# Hair Algea



## zozo (10 May 2015)

Finaly for once a positive thread about this stuff.. 
I ordered me some Bolbitis sp. 'Buea' (Didymoglossum erosum) which was acording the seller freshly imported from Camaroón. That stuff turned out to be infested with hair algea. In my tank i can keep it somewhat in control, by scrutenizing every day even with a magnification glass and pulling it of with tweezers and put moss at those places to compete and kill it off.

Now i did not put all of it in my tank. I did put some leftovers in my above ground garden pond. In between some rocks to give it some hold. Today i looked at to see what happend. And it looks like a fresh crop of lettuce. Lovely green, lots of new leaves and above all no more hair alge to find. It was as clean as a baby's behind.. Wonderfull. It could not have been the fish eating it of because it was to deep in between te rocks for them to get to it. And in my tank it still looks like not feeling at home, not willing to grow only verry few new leaves.

I exchanged it immediately with a piece which was still in my tank. What was in there i do not have a picture of. But it were only a few twigs with a few brown spotted leaves.

It's this what came out the pond and is in my tank now. 





I guess it's the colder temperature and less firts killing off that tropical hair algea. And this fern seems to love cool invironments i guess. At least cool nights.

Good to know.. If you have no fish, cooling your tank for a while might help to kill off some algea. Maybe worth a try.


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## zozo (10 May 2015)

Btw  i can recomend all of you a helping hand like this in battling algea of any kind..



The sooner you spot them the sooner you can get them on their knees.






Get them when they are still young, the moment you spot 'm with your naked eye they are already strongly rooted and you are (to) late..
Its the same as i weed my garden.. Weed is energy too, take that away from them, keep them buzzy dont let them root to much. If if pieces fall of and spread.. Dosnt matter it will cost them energy to root again. They spread anyway. Give them a hard time to root so the competition has it's advantage..


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## zozo (19 May 2015)

Hair me out!?

Found a nice tooth brush alternative 




Had some rough filterpad laying around, and you all know those nasty tiny hairs on the leafs of the plants, against the glass on the hard ware, just everywhere you look.
Cut some dice from it (any size you''ll desire will do).. Stick it on the tweezers..




And stroke the leaves with a gentle presure, top and down side in one way..




It's even perfect for cleaning the glass, rubbing other hardware and catch floating string of hair algea. The filter sponsh is so rough it grabs it straight away and will hold it.

Et viola, again another nice idea triggered by someting we don't like and want to fight. Every downside has it's upside.. 

Hair i come.. haha..
Cheers


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## zozo (24 May 2015)

This stuff i driving me nuts.. Hadn't my Co2 in order and it exploded on me allover my tank.. It's everywhere..  Like in the HC.. I guess who ever battled that hairy devil knows how it looks.
Like dirty dark patches, you can't get a hold of because it's intertwined with the tiny leaves of the HC and when you start pulling with tweezers you mess it all up because you're pulling more HC than Hair.

But found me another one, simple and effective. 




A soft flat brush, bended a little bit and fastened it to a rod..



Gently brush the HC especialy the darker patches and the darn hair sticks to the hairs of the brush comes up and and pops out. Parts keep sticking to the brush and what  pops out you can now gently pull out with the tweezers..

And the HC seems to love it, you loosing it up a bit and you can gently push it down again. Kind like this one and keep it as my special HC trimming help as well.. It also gets other dirt out.

Also got hair algea in my hair grass of course.. Looks kind a same, dark dirty patches. The brush also does wonders here and puls the devil up without pulling out rooting up the hair grass.

Well il keep pulling hair!! But not out off my head... 

Cheers.


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## mr. luke (24 May 2015)

I feel the pain.
Im nearing the end of a long battle with algae. Ive been through diatoms which where a doddle, green algae which was a doddle and im not onto staghorn which is getting better 
I think the problem is having slow growers in a tank that gets direct sunlight for a few hours a day. Only place i can have it


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## zozo (24 May 2015)

Diatoms i got as well, but i that's hopefully because the tank is still very young, see it in the soil against the glass.. But the oto's go for all above that.. Actualy think i got them about all.. Green is a lot on the wood and atacking my submersed nymphea leaves now as well. The leaves where clean since a few days ago, and suddenly over night green pickels all over.. The anubias i bought had green spot from the beginning.. The hair was in the bobitis together with some nasty very dark almost black velvet one on the leaves. I did cut all ephyfites in to small pieces to spreat it all over the wood to make a kind of bonzai apearance. So i had to wait for them to root, luckely got all bolbitis and anubias shooting roots now and attaching, so can trim all the old crap out now. And the BB came with the Lilaepsis.. Those i don't realy worry about. I was still finding out my Co2 balance, to much fluctuations.. Got that sorted out now, found me a nice snip last week  a Milwaukee SMS122 PH controler for €15. The guy had it laying around with electrode and power suply missing and didnt know if it was still working. And I still had those laying around, took thee chance and that was a real lucky shot. It works like a charme wonderfull device.

