Any copper based products to kill long hair algae and snails?

[martinmin]

I am seeing long hair like algae on the plants, making them hard to remove manually. There are lots of small snails. I searched and found that some copper based chemicals can kill both. For example, 

API Liquid Super Ick Cure

Seachem Cupramine

Mardel CopperSafe

Any suggestions on these products? Or anything else that are safe for both fish and plants? 

 

[nabokovfan87]

you can check something like MSDS sheets for specific ingredients.  If you're trying to eradicate algae + snail then you might be able to use bleach.... It's a bit harsh, but if the tank is empty (no livestock) then it would work. 

Pull the plants to dip them to treat the algae, then run diluted bleach through the tank / filtration and deep clean everything.  Dechlorinator will counteract the bleach as well.  You would have to restart your cycle, but it's something people do.  Reverse respiration is a thread on the forums here which can be used to treat algae.  You can also use a video by Jurijs to use liquid carbon to treat plants (takes 3-5 days) as well as a blackout.

Cupramine/copper meds you would use something like cuprisorb to remove it after treatment.  It can cause issues moving forward in the tank for shrimp and snails. It's been a known issue, but I can't say for certain cuprisorb will make the tank save for invertebrates in future.  I have it on hand, but I have not used it because I have shrimp in all of my tanks. 

I apologize if that doesn't make sense, slightly drained.


 

[Guppysnail]

Medications are rough on fish and hang around a long long time. If in the future you decide to add ornamental snails it could cause problems. 
 

Here is a safe method for killing both algae and snails. It won’t eliminate the snails in The tank but will kill what is on the plants. 
 

Feeding less and keeping the substrate vacuumed will reduce the number of snails. They only reproduce to the mount of excess food they can eat. 
 

For hair algae less hours of light at lower intensity along with keeping nitrates a bit lower (less food and extra vacuuming will help that) usually does the trick for me to reduce hair algae. 
 

Reverse Respiration leaves no residue and is not harmful to plants. It is a safer alternative. 

 

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 8/3/2023 at 9:51 PM, martinmin said:

I am seeing long hair like algae on the plants, making them hard to remove manually. There are lots of small snails. I searched and found that some copper based chemicals can kill both. For example, 

API Liquid Super Ick Cure

Seachem Cupramine

Mardel CopperSafe

Any suggestions on these products? Or anything else that are safe for both fish and plants? 

 

Hi @martinmin, below is a microscope image of hair algae after a 12-hour Reverse Respiration treatment. Below that, is a comparison of several types of common treatments, Reverse Respiration and no treatment cellular damage. As you can see it killed the hair algae but inflicted no damage to the plant. As previously stated, it also leaves no residue but water. It's by far the safest treatment method and none of the pests will survive. Good luck. 

Reverse Respiration

 

[TOtrees]

There’s a copper product calls Zap that’s sold in tiny bottles at the counter of my fish store chain locations. Personally, I only use it outside of my tanks, e.g. in buckets holding plants, quarantine tanks, etc.

[martinmin]

On 8/4/2023 at 8:05 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

Hi @martinmin, below is a microscope image of hair algae after a 12-hour Reverse Respiration treatment. Below that, is a comparison of several types of common treatments, Reverse Respiration and no treatment cellular damage. As you can see it killed the hair algae but inflicted no damage to the plant. As previously stated, it also leaves no residue but water. It's by far the safest treatment method and none of the pests will survive. Good luck. 

Reverse Respiration

 

That seems good, but seem the process is complicated. I will study it in more detail. Hope it doesn't hurt fishes either.

On 8/3/2023 at 11:05 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

you can check something like MSDS sheets for specific ingredients.  If you're trying to eradicate algae + snail then you might be able to use bleach.... It's a bit harsh, but if the tank is empty (no livestock) then it would work. 

Pull the plants to dip them to treat the algae, then run diluted bleach through the tank / filtration and deep clean everything.  Dechlorinator will counteract the bleach as well.  You would have to restart your cycle, but it's something people do.  Reverse respiration is a thread on the forums here which can be used to treat algae.  You can also use a video by Jurijs to use liquid carbon to treat plants (takes 3-5 days) as well as a blackout.

Cupramine/copper meds you would use something like cuprisorb to remove it after treatment.  It can cause issues moving forward in the tank for shrimp and snails. It's been a known issue, but I can't say for certain cuprisorb will make the tank save for invertebrates in future.  I have it on hand, but I have not used it because I have shrimp in all of my tanks. 

