Stubborn algae

There's really two ways to solve this problem

1) Find algae eating shrimps ASAP. However to clear the tank from this algae sooner, this shrimps might need a helping hand. You might have to pull some out with your hand. See if this does the trick.

2) Make sure all areas of your tank has some sort of water flow. If not, increase the water flow so that every area in u'r tank has new water circulating through. Lower the amount of light the tank gets each day. For me, I eliminated my staghorn algae problem by dropping 12 hours a day to 10 hours a day and increasing water flow.

Actually

A third option) WATER CHANGES.

Constant water cahnges always helps.

If these dont' work, then u might have some serious algae problem. But you won't kno until maybe two weeks down the line. Good luck with u'r combats.

That is Cladophora, probably one of the most difficult algaes of all to eradicate.

Here is my experience:

A) Keep all nutrients in adequate supply. Don't slack on your dosing regime. If the plants are doing well, this algae will slow down considerably IME.

B) Pick at it mercilessly. Go in there every time you have a chance and pick out all the strands you see. You will notice that as you pick off strands, you will lift up pieces of substrate along with it.

C) I don't know how many Tom had in his tank, but I had a dozen in my 20g long and they didn't do much of anything against this algae. SAEs, snails, and otos also pretty much ignored it.

I got rid of this algae slowly and never completely. It's very persistant, but its rather slow growth helps keep it unnoticeable without closer inspection. I eventually beat it back into my christmas moss, where it happily did well since I didn't have the heart to rip off all my moss.

Good luck! This one is a nuisance.

Carlos

That is Cladophora, probably one of the most difficult algaes of all to eradicate.

Here is my experience:

A) Keep all nutrients in adequate supply. Don't slack on your dosing regime.

B) Pick at it mercilessly. Go in there every time you have a chance and pick out all the strands you see. You will notice that as you pick off strands, you will lift up pieces of substrate along with it.

C) I don't know how many shrimp Tom had in his tank, but I had a dozen in my 20g long and they didn't do much of anything against this algae. SAEs, snails, and otos also pretty much ignored it.

I got rid of this algae slowly and never completely. It's very persistant, but its rather slow growth helps keep it unnoticeable without closer inspection. I eventually beat it back into my christmas moss, where it happily did well since I didn't have the heart to rip off all my moss.

One quick way to identify this species, other than the wiry texture, is to smell it. It should smell distinctly like iron.

Good luck! This one is a nuisance.

Carlos

No, not all Cladophora is epiphytic, this one actually is not epiphytioc at all, it gets entangled, but I've never found it truly attached to a plant.

If you are killing it with blackouts, It's not this alga, it's likely Vaucheria or Rhizoclonium.

There are a few algae that look close to this one.

If it's only in the Riccia, Heck toss the Riccia and pick off a tiny piece to re grow the Riccia without it.

Harassment works also, removal of the plants that allow it to stay entangled will help.

It will attach to gravel and sometimes wood etc and likes flowing water, if it's unbranched and soft, it's often Rhizoclonium, if tough and unbranched, often Dicotomosiphon. Vaucheria needs an iodine test for starch negative.
There are others.

I've seen it go away in tanks not come back on several ocassions so there seems to be some trigger.
Aggressive attacks will help. Also, I've let other plants over shade and out grow it and then it's died back, this worked well with pearl grass.

It's more like a higher plant in many respects, it's large, thick walled, Chl a and B, starch reserves etc. Not too tasty either.
I had 50 Shrimp in a 40 gal. Took them two weeks but admittedly the tank was taken care of better but no algae removal was performed also.

Regards,
Tom Barr

The branched species in the above picture is not the fastest grower and is often found in darker areas in natural systems. Rhizocolonium can be beaten back with Blackouts.

Spirogyra does quite well when the plants are growing well.
Even if you pick at it. A bit like Utricularia gibba.

These are larger macroscopic green algae, there are even macroscopic BGA's such as Lyngbya. These are more similar to larger embyronic plants or larger green algae such as Charaophyceans.

That's why they are more pesky than many other species of algae in a well run tank. Pruning and picking works well for their removal because they are more like the plants.

Some species of filamentous green algae are very tough and live in high current areas.

the spcies that bug folks the most are the species that attach to the gravle and infest the Riccia and moss.

I've tried several approaches, but blackout works for some species pretty well, not so well for others. Less light in general helps control of most greens, rather than blackouts.

If you have hair algae and want to do a blackout, the procedure will be more effective if you have a tank with 2 w/gal vs 5 w/gal for green algae and others.

Plants and green algae often have close to the same ability to withstand blackouts, but something like BGA does not have much chance. But it can work on green algae, Rhizolocoloium especially. You'll have to do it longer for the others.

I can show you large green algae growing in deep water just fine in very shaded sections, the light intensity is 100-300 micro moles/m^2 of light, about 5-15% full sun. Lots of herbivores also but growth is slower than at higher light. I've pulled up greens at lower light intensities, Dictomosiphon has been collected much deeper, at around 10 meters in a deep spring shaft which only gets about 1-2 hours of light and not much light.
It'll also grow on my wood a cm below the surface but it grows much slower deep or with less light and hence much easier to control abnd beat back. Some spcies can be tough in many tanks.

Of all the algae groups, these are the toughest group. I've infested my tanks on purpose many times.

Spirogyra has proven to be one of the worst to remove manually.
The others are relatively easy.

Regards,
Tom Barr