Hair algae
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10
I have a 65 gallon high tech tank that has had hair algae for about 1.5 months now and I can’t seem to figure out why and it hasn’t gotten much better. My lights are on a timer for 6 hours (1 current USA serene pro and a two star 900E). My c02 turns on 1.5 hours before the lights and turns off an hour before the lights, my drop checker is green after about 2.5 hours with the lights on. I have about 10 amano shrimp and 25 Bloody Mary shrimp and it hasn’t gotten any better. I manual have to remove it every 3-5 days to keep it under control. I was dosing with Dustin’s fish tanks plant fertilizer and iron fertilizer every other day but stopped because I thought that was the problem. I still have been dosing about every 3 days now because I have some nutrient hungry plants. I could use all the info or help I can get please. Doesn’t look to bad right now because I just manually removed a lot yesterday.
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I could reduce one of the 2 but with my tank being 24” deep and about 18” to my substrate I need the high par level for my Monte Carlo that I’m trying to carpet and light hungry plants. I don’t think I can reduce intensity and keep my par levels.
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How often are you changing water? And how much?
Keep dosing your ferts, algae pops up because lighting, co2, nutrients are out of balance, I suspect the lighting.
I would start with reducing your light intensity. Have you run your tank with just the Twinstar? Raising the light off of the tank will increase light spread and reduce PAR at substrate. Raise the lights and monitor your monte carlo.
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Water changes every Saturday and about 30 % so I don’t shock my shrimp to much. I have only had one light on and had it raised but the carpet and red plants weren't doing good because my tank is already 24” deep so I would be adding 4” more of height.
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Flow could be an issue? I had a low flow tank because I needed to accomodate a betta and had bad hair algae growth but after it passed, I let the flow rip and the hair algae didn't spread as much. I noticed that you have your inlet right across the tank from your outlet, you could move it next to each other so the outlet pushes water all the way around the tank before it reaches your inlet. I tried to draw a crappy pic of a top-down view for you with the green rectangle as the outlet and the green circles as the outlet locations. Also, you can place your CO2 diffuser kinda under the outlet so that it pushes the bubbles around the tank better. You can watch how the bubbles move around the tank to get an idea of what your flow is doing.
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I doubt it is a lighting issue. I use a home built LED fixture on my 120 gallon and had everything in balance for roughly 3 years without a hair algea issue. Then I got some new Anabas plants and saw some hair algae on them about a month after planting them. It spread like wild fire for me and now I'm even considering a complete rebuild of the tank to get rid of it.
The Anabas is one of my favorite foreground plant and the hair algae started at its roots.
The Anabas is one of my favorite foreground plant and the hair algae started at its roots.
When I fight algae there's three things to do:
1. Ease up on the light brightness
2. Increase co2 and macro ferts
3. Spend some time manually cleaning things (plants, filter, substrate) several different times
You sound like you've got a good handle on this though. The thing to try is less light intensity, duration seems fine. Monte Carlo doesn't need as much light to carpet as you might think. It'll be a bad carpet if it's covered with algae.
My tanks do a lot better with auto dosing pumps. Im too inconsistent at fertilizing manually. Algae takes advantage of my inconsistency.
1. Ease up on the light brightness
2. Increase co2 and macro ferts
3. Spend some time manually cleaning things (plants, filter, substrate) several different times
You sound like you've got a good handle on this though. The thing to try is less light intensity, duration seems fine. Monte Carlo doesn't need as much light to carpet as you might think. It'll be a bad carpet if it's covered with algae.
My tanks do a lot better with auto dosing pumps. Im too inconsistent at fertilizing manually. Algae takes advantage of my inconsistency.
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I have the same problem. I got some rotala red from someone else's tank that had hair algae on it thinking no problem my mollies will eat it. Nope. Now its everywhere.
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What auto doser do you use and also what ferts do you use?
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