[Getcusome]

Ok so 120 gallon, pressurized co2 diy reactor, dose excel as algicide, flourish for micros and no nitrates readable. All plants except one are growing like mad and healthy but this green junk is killing me! Help id it and suggestion on how to rid of it! Thanks in advance! As you can see it's primarily in the substrate and low lying!

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[jrman83]

Hair algae. Looks like most of it you can remove manually fairly easy and I would as you see it. Is there a reason you only dose micros and no macros? No nitrates is not necessarily good for a planted tank and most try to keep around 20ppm. The algae is not caused by nutrients in the water.

What light do you have on there?

 

[levian]

I can't see very well from the pictures, but it really looks like cladophora in my opinion. (I consider clado much worse than BBA, so hopefully that's not it! :red_mouth)

You should check out this link and try to ID it:
http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

If you do have cladophora, then you can try the following:

Pull out all affected plant while siphoning the water, because this algae can easily break off in tiny pieces, so you don't want to miss a single one of them (It can grow back and it also thrives in the same conditions as your plants)

Hungry amano shrimps are a natural way to get rid of them too, but your fish might snack on them before they can do anything, so I don't know about this one

Another solution is to stop CO2/ferts and reduce photo period to stop its propagation.. But your plants will also be affected, so you might not want that

 

[Raymond S.]

Hair algae caused by a combination of what jrman83 said about no Macros and too long a light period or too much light.
How may hrs of what kind/amount of light is in there ? Be specific please.

 

[Wasserpest]

Plants need all macros. If your NO3 reading is zero, algae are no surprise. Your plants may have grown like mad and healthy while there were some nitrates in the water, but there comes a point where nitrates and plant grow peter out and algae takes over.

 

[Getcusome]

Thanks everyone! I just finished a 50% change and dosed excel, micros and 1.5 teaspoons of kno3. Most of it sucked out pretty well. I also sprayed it all with hydrogen peroxide prior to the change. Looking to get amano shrimp but lfs has tiny ones. I built the light myself. 72 led setup.
CH1 : 36 white 6500K (3 LDD-1000H)
CH2 : 12 white 4500K (1 LDD-1000H)
CH3 : 6 red 6 3000K (1 LDD-600H)
CH4 : 12 violet420nm (1 LDD-600H)
Ch6 : 3 led moonlights
All four channels are run at 70%
Ch4 12 hours, channel3 12 hours, ch1-2 10 hours

 

[Getcusome]

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Rock from original post after the water change and a few more of the relatively baron bottom...

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[jrman83]

Personally, I run my lights no more than 8hrs on every tank I own. Most will stop at 10. Also, do you know what your light level is in PAR?

 

[lauraleellbp]

Looks like Clado to me, too. That stuff can be a bear to get rid of. Just keep up the manual removal and dosing Excel and H2O2 and hopefully you'll eventually get ahead of it.

What are your CO2 levels running? Do you have a drop checker?

 

[Getcusome]

No drop checker, just use my ph gauge vs my Kh and based off that I'm at or above 30ppm co2. 6.7 ph and usually around 6 Kh or higher. And no not sure my par rating. All the white LEDs are Cree xte and the others are bridgelux.

 

[lamiskool]

gl with the clado (it definitely is clado not hair algae) If even a spec of it survives then it will come back and as others have stated it thrives in the same conditions as plants so its a pain to get rid of, I ended up just completely tearing down my tank after fighting it for months and it kept coming back

 

[Getcusome]

Ummmmm seriously? Tear down my tank? Fml! I don't want to think that is my only solution. Guess I'll have an ongoing struggle with it. That sucks

 

[The Trigger]

Yeah that's cladophora. Craps a pain to get rid of. I just let it grown in my 10g. My shrimp love picking though it

 

[Getcusome]

Thanks trigger and everyone else. Hate that it's clado. Will continue manual removal and blasting with excel to hopefully terminate it all. Hopefully I can find some large amano's and throw them in to help me.

 

[levian]

Someone confirmed that 70 amano shrimps in a 20 gallon tank completely ate all the clado. So for your 120 gallon tank, you might need like a couple hundred to see a change! (Otherwise it would be pointless)

Luckily for me, I didn't have to tear down my entire tank, but I did have to trash my heavily infested HC carpet. I then basically went from high tech to low tech to stop the clado from growing too fast... aaand I guess my 3 amano shrimps (I couldn't afford an army of them!) took care of any remaining clado I might have missed

Having a low tech planted tank ain't so bad in the end :icon_lol:

 

[lauraleellbp]

No drop checker, just use my ph gauge vs my Kh and based off that I'm at or above 30ppm co2. 6.7 ph and usually around 6 Kh or higher. And no not sure my par rating. All the white LEDs are Cree xte and the others are bridgelux.

I haven't kept up with LEDs so have no clue how much light this fixture is putting out, but from the looks of your tank I'm going to guess you've got really high PAR (post some pictures and your light fixture specs over in the Lighting forum and I bet some of the other members can help you out).

Can you raise the fixture higher up off the tank? This would help slow the Clado down.

 

[Getcusome]

yeah its hanging from the ceiling and fully adjustable. instead of raising it can't i just lower the intensity and get the same result?

 

[lauraleellbp]

Oh if you've got a dimmer, even better.

 

[Getcusome]

oh yeah, light is fully tweakable!