Ok - I overfeed my fish. fat & happy!

My problem is that I now have a light fuzz on my plants. So what do I do to remedy it?

My tank has plenty of light (I'd call it high light), DIY co2, flourish execl added 1x per week, and I use root tabs.

How do I de-fuzz?

What color is it? I stopped my DIY CO2 in my 46 gallon and the two SAE seem to be keeping my hair algae down for now. If you are overfeeding I would be curious to know your nitrate/phosphate ratio.

Does it look anything like the stuff in my tank


At least it's pearling... right?

Nah - nothing like that.

Very short, very fine. In fact - so fine I can't give you a color. As far as the water - it turns over 10 times per hour so I think I'm ok. I don't test for phosphates, but all other parameters are excellent.

I'll try to post a pic of the fuzz ASAP.

Yes it would be a good idea to post pics plus water stats

Ok...here it is. I guess Waaaaay up close in macro, it does have a color - kind of brownish black.

And like I said, I don't measure phosphates, but everything is....

pH: 7.6
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: Ranges from 0 to not quite 20ppm

I did have it (the 150) way overstocked with babies for a while, but it's back to a decent level now.

The more I think of it..probably is phosphates, huh? I know phosphate pads can help prevent - but what do you do after the fact? Short of getting an algae eater that will be nasty to the fish?






Any advice would be VERY much appreciated!

Welcome to the exciting world of red algae aka BBA

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If possible, increase your CO2, maybe add another bottle. Cut back on water changes, since inconsistent CO2 is a root cause and water changes introduce that.

Manually remove as much as possible, you can 1:20 bleach dip plants for 2 minutes and it will die too if you want to pull plants out.

SAE will eat back new growth, sometimes not touching the old stuff though.

Excel overdose: Double or triple the daily and initial dose on the label for 2 weeks and it will all be gone. This is the most common method, worked for me too. Very few reports of fish not liking this, maybe unrelated. My sensitive shrimp didn't mind a 3x dose for a month.

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Are you using champagne yeast? It works so much better than bread yeast.

If you need Excel let me know I have half a 2L left.

Oh one more Excel trick - turn off your water movement, squirt it on algae with a syringe and let it sit for a few minutes. It should turn red and then white and die off after like 2 days.