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My treatment for spirogyra algae

25K views 30 replies 12 participants last post by  MikeP_123 
#1 ·
My tank (link is below in my signature) was affected by spirogyra algae which is notoriously difficult to get rid of. I searched extensively for possible treatments and was never able to find a tried and true solution but I was able to get an idea of what might work. So here is exactly what I did, in painstaking detail:

Step 1: First did a 50% water change. I uprooted all the plants, with the exception of my glosso. Separated them all into bunches by species, then put them in a number of 5 gallon buckets, with only 2 or 3 species in each bucket. I filled each bucket maybe a quarter of the way with regular tap water at around room temperature.

Step 2: I used 2 different dish washing tubs: one for the H2O2 bath and one for rinsing. In the red tub, I put 1 gallon of room temp tap water and 8mL 3% H202. In the black tub, I put a little over a gallon of room temp tap water.

Step 3: I took each plant, 1 species at a time, and rinsed thoroughly at the faucet. As I rinsed, I held each individual stem, suspended upside down, and tried to remove any green threads that I saw. Also, as I ran them under the water, I would place them in the palm of my hand and run the stems across my hand, passing them through the stream of water. As I did this, more green threads would come off. I threw out any severely affected stems, only keeping healthier, neater, and less affected stems.

Step 4: I placed each plant, 1 or 2 species at a time, into the H2O2 bath and set a timer of 20 minutes. While one group would soak, I would be rinsing and cleaning the next bunch to be soaked. Once the time was up, I put on latex gloves to avoid prolonged contact with H2O2. I rinsed the now-treated plants as I did in Step 3, again looking for and removing any green threads and removing at leaves affected by BBA. After rinsing, I placed each bunch into the black (plain tap water) wash tub and let them soak there for 10-20 minutes before I removed them from that tub and floated them in a 10 gallon aquarium filled ~5 gallons of regular tap water. Throughout this process, none of the water was de-chlorinated. I eventually got all of the plants treated and rinsed and they all were floated overnight in the 10 gallon aquarium, mainly because I did not have time to replant on the same day.
Side note: I divided and thinned out the blyxa japonica quite a bit, removing several lower leaves and throwing out severely algae infested bunches. I ended up with ~15 smaller, much thinner bunches that appeared to be algae-free​
Side note #2: I changed the water in both the red (H2O2) and black (tap water) tubs after every other batch soaked (roughly every 4 species treated)​
Step 5: I removed the driftwood, rinsing well in tap water and scrubbing with a fresh sponge and a toothbrush to remove any clumps of BBA that I had killed with spot treatment. I removed all the moss from 2 of the pieces of driftwood that I had tied moss to only a few weeks ago. On a third piece of driftwood which had quite an accumulation of algae-infested fissidens, I took a pair of sharp scissors and carefulled cut away the infested moss just above the surface of the wood, leaving only short stubs what had attached to the driftwood. I then rinsed it thoroughly, them dipped this piece in the red tub, but this time containing 1.5 gallons of tap water and 16mL of H2O2 (extra strength solution, bringing out the big guns). I soaked this piece for 15-20 minutes, then rinsed it thoroughly for several minutes. I then placed the driftwood back into the tank.

Step 6:
I scraped algae on all the glass surfaces of the aquarium, let the filter run for an hour or two, light and CO2 off, then did a 50% water change, lightly vacuuming the substrate throughout the tank. I ran the filter for another couple hours, with the light and CO2 off. I leveled all the substrate to the general desired shape. I then turned off the filter, waited about 5 minutes, then spot treated my glosso using a total of 20mL 3% H2O2. I let this sit with no water flow for around 15 minutes, then ran the filter again for the afternoon.

Step 7: replanted all the plants, keeping only the healthier-looking stems. It looks pretty thin right now, but everything will grow back with time. I have re-dosed the aquarium with macros, but much lighter dosing both to limit accumulation of nutrients for the time being and due to the greatly decreased plant biomass.

I plan to clean the filter and rinse well with de-chlorinated water soon as the final step (this is the third day after beginning the treatment). As of right now, I do not see any green threads of algae on any of the plants or attached to any of the driftwood. Hopefully this extensive, labor intensive, and time consuming treatment has worked. I will reply back to this thread later on as I am better able to tell whether this treatment was successful or not. I hope this might help anyone else who might have a similar problem.
 
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#7 ·
I found this thread on The Barr Report: Algaefix toxicity test on Red Cherry shrimp

Would that have a similar effect on Amano shrimp as well? I also notice that it took longer treatment for spirogyra, about a week, which according to your experiment, would have proved fatal for the shrimp. Was that a week of daily dosing only or was there more to it?
 
#8 ·
I removed the shrimp.

I left a few in there to see what they would do, and often times, you miss a few shrimp etc.......hard to get every last one, they acted drunk and slow....so they were much easier to catch and remove after 1-2 days of treatment.

This algae is a tough one to kill.
I have done a similar method you suggested, PITA, took about 1-2 months to get rid of it. Lots of work.

I spend time tweaking CO2, cleaning the tank, trimming better, cleaning filters etc instead now.

So it did not kill many of the shrimp(cherry or Amano's), maybe 5-30% losses for me........it did kill a few. Fish and every plant and moss were not affected.
I do large water changes and cleaning before and after also.

