Hair Algae

[fishmonger]

I was away for a week, and my nano suffered for it, not sure if it was too much light, too much food, but I came home to a massive bloom of what I can only assume is hair algae (long, green and very hairlike) I got it all cleaned out, except it also took hold on my crayfish. it dosent appear to be bugging the cray much, other than he now looks like a green unshaven poodle.  Im worried though that he wont be able to molt, its not on his underside yet, but I wonder if theres anything I can do to stop itÉ

[Fishnut]

hungry amano shrimp worked for me.  The crayfish should be ok to molt...I can't imagine this is going to be a problem.

[fishmonger]

Can I put amano in with my few remaining Cherry Shrimp?  I think yes, but would hate to lose that little gang of survivors!

[charlie]

Can I put amano in with my few remaining Cherry Shrimp?  I think yes, but would hate to lose that little gang of survivors!

Yes you can.
Regarding the hair algae ,since you have removed as much as possible manually,  water changes is the next step - a few a week say 20% x3, also cut back your feeding for a while the shrimp will be fine.
You can also Black out the tank for a few days, you still need to find the root cause after all of this.
Errol

[fishmonger]

Ill pick up a couple of Amano today then.

Im thinking ill do water changes, wait for the Cray to molt before I bother with anything else?  It dosent seem to be returning.

As I said, I went away for a week, all was fine when I left, and all was "hairy" when I returned, nothing new was brought into the tank.

[Stussi613]

I've been getting it in my nano shrimp tank, lights were on a timer for 12 hours straight, dialed it back to two 4 hour periods recently and no new stuff has shown up.  It's definitely growing right under the lights and my CRS have zero interest in it, so less light and more water changes are in order.

[masoud100]

Ill pick up a couple of Amano today then.

Im thinking ill do water changes, wait for the Cray to molt before I bother with anything else?  It dosent seem to be returning.

As I said, I went away for a week, all was fine when I left, and all was "hairy" when I returned, nothing new was brought into the tank.

I need amano shrimp as well but cant find them. If you find a place to buy it please let me know

[fishmonger]

Thanks for all the tips, I got distracted on my amano mission, seems Im easily distracted these days....  Ill let you know when I find them. 

Now off to my other life, to sell the supper sort of fish!

[wrm130]

critter jungle usually has a few

[masoud100]

Big als kanata has a lot

[blueknight0303]

i heard crayfish will feast on other shrimp.... and amano shrimp might eat baby crs... tho the best way is to cut back on lights and water changes.. if u want to use chems... use double dose of flourish EXCEL, worked like a charm for me.

[Stussi613]

i heard crayfish will feast on other shrimp.... and amano shrimp might eat baby crs... tho the best way is to cut back on lights and water changes.. if u want to use chems... use double dose of flourish EXCEL, worked like a charm for me.

Spot treating with a regular dose of flourish excel every other day is a better option in a nano tank, in my opinion.  It can be hard on livestock in higher concentrations.

[Fishnut]

i heard crayfish will feast on other shrimp.... and amano shrimp might eat baby crs... tho the best way is to cut back on lights and water changes.. if u want to use chems... use double dose of flourish EXCEL, worked like a charm for me.

If the crays are the dwarf orange mexican ones, they'll be OK with shrimp.  I hope that's what the crayfish is considering it's in a nano tank.  All other crays need to have a minimum of a 24" x 12" footprint tank and usually destroy a planted tank.  I have never had the experience of amano shrimp eating baby shrimp though.  Where did you hear that?

Definitely increase water changes for a month.  Hair algae is a pain to get rid of.  It doesn't tend to need much light to survive.  It's mostly the level of nutrients in the water that keeps it going.

[fishmonger]

Its a blue cray, seems pretty happy with the world, even gave me at least 100 cray-babies in the spring, if someones interested in taking him though, Im not averse to parting with it.  In the past if it was eating my CRS, it was ok, as there were many CRS.

I visited Big Al's Innes today, looking for Amano Shrimp, no luck, Ill pop into Kanata this week, thanks for the tip.

[fishmonger]

I got Amanos at Big Als Kanata this week, I think they were 2.99 each.  Fair price, I was told they would be in the 5.00 range.

[blueknight0303]

Definitely increase water changes for a month.  Hair algae is a pain to get rid of.  It doesn't tend to need much light to survive.  It's mostly the level of nutrients in the water that keeps it going.

well... my population of cherry red shrimps decreased in 5 months after adding 6 amano shrimps on my 10 gal shrimp tank... from 50+ to 20+ to now only 7 CRS on my tank... amanos are on a separate tank now. i only had 4 CRS to start. was told that it was probably the amanos attacking them... i fed them once a week and water parameters were perfect.

[fishmonger]

Ill watch for my remaining CRS status, I can only see one of the 3 amanos atm.  The hair algae seems to start then turn red (Im told that means its dying?) and the only green is on my poor Crayfish who Ive now renamed as my "Green Poodlefish" Hoping for a Christmas molt!