But the hair omg thats a real nasty one.. It's a first timer for me this one.. Knew it from the start that D-Day would arive at one point whit this, i'm kinda surprised it looked all well but now after 6 weeks it realy bursts out all corners. But think i got it somewhat under control now..  Hopefully. .

And yes direct sunlight is a killer..


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## xim (24 May 2015)

I read your tank is 54 litre and you also have Amano shrimp in there. But how many of them?

It takes me 5 years to learn that I had too few shrimp all along. A 340 litre tank with just about 20 Amanos. After reading Tropica's recommendation about 1 Amanos per 5 litre, I still hesitated. Because 68 Amanos would be expensive. But in the end, a year later, I added 70 of them into the tank on January. I also lowered the water level to about 2 inches from the top of the tank, as they were very good (and expensive) escape artists.

I expected something fast. But there was no progress in the first two months. I felt disappointed at the time. Because all kinds of algae were still there, in the same quantity. And most of the shrimp were on the substrate, not working on the leaves as I wanted them to.

Suddenly in the end of March, I did a weekly water change and found there was surprising little amount of debris/detritus compared to how much I had before. I also noticed more and more of them "working" on the leaves.

Around April, all kinds of algae (BBA, Spirogyra, Oedogonium, diatom) started to disappear.

I think fighting against algae is a simple number game: algae propagation rate vs animal's grazing pressure. Some tanks need just a few algae eaters because the number of algae have been kept low since the start. The more you let algae grow, the faster they multiply. And the more algae eaters you need to win the war. Because of this, there is a hearsay, "Don't let algae take a stonghold”.

Apart from their grazing power on algae. They also reduce solid organic matters, in a way that is much more efficient than the Cories. This might be another big factor to control algae. My tank is much more cleaner now because of them.

The first picture was taken last year. My tank had been struggling like that for years.
The latter was taken early this month. The few BBA on the wood are now gone. It's still not as good as I want but at least I can enjoy it now.


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## aiacs31 (24 May 2015)

Hi guys 

Just joined not sure where or how I am supposed to be communicating, but hopefully someone will know the answer to my question via this post 

Been aquascaping for a year now and have come across an algae in my tank that I cannot find a name for on the Internet 

It's defiantly not bga, I have had it before in another tank, not hair, or slime like.....

Really fluffy lightish green lumps that cling to rocks or plants and become detached wen touched. 

Any idea

Cheers 










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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## zozo (24 May 2015)

@xim OMG!! That first pic.. Jesus how can it grow like that? I mean i would say realy a lot if i found only 5 % of that amount. Than my tank still looks pretty clean. The second one looks very nice, unbelievable its the same tank..

Yes indeed my tank is 54 liter volume, but after doing the hardscape i effectively have about 43 liter left. There are 7 amano shrimps, 7 Otos, 7 pygmea corys, 11 amber tetras and an uncountable army of snails. This week i added 5 mollies, temporarely because they are know to eat hair algea.  And they realy  do, i see m pulling things out of the plants i cant see with my nacked eye. Like not touching the plant but see the plant being pulled with them. They are pulling off something..

I was allready wondering how they count it with those shrimps.. Is that 1 shriimp a liter regardless what in there next to them? I kinda feel like my tank is already crowded on the edge. I was thinking maybe 10 shrimps more because they love to hide anyway.. Seldom see them all 7 at one time.

I had a lot going on in a short time with my tank.. It all starded out perfect and didnt consider the algea to become a big deal. The green i got in there is acceptable at the moment, gives the wood and rocks a natural patina, if it stays like it is i can live with it. But the cory's i got where heavily infected by i think trichodina. The medication available for that is deluted with alcohol i think, or something else that triggers algea growth. All went perfect till i starded to use that darn medication. The first dose was ok, did a water change a administered a second dose and the party starded.
Saw a bacterial bloom developing in less than 3 hours, the green on the wood poped out like flouresend green velvet.. I emidiatly did a water change after that and it all calmed down again. 3 days later had a diatoma atack, all glasware went brown, i thought ok got to clean that tomorow. The morning after that the whole tank was brown and all the glass 360 degrees around was covered in 1 cmlong hairs. Never have seen such a amazing explosion. I guess if i waited 3 more days it would heve looked like your firrst picture. I cleaned it all out, did a filter cleanup and the filter also was unbilievable dirty, i realy was baffeled, that this was so dirty in such a short time.

