Thread algae

[glider14]

bleh this stuff is gross and not pleasent to look at. i have many ranshorn snails(along with a dwarf clawed frog ) Aldrovanda and U. gibba. i am wanting a fish too....one that is easy to get and that eats the algea but not the CPs...any suggestions to fish or any ofther method? i also have Hornwort but its not doing a very good job of sucking up nutrients

Alex

[rsivertsen]

I wish you good luck Alex, but I've given up on growing Aldrovanda in containers.

In the pond nearby, where they have naturalized, they're growing in the millions this year, and all of them are conspicuously free of any algae, although it seems to plague some of the Utrics for some reason, which grow in the deeper areas of the pond.

The Aldrovanda grows best in only a few inches of water, "ankle deep" in the shallows, tangled up, and commingled with the various marginal plants, some are growing in barely just a thin film of water, and many now are in fact growing out of water, in the grasses, and mosses, and taking on a growth form that resembles Lycopodium rhizoids.

They also seem to have a preference for areas that have lots of clay percolating up from underground springs, and the best strands seem to be in those areas that are also of very close proximity to, and directly surrounding hummocks of large monocot plants such as Juncus, Carex, Typha amd Phragmites in open, full sunlight all day long, and especially, when they find themselves snuggled up in the exposed roots of these plants and within inches of a clay mound.

The population density of the zooplankton community also happens to be the highest in these areas; which not only serve the Aldrovanda as a food source, but actually feed on the algae that might otherwise overcome the Aldrovanda strands.

I have also noticed that those areas that have various marginal plants that grow up from the detritus, and through the water surface provide a conduit for the various zooplankton life forms that use these plants to climb up from the detritus muck to get to some oxygen rich surface water, and then climb back down into the clay rich detritus again; the Aldrovanda strands in these areas are particularly robust and seem to be well fed, taking advantage of this traffic, and growing into strands that have very short axils, and appearing to be rather bushy strands of traps stacked directly on top of each other. Only less than 10% of the population takes on this giant growth form.

I also want to mention that I now have a red form of Aldrovanda naturalized in this pond, and suspect that it's probably the Hungarian red form. I’m not 100% certain, but the semi-tropical Australian forms don't produce dormant turions, and these strands do.

I had several red forms growing in this pond, several years ago; each strain was closed in with stakes and bird netting. However, one day, late in that season, I arrived at the pond to find that all of these enclosures were trampled down by a herd of deer, and all of the various red forms of Aldrovanda were all mixed up, and scattered all about the pond.

Since then, the pond dried up totally for about six weeks, or more, several times, froze over solid for several months, and I didn’t see any signs of any red strands of Aldrovanda for the next few years, until a few weeks ago, about three years later. Now, I have about a dozen strands of red Aldrovanda, and I’m certain that after all these years, that there must be more red strands in there that I just haven’t discovered yet.

[stevestewart]

glider14 said:

bleh this stuff is gross and not pleasent to look at. i have many ranshorn snails(along with a dwarf clawed frog ) Aldrovanda and U. gibba. i am wanting a fish too....one that is easy to get and that eats the algea but not the CPs...any suggestions to fish or any ofther method? i also have Hornwort but its not doing a very good job of sucking up nutrients

Alex

Alex,

You need to take one strand of the "algae" and look at it under a microscope. It's beautiful!
It's just a matter of perspective. Don't forget to look at your Aldrovanda while you are using the microscope!

Your local pet shop should have some algae eating fish available.

Take care,
Steven Stewart

[Aidan]

stevestewart said:

It's beautiful!

Plug Spirogyra into Google Image Search to see what Steve means.

[glider14]

fine fine fine haha its nice under microscope i guees

my pet store has tons of algae eating fish....just which ones wont eat my CPs?
Alex

[Deleted]

to tell you the truth you ned a placostamus which will eat a ton of algea or guppies which wont eat the palnts nibble on the algea but they do spread fast and you can have hundred ins just a few months to eat the algea.......btw you can use regulary pond snails which im sure the local pet store has mixed in among the aquatic plants they have for sail those snails wond et your plant they eat the algea and they breed rapidly and can overtake a 20 gallon aquarium in just a few weeks.....

[Clint]

Wouldn't getting a pleco to clear algae out of a U. gibba tank be like renting a cow to trim the petunias? It would eventually grow up and become impractical, doing more harm than good.

You need to find the cause of the algae and fix that. Thread algae looks a lot like a few other filamentous algae, so look at this page and see if it really is thread algae. If it is, then it's too much iron and your nutrients could be out of balance, too.

www.aquaticscape.com/articles/algae.htm#hair

If you do want a small fish, get two or three otocinclus since one or two of them will probably die on you within a week (it's just what happens They use cyanide to catch them ) They are very hardy (the survivors) , stay small and chow down on algae. I'm not 100% sure that they eat thread algae, so research that. I know they clear out diatoms and soft green algae practically overnight.

