What can eat green hair and black beard algae? UPDATE

[Borked]

I purchased a single Anubius Lanceolata a couple weeks ago for my planted tank. A couple days later I noticed a tiny speck of black aglae on the tip of one leaf. I removed the whole tip of the leaf and now it is on the rocks and leaves around the infected plant.

The hair algae came to me on a Moneywart a long time ago. Amano shrimp kept it in check for a long time but it has finally spread.

I remove the hair algae regularly but I can't get rid of it.

The tank is a heavily planted 75gal with 5 stripped oto's, 1 zebra oto, 1 SAE, 2 amano shrimp.

What can I do to improve the situation?

thanks in advance,
-Kyle

 

[mk_ultra]

put more shrimp and SAEs in them. you can also try flag fish anancistrus.

 

[Woodsy]

Have a look at some of the threads on CO2 injection, they might help you too.

 

[aspen]

i'm not sure about your black stuff, but american flag fish are the BEST at hair algae. they can be agressive, esp in a pair. go buy some females, and you won't need to look at that stuff anymore. my exp with sae's is, that the small ones will eat it, and they will soon grow a taste for fish food and ignore it. others' exp varies with them.

oh, if you have finely pinnate plants, they may eat them too. they decimated my rotalla walichii. but it was a relief to see them eating the hair algae.

rick

 

[2la]

Rosy barbs!

 

[Borked]

About a month ago I finally got rid of ALL of the algae in my tank. It was very simple in the end but I guess I wanted to make it harder than it needed to be.

I reduced the lighting to 8.5 hrs per day and cut fertilization completely for 1 week. I started then with a WC (35-40%) and 1/3 dose of fert. The next week another WC and 2/3 dose fert. Then again a WC and full fert. Almost all of the algae was gone at this point and plants were taking up so many nutrients that after the 4th week of normal WC's I was up to 2 full doses of fert per week and 11.5 hrs of light per day. I lost 3 stripped and 1 zebra oto in the process due to lak of food and pleco's being aggressive. I am now finally growing some algae again after 1 month of suplementing the cleaners.

The amazing thing I did notice during the die off of algae was the ability of my 6 dwarf 3 line pencil fish to consume all of the dieing black algae. Every time I looked in on them they were tearing the stuff off of leaves and rocks. Amazing little buggers. No black growing back, just hair.

Tank:
community
75gal
4 40w flo
2 AC300 (lots o' peat)
nutrifin C02 running into intake of AC300
100's of plants
wood, rock's etc.
PH 6.5-6.8
GH 4
KH 4
Tap water (PH 8 GH 9 KH 10) finally down to respectable levels

Fish:
6 dwarf 3 line pencils
5 pristella tetras
9 cardinal tetras
3 mixed oto's (striped, niger, zebra)
2 clown plecos (damn plant pruners)
1 SAE
3 panda cory's
1 candy striped goby
1 peacock gudgeon
4 algae eating shrimp
1 M Apistogramma Viejita
1 Pair Apistogramma Agassizi
1 trio Dicrossus Filamentosus


My Dicrossus decided to spawn two days ago but the female ate all the eggs in about 36 hours. There has been no intent to spawn in this tank but you know how it goes. The breeders in their own tanks (Cacs) haven't done anything other than show all the signs that they want to spawn but never get around to it and the fish in the show/growout tank do just fine.

thanks for all the great info around here, hope my experience helps.
peace,
-Kyle

 

[aspen]

hey kyle, are the zebra oto's any better than the normal ones for algae? or are they just another pretty face?

how do you get your ph 8 down to 6.8? do you add r/o water, or is it just the peat treatments? is your water very dark?

>>'The breeders in their own tanks (Cacs) haven't done anything other than show all the signs that they want to spawn but never get around to it ...'

that is just life, i'm afraid.

rick

 

[Borked]

Hey Rick,

I've pushed the water down to 6.8 by peat treatment and a little C02. I have a nutrifin C02 injector that is good for a 20gal tank on the 75gal. I tossed out the bubble knocker that came with it as it gets a fuzz on the outlet and the bubbles don't actually make it into the knocker. They just float to the top. I run the injector line into the intake of an AC300.

