Don’t use any chemicals, I’ve done this twice over the years and both times ruined tanks and plants. First step, remove as much as possible by hand, then reduce the lighting to 1hr per day and do daily 50% water chages. After a few days of this you should see a big difference.
Reduce the feeding, tweak the lights schedule, and at every step try to take as much algae out by hand as you can. My personal method is to use a safe cloth and sieve as a filter, siphon the tank into a bucket through the filter, return water to the tank. You can do this indefinitely, and it’s easier than cleaning a gravel vac.
Im also dealing with this. Ive managed to get it under control but not entirely gone. I found reducing light/ferts helps along with the addition of liquid carbon.
I think a 48-72 hour blackout could work but Im nervous what that will do to plants and livestock.
Algae killers could be dangerous. However, I’ve done experiments where I’ve dosed a shrimp cull tank with API algefix and didnt see any deaths. But still super risky and wouldnt recommend.
Had to move the tank recently and somehow introduced hair algae… it got beyond the shrimps appetites real quick and has taken over.
I’ve bought flourish excel, but in such a small tank I’m nervous about how much and often I should be supplementing. So I haven’t used it yet.
I’m debating moving the shrimp to my community tank and getting some algae removal product… BUT I’d rather go slow and closer to nature if there’s a magical way to achieve that.
Remove as much as you can. The root cause of this is either too much light, or too much food. Maybe both. You need to address whichever it is for this to be solved. With how much algae is in there, I’m guessing it’s light. Try giving them just a few hours of light a day if your scared of blacking it out altogether.
Personally I wouldn’t risk it. Just manually remove as much as you can. It shouldn’t hurt the shrimp anyway, I had some in my tank for a long time and never bothered to remove it, the shrimp just grazed on it.
Reduce the light, one day without light should be fine. You can reduce the algae by hand, use a long thin wooden stick (don’t know an English Word for that, skewer/ pike?? Don’t know, I can buy them in Germany. Like a toothpick but bigger…. ) It helps to roughen the stick with a knife and then swirl it slowly around the algae. The algae will stick and then you can remove it.
I had this same issue with moss and ultimately I had to get rid of all the moss. I still have some plants that grow a bit of hair algea, but a (basically) manageable amount.
While the moss was in the tank, no matter how much I manually removed, it came back on the moss.
Manually remove as much as possible, add more plants to compete with the algea, increase, and make tweaks to your photoperiod if its too long. 8 hours is great, 9 is aight, 10 is…aight, 11 is a bit much.
Clear out the current Algae situation as best as you can.
Lower the amount of light you are using. Give it a few days where you don’t turn on the lights (except the lights you turn on to do work/see.)
Scrape the sides clean because it will start browning.
Buy some top floating plants. Amazon Frogbit and Dwarf Water Lettuce is a nice top layer for shrimp to nibble on. Top floaters are very good at taking nutrients from the water column and won’t prevent oxygenated air from circulating like Duckweed… assuming you want to keep the current light situation as is.
I don’t know what other plants you have in there, but the moss are slow growers, and you don’t have much of Amazon Swords in there. If you are dosing nutrients, it may already be more than enough.
More shrimp!
Manually remove what you can. A toothbrush is great for this
I’d think about using a glutereldehyde product line flourish excel if everything in there is safe with it.
Reduce light to 4-6 hours a day.
If you have floating plants in another tank, I’d throw them in to eat the nutrients.
And water changes after you remove the algae. Try to siphon out the stuff floating around, or it will spread.
Light. Algae all feed on light for growth. Reduce the light. Depending on what all plants you have, I would do a 24 hr no light and then adjust it down a couple hours from normal. Water changes will help, but you will have a continuous problem if you don’t figure out the light. Uv filters can help too if say it’s in a spot of the room that gets too much daylight and moving it’s not an option. Also, there are some different algae eaters that can help keep that under control, but you might not want to add any more livestock to the tank, so again adjusting lights and filters are gonna probably be your go to answers for these situations.
1.Remove as much by hand. 2.scrape glass and gravel vac. 3.blackout.4 if all else fails syringe hydro peroxide spot treatment.5.add more plants or out of tank plants (pothos spider monstera) to eat nutrients 6. Get a otto or Siamese algea eater.
I have a 10 gallon where it slowly keeps coming back and every couple months I turn off the filter for an hour and put a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide in, knocks the algae back and doesn’t seem to hurt the shrimp or other plants
The pearlweed (I think? Hard to tell) is getting majorly choked out by algae, a taller growing heavy root-feeder or stem plant would probably be nice. My go-to in larger tanks is jungle val, but it’s way too big for a tank like this. I like scarlet temple, it’s a beautiful red plant, very iron-hungry and iirc hair algae is too, so it would compete very directly with the hair algae. Plus it’ll grow emergent so if it gets overgrown it won’t crowd up the inside of the tank.
CruisinJo214 
Don’t use any chemicals, I’ve done this twice over the years and both times ruined tanks and plants. First step, remove as much as possible by hand, then reduce the lighting to 1hr per day and do daily 50% water chages. After a few days of this you should see a big difference.
Reduce the feeding, tweak the lights schedule, and at every step try to take as much algae out by hand as you can. My personal method is to use a safe cloth and sieve as a filter, siphon the tank into a bucket through the filter, return water to the tank. You can do this indefinitely, and it’s easier than cleaning a gravel vac.
