Courgette caused hair algae, am I doomed?

[amberz]

Hi all, my first post here. I will include some background and hope I don't bore you.

I've had my 88L set up for about 1.5 years. It's always been moderately to heavily planted and currently has echinodorus, hygrophila polysperma, vallis, java fern, anubias, crypts, java moss and sagittaria subulata. I think I'm in the low light catagory at 23W LEDs. I only dose a micro fert daily (1 drop) and I don't use co2. It's quite heavily stocked with rasboras, tetras, panda cories, 3 otos and 2 frogs. This is why I have not used a macro fertiliser (but maybe I should)? My nitrates are usually around 10-20.

I have never had any algae to speak of, apart from green spot on the anubias and small amounts of cyanobacteria at the edges of the substrate. I suck this out every water change which is 50% approx weekly.

I often have a piece of broccoli hanging in there and leave it until eaten. Occasionally I've had courgette and cucumber for a change. Over this summer, I got busy and water changes became less frequent, maybe 2-3 weeks. Also feeding became less frequent. One day I felt guilty about this and put a big piece of courgette in the tank and fed the fish...

The day after, I woke up to green hair algae all over the vallis. I thought the cause must be that overtime, the system had become used to less food being added and now had a big load of nutrients to deal with. I did a 50% water change and have since kept up a regular routine... feed as usual and 50% weekly water changes. Basically, back to how I always did it. However, after 2 months the hair algae has never shifted and I can't understand why. The tank should be back to how it always was by now?

It's not horrendous but it's mighty annoying! Tonight, I decided to remove all the vallis and it's now sitting in a bucket with water straight from the tap, untreated and in the dark. I'm pretty confident this will kill the algae.

I gave the tank its 50% weekly water change but I'm concerned there will still be algae spores in there. What is your opinion on this? I am hoping that when I put the cleaned vallis back, it will be a fresh start.

 

[doylecolmdoyle]

Im not sure the courgette would be the cause, most likely the infrequent water change, it would take more than 24hrs for the courgette to effect the water (depending on the size of the tank), once algae takes a hold it can be difficult to get rid off, I would reduce light, more frequent water changes and perhaps you need to dose both macro and micros.

 

[amberz]

Thanks for the reply. After 24 hours the tank is still hair algae free. I was concerned that without the vallis, any remaining algae might attach itself to something else, but it hasn't. It's odd that it only likes vallis. The vallis is still in a bucket and when it's cleaned off, I will add some of it back and see if the algae appears again. If it does, then I will just have to forget vallis in the tank from now on.

 

[roadmaster]

The vallisneria being taller, closer to the light (assuming it has grown,)and possible CO2/nutrient deficiency,will be first to be affected.
I have done as much while trying to provide enough light for carpet plant with No CO2,limited nutrient's.
Taller plant's such as the vals,and crypt's,tips of sword plant's,crinum,water sprite,all suffered from increased lighting that I was trying to use to encourage the carpet plant(s).
I began adding a bit of ALL macro/micro nutrient's,decreased lighting period from 10 to 8 hours ,and added liquid carbon supplement which improved things considerably.
Also keep filter's cleaned monthly,and weekly water change.
While vegetable matter does not contain animal proteins to foul the water fairly quickly,,they should be removed after 24 /48 hours if not eaten.IMHO

 

[Guest]

For a moment then I thought you'd discovered a household remedy for hair loss...obviously my lysdexicia is playing tricks on me again 🙁

It's more likely that your declining water changing and general housekeeping regime is to blame and that when you refocussed your attention on the tank you noticed the algae that will probably have been growing happily unnoticed for sometime.

Give your filter a good clean, do a couple of substantial water changes and resume good housekeeping. It will disappear in time. You can trim your vallis, but do it at an angle so it looks more natural, you can also spot treat other areas with LC, but a word of caution, your vallis might take exception.

 

[amberz]

Yes, I've heard that vallis and liquid carbon don't always get along, so I'm not sure I would try that.

It's a good point that the vallis is basically the tallest plant... the tops are almost touching the light! Also, because it sent runners all over, it was quite crowded by the time the algae hit. It was the older leaves that suffered. In fact they didn't look great by that stage any way. The only older leaves that weren't hit, were near the bubbler and this makes me think I might not have enough air flow either, so have just bought a small pump to try and fix that.

On AqAdvisor I'm at 99% capacity fish wise. Is it worth getting a macro fertiliser? Would you say I have enough nitrogen and phosphate? Would it be worth buying something with potassium instead? I thought about something called "Tropical Aqua Florin Potassium" or "TNC Lite". Is it throwing money away without the added co2?

 

[Guest]

I think you should perhaps dose TNC complete, doubt it'll do any harm.