I run 2-3 AC300 bags of peat in the filters and yes sometimes it gets dark. I have 3 6500k and 1 10000k bulb on the tank. THe 10000k coralife bulb makes the tea color look green so the full spectrum of color you see isn't so dark all the time, just dark for 2 days before the WC. Not to mention the "dwarf" (not really so dwarf) lily or lotus bulbs I have growing in there have about 16 pads on the surface. So the tank is kinda dark in the shade anyway.

The Zebra oto's are great eaters. They are larger than most other oto's and have a healthier appetite. I would say that they are about 1 and a half of a regular oto and prettier.

I don't run any peat in one of the two cac breeding tanks. I run peat in one and well water from the nursery I work at in the other. The well water is chlorine free with a PH of 7.0, GH 5, KH 5. I still use a dechlor to nutralize any metals it might contain. I figured the cacs would like both of the setups I have them in but like you said, that's life.

And I even went with cacs (all double and triple reds a trio in eack tank) because they are supposed to be EASY.

thx,
-Kyle

 

[aspen]

i have bought oto's from the various stores around here at different times, and i find them to be the fish that always seems to die on me. i have seen the zebra oto's and the high price gets me, but if they work and they live... i have switched to dwarf gold spot bushy nose plecos. they live a long time and eat a lot of algae. they don't touch swords like other plecos either. full length seems to be about 3".

a guy near me has a pair of discus that won't spawn except in his planted tank. he moves them to a breeding tank and they just sit there. ever thought of trying co2 and peat in their breeding tank?

i had a hard time having co2 make much of an effect on a tank when i was running an ac, ever thought of using a filter that makes less surface agitation, like an internal or a canister? i used a fluval 1 in my 35 gal with a single ac mini sponge. maybe something like that would suit you? i used one of those ladder diffusers, with the jet from the filter pointing at the top of the ladder. worked very good, even with diy co2.

cac's are a pretty easy fish, compared with some other s/a dwarfs i've tried. the agression is much lower than aggies or viejita's, and they are hardier than most others too. it is a good dwarf to get the hang of fooling with parms, cause they seem to tolerate a bit of playing around. others seem very sensitive.

rick

 

[C-paan]

will co2 really help with an algea problem? I am thinking of running c02 in my planted tank again. If this helps then i will definetly start!

 

[aspen]

co2 will help your plants strip the required nutrients out of the water, or so the story goes. personally i believe that the healthier the plants are, the less aglae problems you will have. nothing will make your plants healthier ime, than co2 addition and a properly balanced fert regimen with the right amount of light.

rick

 

[Jason]

About a year ago my kid's friend asked me to babysit his golfish and he never took it back. Since I've had this goldfish I do not have any problems with algae (before the leafs were covered with different types of algae). My plants are bright green and so are the feces of the goldfish. I also have a bristlenose pleco, but he never was able to keep the tank clean.
Jason

 

[madsph]

I used to have my tank completly covered with aglae, that problem was quickly fixed after introducing a couple of siamese flying foxes (Epalzeorhynchus siamensis - :roll: I am not sure but think the scientific name might have been changed, since my book was written). One advantage over the siamese algae eater is that they are very peaceful towards their tankmates.

 

[Graham]

I bought a couple Siamese Flying Foxes about 8 months ago (yes, they are the Siamese ones :wink: ). They don't touch my black beard algae (but do eat other hair types), nor do my "Amano" shrimp.

The only thing I have found to control it and kill it is limiting your phosphate input. The main source of this is the food you feed (or your water possibly if you don't use RO). If you feed frozen food, soak it in RO water for an hour before you feed it. Phosphate is used as a preservative in most seafoods (aquarium food included) and is very soluble in water - especially RO. Vitamins and other nutrients won't be depleted significantly because they are mostly locked up in the tissue. I have had my A. morados spawn twice in the last month, so I'm sure they are still getting the nutrition they need...

After soaking, pour it through a BS net or similar fine mesh net and feed it to your tank. I have been able to cut my hair/beard algae significantly in about 2 months by doing this. If you feed flake, there's not much you can do because you can't really rinse it and it usually has lots of phosphate in it.

This will at least reduce the level to a point where there isn't much excess once your plants get their share....of course, as mentioned above, this is pretty futile if you aren't using CO2 and fertilizing - maximizing plant growth. Fast growing plants also help against any algae.