# Should I Be Worried????



## pauldredge (Aug 31, 2005)

on some of my plants in my tank i have got brown furry stuff, looks like hair. sould i be worried?

also my tank has seemed to have picked up on getting snails, what can i get to get rid or eat them?


----------



## osteoporoosi (Jan 27, 2005)

Sounds like algae,no worries. the best way to get rid of snails is just to pick them out one by one 
Slow, but effective.


----------



## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

As osteo says, just picking the snails out (or squishing them against the side of the tank so the fish can eat them) works. That's what I've done. Or you can put in some lettuce overnight, and when you turn on the lights in the morning, it'll have lots of snails on it. Or you could get some small, snail-eating loaches, like zebra loaches (or if you've got some more space, something like skunk or yo yo loaches) but be warned that some of these are fairly aggressive fish; you should read up on them before getting them to make sure they'd be compatible with your other fish.


----------



## pauldredge (Aug 31, 2005)

i read about other people posting about the hairy algae, seems like i need to get my self some mollies or guppies, atm all ive got in my tank is 3 minnows as i was testing to see if the water is ready to transfer across/buy new fish.

i have been squashing the snails but wasnt sure if that was the best thing to do. i dnt know where they came from though, do they just appear? or do they lay eggs?


----------



## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

hair algae isn't brown. Its more likely black brush algae which can have colors from grey to red. Not as easy to get rid of. Try florida flag fish. They love the stuff.


----------



## pauldredge (Aug 31, 2005)

what if i take as much algae as i can out, do a water change and clean my filter, will this more thn likely help? ive only had the plants in there for around 3-4 weeks, on the top of the filter there is some algae that looks sort of the same. ive noticed it on the leaves of some plants and lower down on oters.

also one of my plants has got white stringy bits hanging off it, like root looking things, could this be an algae or is this just part of the plant??


----------



## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

The "roots" if they are not really roots sounds like staghorn algae.
Removing as much as possible will help control both types but you cant remove all the spores from the water. Dosing with flourish excel will help. Adding Co2 to the tank will also help.


----------



## pauldredge (Aug 31, 2005)

could i be getting these problems because i have my light on too much? i feel that this is the problem.


----------



## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

Not likely. What exactly are your tank specs?


----------



## mlefev (Apr 19, 2005)

MyraVan said:


> Or you can put in some lettuce overnight, and when you turn on the lights in the morning, it'll have lots of snails on it.


YUCK, I so could not do that. 

I have been picking snails out of mine pretty consistently, and it does work quite well, though. It's a lot safer than snail killing products - usually those just kill the fish and leave the snails. As far as the algae...I feel your pain, I went through that 5 months ago and wanted to shoot myself. It finally started going away on its own when the tank got more established. But I cleaned any I could see off as often as I could find it.


----------