Now im cleaning the tank on a daily basis, actualy working a few hours a day at the tank. Doing a lot of cleaning, glass and gravel, pulling hairs, trimming cleaning replanting. Luckely got a bunch in there even in i trim 75% still got enough to keep them going, they grow back eventualy. Found a few hair nests and threw it all out regaldes the plants that went with it. And i'm doing a 25% water change at least every other day, some times every day and cleaning the filter twice a week.. Now i have to look real hard to find any hair back.. But i know it's still in there, so i''m on the watch all the time..

Sceince Fiction recomended me to go forr the Fluke Solve as medication for the cory's.. Thats great stuff, doesn't have any nasty side effects.

This is the tank now.. about 45 days old..



If you dont know you couldn't say i did a lot of trimming. 

This is the green in there
















If it stays like that, im pleased, the moss will grow it over eventualy..


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## aiacs31 (24 May 2015)

Hi guys 

Just joined not sure where or how I am supposed to be communicating, but hopefully someone will know the answer to my question via this post 

Been aquascaping for a year now and have come across an algae in my tank that I cannot find a name for on the Internet 

It's defiantly not bga, I have had it before in another tank, not hair, or slime like.....

Really fluffy lightish green lumps that cling to rocks or plants and become detached wen touched. 

Any idea

Cheers 










Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## zozo (25 May 2015)

aiacs31 said:


> Hi guys
> 
> Just joined not sure where or how I am supposed to be communicating, but hopefully someone will know the answer to my question via this post
> 
> ...



Hi : Welcome.. Nice tank.. Wouldnt know what kinda specific algea you're suffering from. To get to know that it's maybe a better idea to open your own new thread about it in the algea section of this forum. When you're in the overview of all threads in the algea section you'll see at the top right of the forum layout a button "Open New Thread". Click that, find a suitable title and ask your qeustions. Then you'll have more chances other knowledgeble see it and reply to help you. Now you have to do it, with only the people interested in this topic about hair algea who are interested in visiting this thread. As you can see nobody other then me till now, answering your question.. Open a new thread and ill bet your quastion is sufficiently answered in a few hours..

Anyway, suffering from algea no matter what kind can have number of reasons. Giving them a chance to astablish is a matter of inbalance. In mature aquariums this is mostly a combination of amount of light vs amount of plants and fertilization and or amount of regular maintenance. If you do not follow an indexed fertilization schedule, you're plants probably suffer from a shortage in some specific needs. For that you need to come up with certain numbers about whats in your water right now. 

Cheers. Good luck..


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## aiacs31 (25 May 2015)

Spot on thanks for the that will do that, I was looking for an option to create a thread on this tapatalk app but had no luck, probably just being blind and in a rush 

Cheers again 


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## xim (25 May 2015)

zozo said:


> @xim OMG!! That first pic.. Jesus how can it grow like that? I mean i would say realy a lot if i found only 5 % of that amount. Than my tank still looks pretty clean. The second one looks very nice, unbelievable its the same tank..



Thanks for the compliment.

"How can it grow like that?"

Ermmm if you're serious...

By stopping phosphate dosing, in my tank, in the situation like that, which might or might not
have similarities to other tanks. I could say that I could influence Oedogonium to suppress BBA.
There still was some BBA but not too much. Oedogonium was my chosen poison at the time, at least
it looked green and was way less ugly than BBA. There was no GSA as one would expected.

Now, with the tank becomes more clean with the help of the shrimp. Finally, I have been welcomed
with the algae I (kind of) have never met before: the GSA. It has been a great moment like
I'm on the same path like everyone else at last. Now I have started dosing PO4.



> I was allready wondering how they count it with those shrimps.. Is that 1 shriimp a liter regardless what in there next to them? I kinda feel like my tank is already crowded on the edge. I was thinking maybe 10 shrimps more because they love to hide anyway.. Seldom see them all 7 at one time.



You can see how Tropica tested it here: http://tropica.com/en/guide/algal-control/test-of-algal-eaters/
Amano shrimp does better in algae control than the Cherries not only because they are bigger.

Anyway, you can put even more Amanos than 1 per 5 litres, especially in the startup period.
It's a normal practice in Asia to put 20 Amanos in an ADA 60p tank (about 65 litres), then remove
some of them later when the amount of algae decreases to a level that just 6-7 of them can control.
Or just let all of them stay there if you don't mind.

