green hair algae

green hair algae

Any suggestions on how to get rid of it?


Mark

Funny you should mention this, Mark. My 75 gallon tank has become afflicted with this just recently. It's due for a cleaning/water change, and I figure I'll just manually remove it when I do. In the meantime I've kind of become entranced with it...  ; the way it gracefully flows outward with the current from that to which it's attached. Pretty actually. I've even been toying with the idea of leaving it. But I'm not sure if it will multiply and take over, and then not look so pretty.

I think Siamese algae eaters will take care of it.

Hmmm.... I guess I shouldn't have flushed mine.     

Edit: Actually now that I've gone off to do some research about algae, I'm reminded that it wasn't a Siamese algae eater, but a Chinese algae eater that I had.

I will pick up a algea eater this weekend.  My brother had it in his tank and after several attemps to remove it he bought a new tank.

Mark

I think I'm in the market for picking up an algae eater or two now also now. Yesterday I discovered two of my three remaining angels (a silver wild type striped and a black marble with a little gold on it's head) were spawning. When I put my glasses on to see if I could determine which sex they each were I was blown away suddenly seeing how much algae is really in there. In addition to the obvious longer strands of hair type algae, there's a dense coating or film of shorter strands of algae covering most everything.   I was shocked that I didn't notice it before; and it's not that I haven't been looking in there lately... just not with my glasses on.

I've noticed a marked decline in my vision lately, and am to the point where I almost always need my reading glasses to read anything anymore. But I didn't realize just how poor my eyesight has become, seeing detail and not just when reading, until I saw all that algae yesterday.   

Now I'm wondering how much of it I can remove by manual cleaning or algae eaters, and more importantly how to determine and address the cause or source. I'd rather not have to resort to chemicals. It doesn't really bother me aesthetically that much; I just don't want it to take over everything to the point that it does bother me. Now I'm also wondering if I'm going to be stuck with it, fighting a losing battle if I try eradicating it.  

checking in, did the Siamese algae eaters help? I had great success with them (also sold as flying foxes in some places)
and loved mine. The Siamese were not aggressive to the other fish in the tank, but the Chinese are awful! (never again, those Chinese ones) had to part with the siamese when I moved. I'm going to have to find somebody to sell me a couple youngsters, my tanks miss them and the algae is back! Don't feel bad about missing the extent of algae the first time, it grows so fast under optimum conditions it might not have been that bad the first time you looked. lets hear what happened!

I've been meaning to update my experience in this thread, but just now getting to it.

I'd gone on a researching frenzy about algae and algae eradication and did decide that weekend to try the algae-eating organisms approach. I ended up purchasing 6 Otocinclus, 3 Amano shrimp, 1 Bristlenose pleco, and 1 Nerite snail (I forgot to mention the snail at the meeting when I was talking about this). I put all these in my 75 gallon community tank.

I wanted (and probably should have) cleaned my aquariums before I put all these new guys in, but I didn't. My 75 gallon tank had become so infested now with both the green hair algae and red/brown algae that I quailed at tackling it. I felt horrible every day I put it off, but it was so bad, covering everything, that I didn't know where to start.

The following weekend I ended up going out of town for 3 days. When I returned I was shocked when I looked in my aquarium, it was completely clean of every bit of algae - brown and green! It was like a burglar broke into my house, cleaned my fish tank and all furniture within, and left without taking anything but all the algae. It was like I was looking at a suddenly new version of my tank. I'm still amazed when I think of it.

I'm not sure who was responsible for the massive cleanup. Likely it was a combined effort, helped along by the fact that nothing got fed while I was gone. But I tend to think that maybe it was the shrimp that did the most? I'm just not sure.