Im also dealing with this. Ive managed to get it under control but not entirely gone. I found reducing light/ferts helps along with the addition of liquid carbon.
I think a 48-72 hour blackout could work but Im nervous what that will do to plants and livestock.
Algae killers could be dangerous. However, I’ve done experiments where I’ve dosed a shrimp cull tank with API algefix and didnt see any deaths. But still super risky and wouldnt recommend.
Had to move the tank recently and somehow introduced hair algae… it got beyond the shrimps appetites real quick and has taken over.
I’ve bought flourish excel, but in such a small tank I’m nervous about how much and often I should be supplementing. So I haven’t used it yet.
I’m debating moving the shrimp to my community tank and getting some algae removal product… BUT I’d rather go slow and closer to nature if there’s a magical way to achieve that.
Remove as much as you can. The root cause of this is either too much light, or too much food. Maybe both. You need to address whichever it is for this to be solved. With how much algae is in there, I’m guessing it’s light. Try giving them just a few hours of light a day if your scared of blacking it out altogether.
Personally I wouldn’t risk it. Just manually remove as much as you can. It shouldn’t hurt the shrimp anyway, I had some in my tank for a long time and never bothered to remove it, the shrimp just grazed on it.
Reduce the light, one day without light should be fine. You can reduce the algae by hand, use a long thin wooden stick (don’t know an English Word for that, skewer/ pike?? Don’t know, I can buy them in Germany. Like a toothpick but bigger…. ) It helps to roughen the stick with a knife and then swirl it slowly around the algae. The algae will stick and then you can remove it.
I use 12” long straw cleaner and twirl it in the algae everyday. Use a net to grab any floating around.
Take the algae out?
I had this same issue with moss and ultimately I had to get rid of all the moss. I still have some plants that grow a bit of hair algea, but a (basically) manageable amount.
While the moss was in the tank, no matter how much I manually removed, it came back on the moss.
Floating plants attack the problem from both sides by cutting the light intensity and sucking up excess nutrients.
More flow, more plant density, floating plants
Manually remove as much as possible, add more plants to compete with the algea, increase, and make tweaks to your photoperiod if its too long. 8 hours is great, 9 is aight, 10 is…aight, 11 is a bit much.
Agreed with the light/nutrient advice. If you’re into snails, my rams horns have helped keep things clean
Clear out the current Algae situation as best as you can.
Lower the amount of light you are using. Give it a few days where you don’t turn on the lights (except the lights you turn on to do work/see.)
Scrape the sides clean because it will start browning.
Buy some top floating plants. Amazon Frogbit and Dwarf Water Lettuce is a nice top layer for shrimp to nibble on. Top floaters are very good at taking nutrients from the water column and won’t prevent oxygenated air from circulating like Duckweed… assuming you want to keep the current light situation as is.
I don’t know what other plants you have in there, but the moss are slow growers, and you don’t have much of Amazon Swords in there. If you are dosing nutrients, it may already be more than enough.
Buy more shrimp
More shrimp!
Manually remove what you can. A toothbrush is great for this
I’d think about using a glutereldehyde product line flourish excel if everything in there is safe with it.
Reduce light to 4-6 hours a day.
If you have floating plants in another tank, I’d throw them in to eat the nutrients.
And water changes after you remove the algae. Try to siphon out the stuff floating around, or it will spread.
I’ve used algefix with good results. I’ve also had excellent results by adding a mystery snail or two with hair algae.
Turn the lights off
At the end of the day algea isn’t harmful to your tank just your plants it covers and it’s not worth it to put something harmful in
Light. Algae all feed on light for growth. Reduce the light. Depending on what all plants you have, I would do a 24 hr no light and then adjust it down a couple hours from normal. Water changes will help, but you will have a continuous problem if you don’t figure out the light. Uv filters can help too if say it’s in a spot of the room that gets too much daylight and moving it’s not an option. Also, there are some different algae eaters that can help keep that under control, but you might not want to add any more livestock to the tank, so again adjusting lights and filters are gonna probably be your go to answers for these situations.
1.Remove as much by hand. 2.scrape glass and gravel vac. 3.blackout.4 if all else fails syringe hydro peroxide spot treatment.5.add more plants or out of tank plants (pothos spider monstera) to eat nutrients 6. Get a otto or Siamese algea eater.
Too much light…. Lol
Put Loads of Algae eaters or cover the tank for 3-7 Days. Algae will die down.
Congrats on the new snail ta k, it’s looking really well planted.
My kuhli loaches loved their hair algae nest and looked lost after a friend removed it all.
I have a 10 gallon where it slowly keeps coming back and every couple months I turn off the filter for an hour and put a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide in, knocks the algae back and doesn’t seem to hurt the shrimp or other plants
Everyone on here is right.
But honestly… it looks kinda nice. Eventually, the shrimps will catch up anyway
The pearlweed (I think? Hard to tell) is getting majorly choked out by algae, a taller growing heavy root-feeder or stem plant would probably be nice. My go-to in larger tanks is jungle val, but it’s way too big for a tank like this. I like scarlet temple, it’s a beautiful red plant, very iron-hungry and iirc hair algae is too, so it would compete very directly with the hair algae. Plus it’ll grow emergent so if it gets overgrown it won’t crowd up the inside of the tank.
Algaefix cleared mine no problem both times I got it.