp I added, but lesson learned. I just use this tank as my plant repository now. Here it is today. I feel patience is the key to many issues in our hobby.


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