I apologize if that doesn't make sense, slightly drained.


 

I mean assuming it has both plants and fishes, without taking them out.

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/4/2023 at 8:26 PM, martinmin said:

I mean assuming it has both plants and fishes, without taking them out.

I've never had success combating a snail eradication without breaking down the tank completely.  I hope that you're able to find a way to treat everything as you need to.  Again, I apologize if the post I had earlier didn't make sense.  I'm slightly more alert at this point of typing.

I don't have any sort of idea what the tank looks like, but I it's pretty common to have to pull plants.  I am not saying that you have to or anything like that, but it's probably a lot easier to treat the algae by pulling the plants.  If you want to avoid that step then I think you might be able to work on the issue with a bit of a two-pronged attack.

A.  Snails - Use your copper med, understand you may never be able to keep invertebrates in that tank (snails, shrimp, etc.) on the snail issue.
B.  Plants - Blackout the tank, balance the nutrients and lighting.

Balancing the tank:

You want to run a few water tests here and this can be for your own information moving forward or it could be a situation where you actually discover the root cause of the algae.  It is pretty likely that the snails going a bit nuts, temperature, and feeding all play a role here, but...

Test your water for phosphate, nitrate, ammonia, temperature, GH, KH.  Using those variables it can give you an idea of how "out of wack" the tank may or may not be.  Once you have that information and we dive into reviewing each result then you would want to do a full tank review.  This just means to verify the substrate is ok for the plants, or root tabs are ok, that your dosing regime is acceptable, that your lighting is acceptable, and that your maintenance is acceptable for the plants.  A lot of times something like this can be indicative of Old Tank Syndrome and with snails going a bit out of wack over time you could compound those issues as well.

The technique for blackout I recommend is going to be one I heard on a livestream from Bentley Pascoe and there's a neat little twist on it.
A.  Wrap the tank in thick blankets or towels, foil, or whatever you can to block light from all sides and the top of the tank. 
B.  Every day you will want to change 30-50% of your water to try to remove spores from the water column as the algae is killed off.
C.  Keep doing this for ~7 days and you should see the algae recede or disappear. 

A lot of times the blackouts method doesn't have that water change mentioned, but I think it's a nice little bit of advice for some of the persistent algae varieties.  I can even see something as long as a 10-14 day blackout being effective.

Please feel free to share your tank photos, details, and your lighting setup to help out with any algae issues.

I hope this helps and is informative!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/4/2023 at 2:05 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Reverse respiration is a thread on the forums here which can be used to treat algae

Reverse respiration may work on the whole tank(?) but you want to make sure there are no fish or other creatures in there, just the pest snails and the hair algae, and the plants. @dasaltemelosguy @Guppysnail

Nice thing about it is it wouldn’t leave traces of potentially harmful stuff behind in the tank like meds would.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Guppysnail]

On 8/5/2023 at 5:17 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Reverse respiration may work on the whole tank(?) but you want to make sure there are no fish or other creatures in there, just the pest snails and the hair algae. @dasaltemelosguy @Guppysnail

Nice thing about it is it wouldn’t leave traces of potentially harmful stuff behind in the tank like meds would.

Yes. If there are no inhabitants it can be done to the entire tank however it kills your beneficial bacteria as well.  
 

Drain the water as much as possible. Water being left behind will dilute the seltzer. If you have a HOB place the entire filter inside the tank. Canister filters get dismantled and use hydrogen peroxide undiluted to soak and allow to air dry. 
 

I’ll try to find the thread this was talked about in more detail. 

 

 

[Guppysnail]

Here is the thread where folks discus pouring seltzer in the tank. 

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/5/2023 at 7:05 AM, Guppysnail said:

If you have a HOB place the entire filter inside the tank. Canister filters get dismantled and use hydrogen peroxide undiluted to soak and allow to air dry. 

Why?  Do you think the pest snail eggs would be attached to the hob? The hair algae would be more obvious, but pest snail eggs are clear.

[Guppysnail]

On 8/5/2023 at 10:39 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Why?  Do you think the pest snail eggs would be attached to the hob? The hair algae would be more obvious, but pest snail eggs are clear.

Baby pest snail are so tiny they look like a speck of dust. They love to go into the filters.