[zpyder]

If it were me, I wouldn't put a small fish in with the frog. It may seem ok but I'd say it's a matter of time before the fish disappears. We didn't sell them at the LFS I worked in as they were a "problem fish" (Though they aren't fish haha). We'd get a lot of people coming in asking if we could take them off of their hands, or wanting advice on what they could do as the species they bought and were told would stay small, were growing!

However...

For brush/hair algae one of the best options are the Siamese algae eater. They're a bit like Ottocinclus. However you need to be careful as often these fish are mixed up with fake siamese algae eaters, or chinese algae eaters, which won't touch hair algae. They can all be agressive to other fish though.

I'd never recommend people get plecs for algae, I've never seen one clear a tank. They produce a lot of waste, get big quick, and don't seem to eat that much algae, if any.

For normal slime algae and the other flat varieties the best algae eater in my opinion are bristlenose catfish, Ancistrus sp. They stay small, up to around 7.5cm normally, are quite active (Compared to plecs) and do a good job of eating algae. Though there are always exceptions to the rule (we're talking animals here, they never all do as expected) I could vouch for their effectiveness, and they do like dirty water for breeding heh. Lots of customers returned after buying an ancistrus and thanked us as they'd done the job.

However I can't say whether any of the above would leave the aldrovanda alone. Once I had a small amount of U.gibba sent to me, and put that in a tank with fish that aren't known to eat plants. They didn't eat the stuff that was already in there either. However they all nibbled it. Though it grew fast, the fish nibbled it back faster

As justlikeapill said, finding the cause is the best option. However thread/hair algae can be tough to get rid of. There are chemical treatments, however they tend to be quite harsh and would likely kill or harm your other occupants. It's usually a nutrient thing and often the cause is phosphates. If you don't have a water testing kit, you should be able to get a pet fish shop to test the water for you. If they're any good they should be able to do the whole range including Ammonia, nitrite nitrate and phosphate, and if you're luckier they may be able to do iron and dissolved oxygen hehe!

With normal fish tanks one of the options is a tank black out, where the tank is covered so light doesn't get through, and not fed for 3 days or so. The premise is that the algae with its faster growth can't tolerate the lack of light and dies back, whilst the larger plants can tolerate the dark for longer and survive. I'm not sure how the aldrovanda would cope however.

[stifflermichael]

Alex, I recommend trying to add CO2 to the tank. This can do a lot to combat algae, as well as help any aquatic plant to grow.

I mix 1.5 cups sugar + 1 tsp active dry yeast + 1 tsp baking soda + 1.5 liters of dechlorinated water. Then add to a 2 liter bottle. The CO2 is vented underwater through an airstone, using airline tubing to connect the bottle to the airstone, with a check valve in the middle (to prevent the aqaurium from draining back into the yeast mixture).

And don't worry about the CO2 killing the frogs...it's not enough to do so.

One more thing: do water changes...something like 1/4-1/2 the tank volume once a week. This is an easy way to combat algae as well as keep your fish (or frogs) healthy.

Hope I can help!

[pinglover]

Wouldn't getting a pleco to clear algae out of a U. gibba tank be like renting a cow to trim the petunias?

I used the cow to trim the petunias I guess. Couldn't be happier and since it was a "rental" cow, I get to return Mr. Pleco to the pet shop so I can go pick him up again next spring.

I would agree that the best "fix" is "to find the cause of the algae and fix that". Unfortunately, I didn't have time for that this summer so I plopped a nice big cow (Mr. Pleco) in one of my frog ponds that just happens to have aquatic Utricularia in it. I feel guilt now after reading this,

I mix 1.5 cups sugar + 1 tsp active dry yeast + 1 tsp baking soda + 1.5 liters of dechlorinated water. Then add to a 2 liter bottle. The CO2 is vented underwater through an airstone, using airline tubing to connect the bottle to the airstone, with a check valve in the middle (to prevent the aqaurium from draining back into the yeast mixture).

And don't worry about the CO2 killing the frogs...it's not enough to do so.

One more thing: do water changes...something like 1/4-1/2 the tank volume once a week. This is an easy way to combat algae as well as keep your fish (or frogs) healthy.

[wh2o]

If it were me, I wouldn't put a small fish in with the frog. It may seem ok but I'd say it's a matter of time before the fish disappears. We didn't sell them at the LFS I worked in as they were a "problem fish" (Though they aren't fish haha). We'd get a lot of people coming in asking if we could take them off of their hands, or wanting advice on what they could do as the species they bought and were told would stay small, were growing!

it depends if the frog is a african clawed frog or a african dwarf frog.

African clawed frogs can get up to 5 inches long and their eyes point upward. On the other hand Africal dwarf frogs are 1 inch max and have eyes on the side. Also there is no albino african dwarf frog.

Also, for the algea Amano algea eating shrimp might work it can be found at any specialist fish store or ordered online. Try doing some research into the care of both the frog and the shirimp.