[Heatherfly]

Hi everyone! I'm a learning tank keeper and I am facing a problem unique to me. I used to have a huge issue with hair algae, but keeping my DIY CO2 regular, staying on top of water changes, and using Flourish Excel has it pretty much defeated atm. I would like to stop using Excel at some point since it stunted a few of my plant species but it is just so effective against algae... Right now I face an odd brown fuzz growing at the base of my hairgrass.

Here's a picture of the tank taken a few minutes ago:

You can see the brown stuff most evidently on the right-hand side of the tank. It even pearls just like my plants do! Is that just brown algae? I lost my Oto a few months ago and he used to keep that stuff down so well I haven't seen it in this tank for a long time.

 

[plantbrain]

Get canned CO2, gas tank etc.

Master it, adjust slowly, use the pH/KH CO2 table to as a start point, then slowly adjust from there.

 

[Heatherfly]

Oh, I would love to! Aren't canned setups pretty expensive though? I'm a broke college student. Also, this tank is only 10 gallons. The DIY I have is pretty good. I have a drop checker in there... isn't that essentially the same thing as a pH/KH table? It usually stays from a "sufficient" to "over" level which is a pH 6.8-6.5 in a KH of 10, based on the directions for it.