The Puffer Forum

This really isn't sick fish, but its a sick aquarium which can lead to sick fish.

I have a problem with hair algae. It seems to be infesting both my tank. My 30 gallon tank with 2 dwarf puffers, 1 clown pleco and 10 kuhli loaches has thicker black stuff. I was able to get rid of most of it by pulling the tank apart nd bleaching/vinegaring everything, but I couldn't get it out of the substrate. I've tried only turning the lights on for brief periods as opposed to all day and that doesn't seem to help much, it does help, but very little I think.

My 110 gallon tank with 13 mollies is getting a similar problem. The argonite sand has begun turning green, and on my rocks I'm beginning to find small strands of greenish hair growing. I have 3 pond snails in there, they aren't making a dent in it, though they are getting big, really really fast. The algae is even growing on my alternanthera reineckii, which seems to be growing roots like mad.

What can I do to eradicate or control these problems?

I read an article somewhere in monsterfishkeeps forum saying dosing flourish excel will do the trick. http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... hair+algae

Amano shrimp eat hair algae. Apple snails also make short shrift of algae.

I think alternanthera reineckii is quite a slow growing plant. What others do you have in there? You could try planting a some fast growers to try and outcompete the algae for nutrients. This works quite well, but you have to cut them back regularly. Hygrophila Polysperma and wisteria are good for this.

Another thing to do is keep nitrates down (ie water changes)

you just have 13 mollies in a 110G tank? ...

plurmaster wrote:I read an article somewhere in monsterfishkeeps forum saying dosing flourish excel will do the trick. http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... hair+algae

It seems thats a last resort type deal. Too bad I can't find any flourish excel around here.

TeePuff wrote:Amano shrimp eat hair algae. Apple snails also make short shrift of algae.

I'm finding it difficult to get Amanos so I'm trying their little cousins, ghosts. I wanted six, but they girl couldn't count them and I got nine. Two were made into food, one, bigger than my little toe nail was put in a 10 gallon with bumblebee gobies and the others were put into the tank.

chubber wrote:I think alternanthera reineckii is quite a slow growing plant. What others do you have in there? You could try planting a some fast growers to try and outcompete the algae for nutrients. This works quite well, but you have to cut them back regularly. Hygrophila Polysperma and wisteria are good for this. Another thing to do is keep nitrates down (ie water changes)

Just the two AR. Although I have taken some sniplets and hopefully will have some more soon enough. Surprisingly water changes didn't help. They made it worse it seemed. Mind you the long strands on "pride rock" look kind of cool, but the puffs on the glass don't.

t1gerbee wrote:you just have 13 mollies in a 110G tank? ...

Yes. And some babies. I'm running an inadequate filter (Aquaclear 70) for anything else. I don't like HOB's for a tank this size. They make a lot of noise and if the water evaporates, all you hear is water splashing down. I have an aquaclear 110 as well which isn't plugged in. I plan on adding a dozen kuhli loaches or so. Maybe a medium pleco or some smaller ones, like clowns.

I had a really bad algae problem in my planted tank. I started dosing with flourish excel and purchased some rosey barbs. They love eating the stuff. You can get the flourish excel from drsfostersmith.com. Or you can do a 3 day blackout on your tank and see if that works.

Siamese Algae Eaters will go nuts on this type of algae (beard algae from the sound of it). It took about 10 days for two SAE's to clear it from my 30 gallon.

Heck get some puffers for your 110!

Have you tried algae eater? Your mollies should be eating the algae too.

here's what I've said in another thread about hair algae:
According to things that i've read about hair algae is that relatively high levels of ammonia or iron or lack of CO2 or combinations of all 3 can cause it. the forum below has many good articles on algae identification and how to combat it:

http://www.ukaps.org/forum

I agree with Chubber; stick some fast growing plants in there and do plenty of water changes to keep the level of nutrients in check, i would guess that a lack of CO2 isn't a factor since there are only 2 plants in there, then again if you have a lot of surface agitation then some of the CO2 may be escaping.

Are you dosing extra iron (ie root tabs or liquid form)? what ammonia readings are you getting?

edmlfc1 wrote:Or you can do a 3 day blackout on your tank and see if that works.

Unfortunately the tank is in my bedroom. Might be hard to black it out.

Dadof4 wrote:Siamese Algae Eaters

I don't think they suit my tank though, otherwise I'd grab a few. I've got black fish, green plants with white sand and whiteish rocks.

pufferfreak wrote:Heck get some puffers for your 110!

I don't know of any that would agree to being with the mollies. A dwarf puffer would, but then he would be living in his food dish and might be forced to hide because of the swarm of mollies.

pufferfreak wrote:Have you tried algae eater? Your mollies should be eating the algae too.

I haven't tried an algae eater yet. I'm trying to find one that is either black, white or stripped like a royal pleco. Although a spotted cory or more might do. How well do they devour algae?

Iliveinazoo wrote:Are you dosing extra iron (ie root tabs or liquid form)? what ammonia readings are you getting?

I haven't dosed anything. I added Water Conditioner each time I had a plant or a new fish or change the water. Ammonia is still at 0, although when I had the filter off, there was a barely noticeble increase, but it's gone again.

I just put in a small clump of dwarf hairgrass although its labelled Eleocharis acicularis. I believe it should grow fairly fast and give me an awesome carpeted look.

"Unfortunately the tank is in my bedroom. Might be hard to black it out."

Your ammonia spike may have sparked the algae growth I suppose, for the blackout you could wrap black bin bags around the tank and selotape them together?

You could get a couple of Nerite snails they absolutely devour algae!

Well, algae grows for a few reasons.. it has plenty of nutrients to use is the main one.

Reduce your lighting, reduce your feedings. Make sure you're doing plenty of water changes so there are not a lot of nitrates available as fertilizer.

You may want to increase your water flow, I've found thread algae (both green and black beard) tends to happen when there isn't enough current. This is the main option I would focus on right now, along with increased water changes.

Be sure there is no sunlight shining directly on the tank.

I would do as much manual removal of the algae as you can do, reduce your lighting to at most 6-8 hours a day, feed less, bump up water changes and increase current.. see if that helps before considering medications/chemicals.

If you have to do a full blackout, you can tape black plastic garbage bags to the outside of the tank.

You need to learn what a "real" algae eater is. Corydoras are meat eaters, as are Royal Plecos (actually, most pleco and catfish species are meat eaters/scavengers). Your choices are pretty much limited to bristlenose plecos, otos, SAE's and algae eating shrimp (amanos, red cherries, ghosts don't really eat algae). However, if the mollies, who tend to eat anything algae-related, are not finding this thread algae tasty, its not very likely any other algae eater is going to really want to eat it either. A true SAE probably will eat it, but they are hard to find (easy to find the WRONG type), and get pretty decent sized (6" or so, very active fish that need room).

There's also the chance that your water source has a heck of a lot of organics in it already, feeding the algae. Are you on a well or live in a farming community? You might have to use a phosphate sponge or filter your water, but I would try the increased water changes and water flow first and see if that helps.

Adding some fast growing plants is a good idea, but only if your tank is set up to support them. If they don't survive, they'll just die and rot, adding to the available nutrients for the algae. Also, if its a current issue, they may make things worse by blocking even more current, and then you'd end up with a big mess of thread algae choking up the plants. I've had that happen, actually have it happening right now in a tank that I don't have nearly enough water flow on.

While it may work, I'd suggest staying away from duckweed/frogbit. It really does use up nutrients and clear up algae, but it also blocks light to your other plants, gets all over everything, plugs up your filter intake and is nearly impossible to get rid of once you have it, as it reproduces so dang fast.