Oops all staghorn

[Dromna]

I doubled the stocking in a tank recently, and there has been a staghorn algae explosion over about two weeks. You can see for yourself:

Spoiler

Any suggestions on controlling this kind of algae? It's my first time with this problem.

[johnnyxxl]

https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/topic/16553-staghorn-algae-advice/

[Dromna]

Hmm I'll try balancing other nutrients and increasing fertilizer if indicated in testing, I don't have the logistics for CO2 at the moment, and there's way too much to spot treat.

[MattyM]

I wonder if the increased bioload led to increased nutrients from waste, and the staghorn gladly took up the extra load - just a theory, but for me I can get a bit of staghorn when I overdose ferts. 

I've had my battles with staghorn, fortunately in my experience it's a pretty weak algae. An idea would be to decrease lighting time and/or intensity - not sure what your light is, but if possible drop the blues down to 2-3%. Remove as much as you can by hand/toothbrush, and dose with something like Excel - which takes care of staghorn rather quickly, esp if spot dosed (when things are more under control). Once it's dead your cleanup crew will be able to help out. More quick growing plants would help too. Good luck u got this 👍

[Dromna]

It’s somewhat under control! At least, it isn’t growing anymore. I found some excel and just did normal dosing, I’m not sure how to spot treat and the algae turned quite red after a week of general treatment anyway. The red color was rather surprising, it stands out a lot!