Algae?

[Vincent]

Hello. I’m new to the forum and new to maintaining a fish tank with live plants, 20 gallon. Does anyone recognize what this fuzzy stuff is on the plant? If so, how do I get rid of it? Also, the water has been cloudy and I’ve been doing regular water changes weekly, about 20%. Thank you for any advice. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Vincent

[Ashe]

I believe that is some type of hair algae. If you see black fuzzy hair like stuffs around your plants leaves, it is a black beard hair algae. They are pretty annoying to get rid off but manageble though. Like other algae, they occur when you have an unbalanced system in your tank. Maybe lower your light duration by 2 hours for the first few weeks and observe your plants. You can further decrease it more if needed. If you are using fertilizers with not many plants then cut your dose by 1/4 for a few weeks then 1/2 and observe the plants growth.This will allows no excess nutrients. If your tank has tons of plants especially the fast growers like floating and stem plants then I think cutting by 1/4 at first should be sufficient. I have a fully planted tank and cutting 1/4 seems to work pretty well. You should consider dosing Easy Carbon or Seachem Excel if you are not already doing so. It helps control the algae in your tank by a lot. I recommend spot treatment using Easy Carbon or Excel on dense algae spots. Also keep doing that 20% water change weekly. 

Now if you want an immediate bandaid on this issue, you can put one Siamese algae eater in there and it will cleans the algae up in no time. If you want easier upkeep in the long run, drop a handful of Amano shrimps in there. They will helps you clean up the waste and the algae. 

For more information about algae and treatments you can hop on over to the blog page or click on this link: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/search?type=article&view=blog&q=algae. They did a very good job on this 🙂

Edited January 22, 2021 by Ashe