[HeresJohnny]

Any ideas on why I have hair algae?

Tank - UNS60L (6 Gallon)
Light - Finnex Planted+ 24/7 (on for 6 hours @ max)
Co2 - 1BPS, adding 1 ml of Excel every other day
Fert - NilocG Thrive (1ml; MWF)
Filter - Finnex PX-360
Fauna - 2 Fancy Guppies, 3 Ammano, Bladder snails, Amphipods

Plants:
Hydrocotyle Tripartita
Ranunculus Inundatus
Anubias Afzelii
Anubias Golden Nana
Anubias Nana
Anubias Nana Petite
Bucephelandra Red
Bucephelandra Mini
Pogostemon Helferi
Rotala Walichii
Hemianthus callitrichoides 'cuba'

Started seeing Green Hair Algae grow on my HC about two weeks ago, reduced light to 5 hours, increased Co2 to 2BPS, started dosing Excel. Decided I wanted to be able to reduce the intensity of the light because it is a shallower tank, purchased/installed the Planted+. Currently on day 2 of new light, algae seems to be growing faster. Manually removed majority of it this morning, dosed 5ml of excel directly to problem area, followed by an additional 5ml of Hydrogen Peroxide. Nitrate level was at 5ppm, Phosphate at 5ppm as well. Anubias, Ranunculus, Buce, Pogostemon all seem to be growing well (no algae + new leafs). Rotala and HC seem to have the majority of the algae. It is possible that I need more flow coming from a different direction, I can't find any small wave makers/power heads that wont stick out like a soar thumb, might have to bite the bullet.

I believe the problem to be the Phosphate levels and Lights, so I have purchased Phosphoguard and Dimmed lights a bit. Any other suggestions? Please help!

 

[Scully]

Patience is key.

Change one thing at a time and wait a week. Remove what you can manually as you see fit.

Do a full water test, Ammonia, Nitrite, nitrate, GH/KH, etc. If anything seems out of wack it may help guide you. Otherwise stick to what you were doing and just change one thing at a time.

Also H2O2 works best if spot treated after turning off any filters/powerheads and letting it sit for 5-10 minutes. Afterwards do a WC.

As for your light, is it on 5 hour a day total? Is it full intensity or dimmed?

 

[Plinkploop]

My first thought is light intensity. I just got my finnex 24/7 planted+ today and can tell already I'm asking for any algae bloom with it at max. Have you actually checked your phosphates or are you guessing? It would be horrible to throw yourself further off balance by removing a macro when it's not the problem. I think it's a good thing you dialed up the CO2. I would just dim the intensity of your lights and keep your CO2 supped and give it a few days. Algae, though sometimes unsightly, isn't really something that I'd go drastically changing lots of things to at one time to take care of.

 

[sidefunk]

If your tank is still relatively new (like 4-6 weeks) not sure I would even tweak lighting time (aside from a slow intensity ramp considering it sound like its new). Just keep removing manually, keep up good water change schedule and maybe run some purigen. 6 gallons is a small tank with stability hard to achieve until some significant time has passed.

 

[Deanna]

In all of this, try to maintain stability. For now, keep your lights and ferts where they are. Don’t use phosphate removers - PO4 does not induce algae and the plants need the PO4.

Focus upon CO2. Using bps is not a good guide. Use the pH drop method. Let some tank water sit out for a day and measure the pH. This allows the CO2 to degas. Then, measure the pH of the water in the tank an hour or two after your CO2 comes on (I assume that you have full levels of CO2 the entire photoperiod …right?). You should target a full one-point pH difference between the fully gassed tank water and the fully degassed sample water. This will give you ~30ppm of CO2. Many of us have pH drops ranging between 1 and 1.5. Make sure that the dKH level is identical in the sample and tank water.

Once you achieve this pH difference, add 1ml/gal of Excel one time only. It can be repeated weekly if needed. This will kill the hair algae. When you achieve this CO2 level, the use of Excel should not be necessary as a regular dosing.

If you find that the current pH difference is well below one point, raising it to the one-point difference should be done slowly to allow your fish to adjust. Also, if you find that more CO2 is needed, keep an eye on your ferts as they may be consumed more rapidly. You can do this by monitoring NO3 and PO4. Your current PO4 level isn’t bad, but the NO3 is somewhat low and could easily slip to nothing if plants increase growth. It is usually recommended to maintain at least a 5:1 NO3O4 ratio. I recommend the Salifert test kits.