Burying algae to get rid of it and to eventually turn into fertilizer?

[LincolnGuy]

TLDR: What do you think of burying algae as a way to "get rid of it"?

First I had a ton of black beard algae and staghorn algae, but flourish got rid of it. It's still there, but more or less under control. My problem now is green hair algae all over the substrate. The Monte Caro isn't grown in, so there's lots of exposed substrate still. I'm doing water changes weekly, and manually pulling out green hair algae... I'm tired of it. 

What do you think of simply pushing the algae into the substrate where it will hopefully be out of the light, die off, and eventually become sort of a fertilizer for my plants?

The tank is a 40 gallon freshwater tank with a NICREW SkyLED Plus & hob filter and a sponge filter. It's about 5 months old, with Java moss, crypts, s. repens, Monte Carlo, and bacopa monnieri, about 20 phoenix rasboras 20 blue dream shrimp, and a few nerites.

Thanks!

[Daniel]

Burying cyanobacteria (blue green algae) would likely be about as effective as burying cockroaches.🙂 But I like the thought of turning a problem into a solution!

The Aquarium Co-Op blog has a good post on what do about cyanobacteria here:

How to Get Rid of Blue-Green Algae in Aquariums

WWW.AQUARIUMCOOP.COM

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Do you have a mysterious, blue-green slime taking over your aquarium? Or is there a strange smell coming from your fish tank? You might be dealing...

 

[LincolnGuy]

@Daniel I looked up pictures of cyanobacteria, and it seems different from what I have. I'm pretty sure I have green hair algae. That said, is it still fruitless to just push the stuff into the substrate? I know I can't get rid of all of it this way, but since I can't get rid of it all no matter what I'm trying, I guess I'm trying to be lazy about it's removal and at the same time, as you said, turn a problem into a solution 😃

Thanks!

[Daniel]

How to Fight 6 Types of Algae in Your Fish Tank

WWW.AQUARIUMCOOP.COM

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Do you dream of having a beautiful aquarium but end up constantly fighting to keep algae at bay? In this article, we discuss the root causes of algae, the...

On another Co-Op blog post hair algae was among the 6 mentioned. It is a tough one!

Hair Algae

In this category, we’re referring to the many types of algae that look like wet hair when you take them out of the aquarium (e.g., hair algae, staghorn algae, string algae, and thread algae). These algae can be problematic because they grow so rapidly or are hard to get rid of. 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.

The problem with pushing it into the substrate is that it leaves the nutrients the algae is made of as fertilizer for yet more algae.