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Re: Haircut in my tank?



Bad news Peter,

That floating short green hair is blue green algae filaments looking to take over the tank. They will catch on the ends of leaves looking like iron filings on a magnet and grow from there. Look to the nutrient levels, you need some nitrate, phosphate and potassium in there as well as the micros. I never had a BGA problem before adding CO2 and got it shortly after adding it so don't know if low CO2 is a problem. Would think the diatom filter could catch the filaments but it wouldn't be possible to rid the tank of BGA just with a filter.

It finally stopped being a problem when I zapped it with antibiotic, got some nitrate in the water, siphoned the sessile stuff with an airline, scraped the undergravel bits down away from the glass with a credit card and aimed more water flow on the colonies that kept creeping up from the gravel. Don't remember if blackouts did any good.

Kathy in southern California

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-----cut--------Tank info as follows: 29 gal set up for
about a year
and a half. Various incarnations (high maintenance/low
maintenance, CO2/no
CO2, none right now) and fish combinations over that time, but
currently has
7 gouramis (T. trichopterus and leeri), 3 danios and 3 cory
cats. Fish are
all thriving and are fed live, flake, freeze-dried, etc. The
tank is lightly
planted (by this groups standards) in 4-5 ins. Flourite; one
large sword, a
big driftwood with Java fern and bolbitis. Water is pH 7.2, KH
5, GH 20,
Nitrites <0.3, NH3/NH4+ undetecable. That's all I can test with
my laborette
test kit. Light is 55 w of CF for 13 hours a day and filter is a
Whisper 3,
no carbon but use peat granules for pH and hardness control (tap
water is pH
8.5). Seachem Flourish twice a week per instructions on the
bottle. I've been
fighting blue/green algae in a minor way the last few months or
so, but a few
days ago woke up and found my tank full of what looks like green
cut hair,
like what's on your shoulders after a haircut, really short.
I've been doing
30-40% water changes every other day and running the diatom
filter daily, but
doesn't seem to have any effect so far. I've never seen anything
quite like
this in 15+ years of fooling around with fish. Any hints on what
it is, and
how to cure?  Thanks again.

Peter






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