# Green hair algae



## Staffylover (8 May 2016)

Can anyone tell me what causes this, or could it be a mixture of factors?

Only recently two of my 30l tanks are suffering with it on the leaves of my plants. I remove what I can weekly but it's back within a couple of days. 
I do weekly water changes of approx 30% and dose with profito fertiliser at water changes
Lights are on for 5-6 hours per day
One of the two tanks has started with a small amount of BBA
Both tanks have vallis so liquid carbo can't be used 
The plant with BBA is very heavily planted but only with low tech plants
I have seven other tanks that all have the same regime and no issues at all


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## john dory (8 May 2016)

Hi
What lights are you using?


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## Staffylover (8 May 2016)

It's the Aqua one PL11 tropical tube that comes with the the Fluval Ebi


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## john dory (8 May 2016)

Do your plants grow...and then get problems,or do they just slowly die


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## Staffylover (8 May 2016)

Plants are growing fine John, the only problem I have is with vallis which tends to die off but at the same time there are runners


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## john dory (8 May 2016)

Can you post a picture?


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## Staffylover (8 May 2016)

Here is the tank


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## Staffylover (8 May 2016)

A close up of some of the plants


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## john dory (8 May 2016)

I'd say too much light.


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## Staffylover (8 May 2016)

I have very high phosphates too.  The pic shows my tank and the tap water, both very high and in the red zone on my charts. 
Could phosphate contribute to it?


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## john dory (8 May 2016)

I think you just need to tweek the lights.


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## Martin in Holland (9 May 2016)

Staffylover said:


> Could phosphate contribute to it?


No.

Most of us even dump some extra phosphate in the tank (EI ferts). Whenever I spot some GSA, I dose some more phosphate to keep it from growing. The only testers I have at home (for fresh water) are pH and KH and even those a seldom used.
I agree with John, probably to much light (to bright, to many hours).


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## ian_m (9 May 2016)

Staffylover said:


> I have very high phosphates too.


Brilliant, excellent for you plants then. Contrary to the "popular truth", phosphate levels have nothing to do with algae, I have accidentally run with 80ppm phosphate (due to dosing pump failure) and it produce zero algae. Didn't produce better plants either which is a shame.

Please don't rely on hobby test kits, they can produce erroneous result and you end up chasing a problem that doesn't exist.

Too much light, for your level of fertiliser dosing and carbon dosing is your main issue. Put some tape strips across the light to say halve the light level, remove all algae (tooth brush, trimming, treating vary carefully with hydrogen peroxide/liquid carbon) and see how you get on for a month or two.


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## Staffylover (10 May 2016)

Thanks Ian, should I continue dosing my ferts weekly or should I switch to daily? I use profito fertiliser but not the liquid carbo as it tends to kill off my vallis should I be using the carbo too? I also have flourish excel but I have never used it yet


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## ian_m (10 May 2016)

You should reduce the light level for a while (a month ?), raise light, cover 1/2 in tape strips, use plastic diffuser etc, as algae is generally a sign of plants dying due to too much light for the level of fertilisers and carbon source you are supplying.

Flourish Excel is a liquid carbon as well. You do really need some form of carbon source, so you could try dosing a much lesser dose of liquid carbon (1/4 - 1/10 ?) but watch the plants for melting. I find small doses in my tank (via dosing pump) tends to keep algae at bay.

You could try increasing the Profito dose daily to 1/5 or 1/4 of the weekly dose per day. One of the problems with these "all in one" fertilisers is the ingredients can react with other chemicals (especially if tank/water is alkaline), precipitate out of solution in the tank and become unavailable for plant growth use. It is normally the iron that does this, you could try dosing Easy Life Ferro, though from your pics the plants look OK. But just an idea.


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