Tropical Fish Forums

[aquaBee]

Hey all! My dwarf baby tears carpet plant that I've had for about 2 weeks now has gotten some mild but unsightly algae on it. It's brownish and looks like very thin, long filaments. I have the Fluval Flora 7.9 gallon aquarium with the lights tweaked to give a little more than 3 watts/gallon. The lights are on 10-12 hours/day and I diffuse CO2 once or twice daily.

Am I stuck getting shrimp to clean up the algae, or is there another way to protect my plants? Also, do otos eat this kind of algae off carpet plants? I've seen them eat algae off larger, flat leaves but have no experience with carpet plants.

Thanks as always!
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All bleeding stops eventually...

[susankatomerit]

Best way to remove it is by hand. Your lights are on too long and with that high of wattage you should be running your co2 all day and just turn it off at night.
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47 tanks and still adding!
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[aquaBee]

Thanks for the advice! I've removed as much hair algae as I could see by hand and have upped the CO2 diffusion duration. One question-- everywhere on this forum and website that I've read, it says that when you're establishing a new planted tank, the lights should be on for 10-12 hours a day. Does this time length decrease given a higher wattage?
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All bleeding stops eventually...

[unissuh]

Can go down to 8, doesn't have to be 10. And you can do it in two split periods for convienience e.g. 4 hours on, 2 hours off, 4 hours on rather than 8 hours if you like to see the tank in the morning and night.

Duration is independent of intensity, you can't adjust one to make up for the other - ends up in trouble.

Hope that helps.
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[aquaBee]

Thanks unissuh. Plants and nano-tanks are definitely new to me but it's a really wonderful part of this hobby.
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All bleeding stops eventually...

[Freebird11]

Once you have managed to get on top of the hair algae problem it is important to avoid introducing more hair algae to the aquarium. Hair algae will often enter an aquarium attached to a new plant or to the shell of an invertebrate. It can also be floating around in the water bag when you get a new fish. You might not even notice it at first; it is common for hair algae to linger around in the aquarium and grow very slowly until the aquarist makes a mistake and allows the levels of organic waste to increase. It can therefore be hard to connect the sudden algae explosion with that new plant you bought several weeks ago. Use standard safety measures before introducing new items and creatures into the aquarium. Live plants will for instance usually tolerate being cleaned with diluted bleach.

[DaleJr]