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Interesting ball of algae


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I have been redoing my old 525L tank, mainly the filtration, lighting and plants, so pretty much everything. And this ball of algae has grown on a rock over roughly a month. I know the likely cause for it appearing, and I could scoop it out of there and watch it grow again, but for now I've let it exist due to it being a potential food source for my eventual algae eaters.

I then did some research, and it would seem (to an algae noob as myself) that this is the kind of hair algae nothing likes to eat. And that is what I'm after here. Confirmation of my fears or tips.

It is coarse to the touch, not slimy or mucous, the strands are single hairs, no forks in them whatsoever, and when you press on it, it gives pretty good resistance. The growth had a massive burst when I relocated some plants and the clay balls used as the root fertilizer got in touch with the water. A lot of nutrients and iron in them, so it was to be expected. Based on all this I'm fairly certain this is Cladophora algae. And apparently this is the hardest kind to get rid of. Evil twin of the marimo balls is what I'm looking at basically.

Has anyone here had this stuff in their tank? Is it the nasty kind? Does anything eat it? Should I go nuclear on it already?

IMG_20201006_180205088.jpg

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42 minutes ago, H.K.Luterman said:

I love stuff like that and would just let it be. It's cute. ;3

Problem is it keeps growing. And it is pretty grabby. I had a plant closer to it earlier, and the algae really went for it, snagging onto it. For some reason it does not spread along the rock, and this is the only spot in the tank where this algae has "decided" to grow. 

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Yes, I've had Cladophora algae in my tank before, and I had great luck getting rid of it with hydrogen peroxide. I treated the whole tank with about 1 Tbsp of H2O2 per 10 gallons. First you switch off all the lights and filter, add the H2O2 into the tank and stir it in a bit, wait one hour, and then turn on the filters again after 1 hour. I think I did the treatment 3x per week, and I was careful to do some partial water changes during that week to avoid nitrogen spikes from the dying algae. It totally got rid of that algae.

If the algae is concentrated only in that one area, it might be more effective to spot-treat it directly using a pipette with a squirt of hydrogen peroxide (or liquid carbon if you don't have any plants that are sensitive to it). I also turned off the filter/light during the spot treatment. Hope that helps!

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1 hour ago, Irene said:

Yes, I've had Cladophora algae in my tank before, and I had great luck getting rid of it with hydrogen peroxide. I treated the whole tank with about 1 Tbsp of H2O2 per 10 gallons. First you switch off all the lights and filter, add the H2O2 into the tank and stir it in a bit, wait one hour, and then turn on the filters again after 1 hour. I think I did the treatment 3x per week, and I was careful to do some partial water changes during that week to avoid nitrogen spikes from the dying algae. It totally got rid of that algae.

If the algae is concentrated only in that one area, it might be more effective to spot-treat it directly using a pipette with a squirt of hydrogen peroxide (or liquid carbon if you don't have any plants that are sensitive to it). I also turned off the filter/light during the spot treatment. Hope that helps!

Thank you for the reply. You are confident my diagnosis of the algae type is correct? I have not seen a similar ball shape anywhere on the internet so far, and curiously it is located in this one spot only. Mainly the coarse texture and spongy consistency is what my diagnosis is based on.

I have looked into H2O2 and apparently it can be harmful to some plants too, maybe even snails? I have about a gazillion Malaysian trumpet snails in the tank, and I'd hate to nuke them with any treatment. Also, how strong was the H2O2 you used? That should make a huge difference to the dosage, I've seen anything from 3-30% strong solutions.

Before using any chemicals I was hoping there would be some algae eater that would like to eat this stuff. If and when I go for the chemical warfare, I think I'll remove the ball from the aquarium manually before dosing in the stuff to ease the load on the poor bacteria.

I think I need to get some H2O2 as a reserve option anyway, no matter how this goes 🙂

Edited by aquatoid
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9 hours ago, Ben Ellison said:

I did some reading on other forums and a SAE was recommended to eat it.

I looked into that, they seem to be a bit.. fishy about it though. Not the most reliable algae eaters, and might actually like my mosses more than the algae 😞 That is an additional thing actually I should have probably mentioned before, I have some weeping moss I'd rather not nuke with the medication. 

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I was using 3% H2O2 from my local drugstore. I don't know how they do with snails, but they didn't harm my 100s of cherry shrimp or my plants at all. The tutorial I used was from Mark's Shrimp Tanks. I'm not sure this is the right video, but here is one from his channel: 

 

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The clump of algae is now in a bucket waiting for the Malaysian trumpet snails to evacuate it. I did the dum-dum and tried to get the snails off the algae in the aquarium, and noticed some strands of algae breaking free. I think I caught them though.. I didn't scrub the rock completely yet, nor did I spot treat it with H2O2, but I'll keep that as an option if the other measures won't help.

There is now more plants in the tank than when the algae popped up, and that will get better by the day as my rather slow plants start getting bigger and bigger. Also, I won't be rummaging through the substrate releasing all the nutrients and trace elements from the clay balls as the plants are already pretty much where I want them to be. I also reduced the lighting period a bit.

I did like the look of the algae ball too, and honestly the aquarium looks almost naked without it, since the plants are still growing. That shouldn't be an issue in the long run, as I have a Barclaya Longifolia bulb trying to take root near the big rock. And I think in the end, I'd prefer the Barclaya over the algae 😄

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a bit of an update, never hurts to have one I suppose. 

The algae started to grow back a bit after I took out the ball. There obviously was some left on the rock, and I had no illusions about being able to remove it completely mechanically. Today I did some more algae picking and after a water change (filters still turned off) I also squirted some (20 ml) of H2O2 directly on the rock where the remnants of the algae still were.

The effect was at least very visible, it was almost like the algae tufts were perling for 15-30 minutes. Must be the extra O in the H202 going for the algae. None of the nearby plants or the snails on the rock had anything like that going on. In fact the snails seem to be just fine as far as I can tell.

Remains to be seen how effective this was in the end, but I'm hopeful for sure. At least I have more H2O2 for additional treatments if one time wasn't enough.

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