Algae ID Help

[castiel]

I've been battling an algae outbreak in my 5 g Fluval Spec for months. I've tried changing the amount of lighting (adding more lighting, less, and doing blackouts), changing the amount of ferts (adding more, adding less, more water changes, less water changes) and removing as much of the algae as possible but have been unsuccessful in winning this battle. Can anyone ID what type of algae I've been fighting? It grows thick enough I can't even rip it out, I have to cut it out. I've been considering tearing down the tank and setting it back up but wanted to see if anyone has any ideas before doing so. I haven't tried Easy Carbon because there's so much algae in there I don't think the filter could handle clearing it all out.

Edited September 21, 2022 by castiel
Formatting and thought of something else

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

That's green hair algae.  I would discontinue nutrients and use no light at all on the tank.  If the tank sits near a window, I would black it out with towel or something.

 

[AnimalNerd98]

This looks like hair algae to me. What type of light do you have and how long does the light run every day? Also, what do you have in the tank in terms of plants and fish/other inhabitants?

Here is what it says on the Co-Op Blog for algae: They’re generally caused by an excess of certain nutrients (such as iron), too much light, or not enough nutrients (to match the long lighting period). Therefore, try decreasing your lighting period, increasing fertilization, or decreasing iron. Siamese algae eaters, amano shrimp, molly fish, and Florida flagfish are good candidates to use as clean-up crew. You can also help them by manually removing large clumps using a toothbrush.

I would try to manually remove as much as possible and employ some of the algae eaters listed in the article. You can also dose Easy Carbon (it won't kill it all at once), but will limit additional algae growth. I recently got a Florida flagfish to clean up some of my plants. I also have amano shrimp and platies in my planted 20 gallon that gnaw on this type of algae. 

Edited September 21, 2022 by AnimalNerd98

[castiel]

On 9/21/2022 at 1:20 PM, AnimalNerd98 said:

This looks like hair algae to me. What type of light do you have and how long does the light run every day? Also, what do you have in the tank in terms of plants and fish/other inhabitants?

Here is what it says on the Co-Op Blog for algae: They’re generally caused by an excess of certain nutrients (such as iron), too much light, or not enough nutrients (to match the long lighting period). Therefore, try decreasing your lighting period, increasing fertilization, or decreasing iron. Siamese algae eaters, amano shrimp, molly fish, and Florida flagfish are good candidates to use as clean-up crew. You can also help them by manually removing large clumps using a toothbrush.

I would try to manually remove as much as possible and employ some of the algae eaters listed in the article. You can also dose Easy Carbon (it won't kill it all at once), but will limit additional algae growth. I recently got a Florida flagfish to clean up some of my plants. I also have amano shrimp and platies in my planted 20 gallon that gnaw on this type of algae. 

I have the stock Fluval light that comes with the Spec V. It's on only 1-3 hours a day currently since I've been trying to get rid of the algae, but it does get a small amount of indirect light from my windows. The tank has duckweed, stellatus octopus, crypt parva, christmas moss, and monte carlo (last I checked it was still alive). It's only inhabitants are an army of MTS and ramshorn snails. It also has some lucky bamboo and two pothos plants with their roots in the tank. 

[castiel]

So I ran this by some friends I bounce ideas off of and they reminded me that I bought some vinyl to black out the back of the tank but never got around to draining the tank and putting it on, so knowing that the sunlight is probably a contributing factor I'm now thinking about taking the tank down (storing all of the plants, snails, and substrate) and setting the tank back up after putting the film on the back. Do you think this change in variables could make it worse? Should I try and get rid of the hair algae before doing this or does it not really matter either way? 

[redfish]

Are you trying to put the vinyl on the inside or the outside of the tank?  Why do you need to drain the tank?

[castiel]

On 9/21/2022 at 2:10 PM, redfish said:

Are you trying to put the vinyl on the inside or the outside of the tank?  Why do you need to drain the tank?

This is why I shouldn't post when I have a migraine lol, I don't need to drain the tank to put the vinyl on I'm not sure why I thought that.

[redfish]

No problem!  The background would help block ambient light.  I'd try to follow what @Chick-In-Of-TheSea posted above and see how it goes.

[castiel]

I just wanted to update on how this was doing! I've had it blacked out for a little over a month (only turning light on for WC and topping off) and while it was starting to do better it was moving along slowly. I just went to top it off because the pump ran dry which is odd when I noticed the main tank itself was extremely full. I had bought a filter intake cover on Etsy to keep snails from getting into the filter, it turns out it was restricting the flow so much there was next to no water movement in the tank (I couldn't tell because even cleaning out the holes was restricted flow). I took it off and the increased flow stirred up quite a bit of the algae into the filter. I'm going to keep the blackout going and do a water change and filter service this weekend and see if that doesn't clear the rest of this out.