I could count 14 Amanos in this 39 litre tank.





> Sceince Fiction recomended me to go forr the Fluke Solve as medication for the cory's.. Thats great stuff, doesn't have any nasty side effects.
> 
> This is the tank now.. about 45 days old..





> If it stays like that, im pleased, the moss will grow it over eventualy..



I'm glad you have it sorted out.


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## zozo (25 May 2015)

So i go and by me few more shrimps then.. .. Those female Mollies make me laugh, they are realy fanatic and agresive, they go around like rude bushwackers i see them pulling pieces of moss i just trying to replant off and constantly fighting eachother over the best piece. But not seem to eat the moss. Guess i have to stop doing that till all realy is in control. Realy funny clownish fish btw, sometimes they dive in to the ball shape lily pipe to have fun and swirl around till they get spit out again, hilarious..

But sorted it out? I hope it doesn't burst on me again for what ever reason.. I'm on a steady Co2 level now and dosing Tropica special PG and see how it goes. It still is in there and still see it floating around now and then, wondering where it comes from and where the nes is. What i see i pull out there, but what i don't see is what worries me the most, till now it keeps comming and i'm on it, it's not a real pest yet. . I do not have that fluffy one like in your picture i got that one that you hear snap when it brakes, dirty dark green. Makes it kinda easier and sooner to spot. I believe its a Cladohora species, had it under the microscoop, but it looks like two species in symbiosis, can't realy find any documentation on that. Realy don't know the english name for it.. The green one i just don't realy worry about, that's a normal one and only helps if in control.. 

Did put the Elodea back in there which i took out about 2 weeks ago, guess shouldn't have done that so soon.. Got something like a pond in the garden and exchanging things.. Taking tiny fresh baby cuttings from the butterfly fern and the water hiyacinth and let it float around in the tank so it can help compeat..

Thanks for the video..


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## xim (26 May 2015)

I like Mollies. They're trusting (may be too trusting) and funny. 
But also annoying sometime (pulling plants!) Lovely fish. 

I never have Cladophora but an acquaintance did. He carefully (and patiently) 
picked it up until his tank was clear of it. That took days or weeks, perhaps.


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## zozo (26 May 2015)

Tell me about it..  It must have bien weeks, i'm already batlling that anoying nasty stuff since 6 weeks every day now.. And my tank is stacked with mosses, it gets in there and it's hard to see the difference sometimes. And then i see tiny pieces floating around and try to catch them, because i know they end up somewhere in the moss, hairgrass or HC and start to grow and take over.. Have to be carefull not to mistake the shrimps antennas and pull them out.. haha..  Also made a scape with a lot of tiny cavities.. Never expected so mutch work on such a little tank  But it still is fun to do.. I guess i'll be a Cladophora terminator expert whem i'm done..


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## xim (26 May 2015)

zozo said:


> Tell me about it..  It must have bien weeks, i'm already batlling that anoying nasty stuff since 6 weeks every day now.. And my tank is stacked with mosses, it gets in there and it's hard to see the difference sometimes.....



I forgot... he did not have any moss.


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## zozo (31 May 2015)

I saw Jacque the shrimp suspiciously often interested in one particular spot on the hair grass.  and took a picture..



Actualy looks like there is nothing out of the ordinary.. Till i blew it up!!

Tadaa!



It wasn't to see with the (my) naked eye.. Took my brush from above and started brushing that spot and there it came up.





Nice one! Isn't it?  Thank you Jacque


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## zozo (22 Jun 2015)

xim said:


> I read your tank is 54 litre and you also have Amano shrimp in there. But how many of them?
> 
> It takes me 5 years to learn that I had too few shrimp all along. A 340 litre tank with just about 20 Amanos. After reading Tropica's recommendation about 1 Amanos per 5 litre, I still hesitated. Because 68 Amanos would be expensive. But in the end, a year later, I added 70 of them into the tank on January. I also lowered the water level to about 2 inches from the top of the tank, as they were very good (and expensive) escape artists.
> 
> ...



With my more stable conditions now i see it more and more disapear and places where still was little algae nesting are getting cleaner by the day.. Last week i bought 10 more Amano Shrimps and indeed it's disapearing more rapidly now. I had one little tiny Bolbitis diformis those grow realy slow, never have seen such a slow growing plant. That fern was constantly covered with some fibres of hair algea, so fine i needed a magnification glass to see, i just couldn't trim it more than i did because there would be no more leaves left to catch some light to make it come back. The 10 extra shrimps are in there for a week now and the little fern is already spot on clean.. Thanks for the input..  Hail to the shrimps.


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