Hair Algae in Planted Aquarium

[Leo2o915]

Had a hair algae blossom in my 20 long  I dosed east carbon and easy green what else can I do or should I do? I have shrimp Corydoras and guppies in that tank and a nerite snail

[H.K.Luterman]

You could try lessening the time the lights are on. Use a timer for your lights and only have them on for 5 hours a day. I tend to get hair algae when I clear out duckweed and thus more light enters the tank. 

[Leo2o915]

Ok awesome thanks 🙂 you think Siamese algae eaters are good or don’t go with what I got in the tank 

[Tiffany]

I have the same issue, except I also have staghorn algea (well it looks like staghorn) along with the hair..ugh..I cut the light off for several days in a row (the tanks are semi close to a window so they get some natural light) but it did not seem to help. I have guppies, nerite and otos. I have been pulling as much out as I can. I tried not fertilizing my tanks then I watched a video about algae and they said it could be lack of nutrients..so I dosed..no luck as of late, so I will continue to do it once a week for a few weeks ( I remember Cory saying you won't notice a difference for a few weeks). Let me know if you find something out!! I am a novice so I am reading and trying to gather all of the information that I can without risking the lives of the precious creatures I have purchased!! 🙃

 

[Brandy]

I have read that hair algae can mean excess iron, but you probably aren't dosing extra iron. If you are I would cut that bit back a little.

For my tanks I fave noticed 2 kinds of "hair" algae. One that is green is very strong...like actual hair when you touch it. One is brown and shreds if you touch it and feels slimy.

I don't think the brown is what is meant by "hair algae"? But I am not sure. Anyway, the brown seems like it grows crazy fast, but I kinda thought it was just a new tank thing. I am trying to be patient. The green showed up in a 1 year old tank and seems to grow very much more slowly. I just manually pull it out and it is not a problem.

[Tiffany]

I have the green stuff..it is very strong!! It seems to grow at a moderate pace. It is growing on everything. It is even in my christmas moss bridge which I find extremely difficult to remove..

[Robin]

Mine's better than it was. I bought some nerite snails, I started dosing with Carbon and easy green on a regular schedule and I pull the stuff out by hand fulls when I do water changes. It seems better. There is still some but I feel like I'm on top of it. I've been at it for a month or more.

[Tiffany]

I have nerites so hopefully they will get on with their munchies and start working on the green spot that's starting to grow..yay..I will get some easy carbon soon if I can and start that as well. Thank you for the tips!! 😊

[Streetwise]

I almost exclusively run Walstad tanks, so I have a big dirt battery that is always on. I have dealt with hair algae via much lower light.

[Elquinjena]

i was fighting black hair or black beard algae and that green hair algae and I did a few things

1. i had to pull out the most infected plant that had the bba and did a hydrogen peroxide bath on the other plants and decorations (plants are on cholla wood. the other ones were in wood also so pulled them out of the wood and replaced them with new Java ferns and did bath peroxide on wood)
2. decreased lighting to 8 hours on timer
3. did some co2 passive diffusion. 14oz bottle inverted into tank so plants used as they needed only during lighted times
4. got more snails. bumped up my nitrate snails to two, and got 3 blue ram shell snails.
5. added 2 amano shrimp.

I lost a few plants but it looks like I have the hair algae under control for the time being.
 

[Daniel]

My green hair algae is probably not the same species as your hair algae. My algae has explosive growth and forms green, slimy mats with the consistency of phlegm. My green stuff sounds similar to @Brandy's brown stuff. Here is a picture of it in a tank I setup last week. It shows that if combine a Diana Walstad 'I just dug up my lawn and put it in an aquarium' tank with too much light, you get enough hair algae to make a nice green wig.

Biologically this a fabulous tank. But it is not fashionable because it looks like the backwater of a natural pond. But then again why would a tank of hairy green/brown snot algae ever come into fashion?

I have tanks with the same amount of light, but no dirt, and these tanks do not have green hair algae blooms. But without the excess light, the hair algae wouldn't bloom either.

And for me, like @Brandy, big slimy hair algae blooms, don't tend to happen in long established tanks. I am not sure why, but maybe the long established tanks are more diverse and the resources are more locked up and the hair algae just cannot outcompete its rivals enough to have a population explosion.

All in all, lots of light and plenty of nutrients with few competitors and no predators seems to be the recipe for growing luxuriant slimy hair algae.

[Daniel]

I just made a little video showing the benefits of algae. Algae and plants are the primary producers in the food chain with all the animals in the food chain secondary and dependent on the primary ones.

Or think about it this way, this is the ultimate 'Nano' tank because you need a microscope to see all the biological drama!

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Daniel
Reworked the wording in the last sentence

[Streetwise]

I remembered one other thing that has usually been part of the mix when I have had hair algae, which is window light. I have some now in only one tank, and that tank is in my kitchen area where there are a lot more windows.

Cheers

[Byte]

23 hours ago, Streetwise said:

I remembered one other thing that has usually been part of the mix when I have had hair algae, which is window light. I have some now in only one tank, and that tank is in my kitchen area where there are a lot more windows.

Cheers

I have had very similar experiences. Window light seems to be the biggest factor for me. Which makes sense given that it is caused from an imbalance of light/nutrients.

I also noticed a lack of flow seemed to contribute to the problem as well

[TheDukeAnumber1]

I have never been able to defeat it, but I have found that giant duckweed helps suppress it and keeps it manageable since it competes with it.

[Diego]

On 7/21/2020 at 9:28 PM, H.K.Luterman said:

You could try lessening the time the lights are on. Use a timer for your lights and only have them on for 5 hours a day. I tend to get hair algae when I clear out duckweed and thus more light enters the tank. 

+1 Also changing from a bright ligth to a less bright one (stingray) worked for me.

[RovingGinger]

I have a healthy dose of green hair algae in my outdoor tank. Lots of guppy fry, who seem to like it, and honestly it blends into the massive mix of guppy grass, java moss, and pothos and I kind of think it looks fine? Is there any reason it would be detrimental to the fish?