Generally, it's too much light, not enough CO2, current also may play some role for this alga.

It can also be transferred in an active virulent form from say out side in ponds, vats etc, into your aquarium if you do not wash your arms and are picking or cleaning in your pond or tubs. I must have done this 3-4 times this year.:icon_roll

PITA.........but this product does not kill too much else other than green hair algae.

Still, I welcome it because of the labor is among the worst to get rid of it. BBA is not bad with Excel and a few other things.
 
#9 ·
The problem with spirogyra is that you can have a prolific amount of it, but the root cause was temporary and simply a trigger regardless of how balanced your tank is currently. I had an outbreak I fought for a long time that started from am ammonia spike related to adding a handful of Amazonia to a relatively established tank, and with Tom's recommendation tried AlgaeFix. It worked beautifully and has not come back since.

I did remove my inverts, however, but saw no ill effects on my fish or plants after following the directions.
 
#10 ·
Thanks for sharing your experience. I guess in the future I could try to remove my inverts. Finding and catching them all seems like it would be a huge PITA, but I guess maybe not as big a pain as doing what I did.

Tom, thanks again for your response. I don't exactly know what my trigger might have been, but I'm sure overly dense plant growth leading to inadequate circulation, intense lighting, etc. played a role in exacerbating the problem. I'm fertilizing using EI method. While cleaning the tank, I did find 2 dead assassin snails. Idk if that would be enough of an ammonia spike to trigger the outbreak.
 
#14 ·
#18 ·
I haven't updated this thread in a while. The H2O2 treatment appeared to work for about a week and a half but I started seeing little green threads appearing again. This time I set up a quarantine tank and caught all my shrimp and quarantined them in the quarantine tank for the duration of the AlgaeFix treatment which did work. I used 3 treatments as per the directions on the bottle, 3 days apart, just to make sure I got rid of it before I left for Christmas break. This looks to have worked so far but I will know for sure when I get back to my apartment on Friday. I've had someone caring for the aquarium while I've been gone.

Lesson learned: try Algaefix first. Much less labor intensive and I saw improvement withing the first 3 days and throughout the whole treatement there was do noticeable damage to any of the plants or the moss.
 
#24 ·
I understand that. Before I left, I increased CO2 as well as cleaned my diffuser, decreased photo-period, added a 1.5hr break in photo-period midday, thinned out what needed thinning, trimmed everything pretty heavily, I might also try raising my light a couple inches higher in the canopy to help reduce BBA growth as well. putting in my glass top has definitely had an effect on light intensity and BBA growth has slowed, but I still have 2 or 3 inches more that I can possibly raise the light to decrease or halt its growth. While I've been gone I've had someone coming to fertilize the tank each day and do water changes according to my normal maintenance schedule. I wish I had found your advice about AlgaeFix before I went through all that trouble with the H2O2. It worked remarkably well, apparent after the 2nd dose (6 days, dosed on day 1 and 4). I just did a 3rd dose to be safe. I was actually able to catch all of my shrimp and place them all in quarantine so I had no casualties.
 
#25 ·
Update: While I was gone for Christmas break, my CO2 ran low, so I had an algae bloom. When I returned, the plants were completely overrun with hair algae, whether it be spirogyra or other types, as well as BBA. It appears that I didn't re-acclimate my shrimp adequately when I added them back to the tank right before I left and I guess they all died :( Since I got back last week, I've treated with AlgaeFix for 2 doses, one dose on the first day and one dose on the 4th day. It has nearly eliminated the hair algae. I will dose maybe once or twice more to try to get rid of it all, but the AlgaeFix worked wonders on the hair algae. Now I just have to figure out how to kill the BBA. Now that I have my CO2 back in order, I should be able to prevent further growth, but killing what is already there in my next task to conquer.
 
#26 · (Edited)
I'd been silently monitoring this thread as I too had an outbreak after uprooting some larger stem plants - I think the stirred up aquasoil was likely the cause. Anyway after trimming impacted plants plants, more frequent water changes, manually removing it and spot treatments with hydrogen peroxide (these all just kept it in check but didn't eliminate it) I finally succumbed to doing a blackout on the tank while I was out of town.

Before leaving did a very large water change, cleaned all the interior glass, filter intake and any large portions on the plants. Then blacked out the entire room for ~2.5 days except for 1/2 hour each day when I had some LEDs come to provide indirect light for the fish during their feeding. Tank appears clean of the stuff, now have to see if it stays that way when I go back to a normal light schedule. Fish and CRS survived, plants look pale but alive, dwarf hairgrass took the worst of it but should recover with time.
 
#30 · (Edited)
I have spirogyra and BBA in my tank too. Really want to kill them all. nasty look in my tank. trying to figure out the root issue, but also want to get rip of them as soo as possible, so I bought 3 platy from petsmart and put them in the tank to see if they really eat spirogyra. (A lot of people report that platy eat spirogyra ) It's already 2 days. I see one of them eating the spirogyra this morning. That's a good sign. I don't feed them anything. Hop they eAT ALL the spirogyra.
 
#31 ·
Dug up this thread from google. It seems spirogyra algae and BBA have happened in combo for a couple of contributors.

I am having this same issue. Anyone know if the cause of this combo was ever determined?
 
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