How do I clean algae off a banana plant

[John Collins]

I have some banana plants that are doing well, except for the fact that hair algae is growing on them. Should I dip them in something, rinse them under running water? What should I do. Any help is appreciated.

[TheSwissAquarist]

Try Amano Shrimp, who usually work well at keeping it contained; and clean the worst of the stuff off by hand.

[AnimalNerd98]

You can try manually removing as much as you can before dosing Easy Carbon or another source of gluteraldehyde. You could also employ some algae eaters like Amano shrimp, Florida Flagfish, or even a hungry colony of livebearers like platies. 

[John Collins]

Thanks! I'm going to have to try manual removal. Unfortunately, I have a female betta who goes after every other thing in that tank except for a Nerite snail who seems uninterested. I used to have plenty of "pest" snails to deal with stuff like this, and one by one by one she took them all out.

 

[TheSwissAquarist]

Whatever you do, don’t put any plecos in!

Turns out they eat the plants. 
I found this out the hard way when my breeding colony of BN plecos wiped out the 10 plant jungle which had taken a year to grow!

[JoeQ]

For manual removal I usually strategically clip leaves or remove the plant from the tank and spray/dip the affected area in peroxide then replant.  There are some who advocate for applying it in tank, but im a worry wort so never went that route.  As for live stock options you have your usual suspects for hair algea removal and Ill also add the honey gourami who are absolutely destroying my hair/black beard algea.

[TheSwissAquarist]

Maybe consider moving it to another tank if you want to propagate it .

[John Collins]

On 10/5/2022 at 6:47 AM, JoeQ said:

For manual removal I usually strategically clip leaves or remove the plant from the tank and spray/dip the affected area in peroxide then replant.  There are some who advocate for applying it in tank, but im a worry wort so never went that route.  As for live stock options you have your usual suspects for hair algea removal and Ill also add the honey gourami who are absolutely destroying my hair/black beard algea.

Can you tell me more about how you use peroxide? I would prefer to spray, but then do I just rinse it off? Do I need to wait a certain amount of time before I rinse it off?

[JoeQ]

On 10/5/2022 at 7:52 AM, John Collins said:

Can you tell me more about how you use peroxide? I would prefer to spray, but then do I just rinse it off? Do I need to wait a certain amount of time before I rinse it off?

I'm a stem guy so I usually clip off the affected area, remove the clipping from the tank. Then spray it with peroxide, roll it around making sure to coat the hair algea. Then replant stem top in the tank. I don't let it sit for long before replanting, maybe a minute or two since long soaks seem to start breaking down healthy plant matter.

Edited October 5, 2022 by JoeQ

[Guppysnail]

This method works great on banana plants. When I tested it on my banana plant my banana plant did very well

 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/5/2022 at 3:25 PM, Guppysnail said:

This method works great on banana plants. When I tested it on my banana plant my banana plant did very well

 

Ah yes the famous reverse respiration!