Shrimp sphere adventures

[Mustafa]

No problem! We're all learning at varying degrees.

[Aennedry]

I love your orb, so classical. I have a question on your sphere light, where did you get it?
=^._.^=

[Tanikaz]

just learned the hard way about this hair algae. Lost most of my shrimp today. I am totally a beginner and recognize most of the shrimp got stuck in it and died. How do I get that stuff out of there and or reduce it. This forum is wonderful by the way! I am completely bummed though.

[Varanus]

From what I've heard there aren't really any options for this type of tank beyond manual removal (with water safe tweezers and such). It may take a while but it sounds like you need to do it. You probably won't get it all if there are a lot of small fragments left over, but from there you can over time reduce the algae bit by bit by picking out the fragments as they grow.

Another option is to start a new tank and transfer the remaining shrimp to it while being careful to leave the hair algae behind (and picking out any bits you may see in the new tank before they can grow much). Could potentially be less work than controlling the hair algae, but will take time regardless.

[robokirk]

Would putting turning off the lights and/or putting the tank in a darker place help combat hair algae?

[keving]

I love your orb, so classical. I have a question on your sphere light, where did you get it?

This is actually just a Philips Hue Go light that I had sitting around. Probably not the best light to use, but seems to work well, and I can change colors!

Still battling hair algae, but shrimp seem red and happy. I'm going to start reducing the light a bit to see if it helps in reduction.

[Mustafa]

Would putting turning off the lights and/or putting the tank in a darker place help combat hair algae?

Not a good idea. That way you'd also be killing the food supply of the shrimp as the other types of algae would die too. Plus, lots of hair algae are adapted to low light. The best method is to stop feeding and let something like macroalgae or surface algae outcompete the hair algae over time.

[keving]

Welp, I decided to experiment with different ways to combat the hair algae. I've added some molly fry to the sphere. They've been in there for ~4 weeks now, and I haven't fed them anything specifically at all. I notice them picking at the hair algae quite a bit, so they definitely do eat it! Not sure if they will eat enough to clear it out, but time will tell.

I'm a little concerned that they will throw off the balance of the tank too, so maybe I'm playing a dangerous game

[Mustafa]

I'm pretty sure the molly fry won't do anything. They themselves can't just live on algae anyway, so they may just die off at some point. The only surefire solution I found is to pick the algae and let it be outcompeted by other more desirable algae like surface film/biofilm algae or the supershrimp macroalgae, or the mossballs (if you can put enough in your tank).

[keving]

I've ordered some macroalgae from you, let's see if it works

[Mustafa]

It should work as long as the macroalgae keeps growing and you keep up with manually removing the hair algae.