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I got a piece of driftwood from our nearby lake & put it in my tank. It sits up straight to hide my filter intake tube, so that the top of the wood is near the surface. At the top where this wood is broke, a few weeks ago algae started growing. It looks like I took a handful of long fine hair & dyed it lime green & stuck it to the top of the wood.

I have been looking through past posts trying to identify it & looking at links that lysaer & frank have posted. It only confused me. It seems that when a piece is broke off & left in the tank it dies.

I have high nitrates from my faucet, so if it is living off of them that's a good thing. I plan on having some plants in my tank someday. Would it be ok to leave this algae alone, as I find it very pretty! It doesn't appear to be spreading, just that one clump seems to be growing & sways with the filter current.

I'm not worried about my water conditions, as I am in the process of taking care of the high nitrates. I just want to know if this algae will cause any problems once I get live plants in there, such as attach to them & grow off of them, which I wouldn't want. It's beautiful, if it stays in it's place. What do ya think.....can I keep it?

Hi,
One of the most beautiful (IMO) sights is a piece of
driftwood with some hair algae growing on it, waving
in the gentle tank currents.

The problem is that the pieces break off, drift to other
parts of the tank and soon start growing there as well.
I's impossible to control and could soon take over the
tank.

Some algae eaters might help such as shrimp and ottos,
or one of the catfish that enjoys chomping on driftwood.

Without proper preparation, bringing driftwood in from
a nearby water source could be a disaster for your tank.
Parasites, worms, and all sorts of critters live on, and
in, that wood.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

I have black hair algae lurking at the back of my tank and quite a few times if I dont do full tank maintenance it gets out of control and I have to cut a lot of leaves off my plants, swords seem to get it really fast. But I can usually manage it but sometimes you really have to scrub at it lol to get it off, especialy on the canister of my UV steriliser.

Without proper preparation, bringing driftwood in from
a nearby water source could be a disaster for your tank.
Parasites, worms, and all sorts of critters live on, and
in, that wood.

On top of this good point, you need to be careful what wood you put in the tank as some woods can release toxins into the water and also effect the Ph in different ways, Id really love to be able to just pick up branches in parks etc to put in but i allways buy drift wood from pet shops.

If your lucky enough that the tank stays balanced then it's great. If anything gets off in your tank then it either goes nuts and turns from a nice green carpet into a giant bush which breaks apart and starts to take over or it just slowly fades away until nothing is left. Mine did both. First it went nuts in my tank trying to take over the place and as soon as I tried to keep it under control it just died out and I was left with bare driftwood again. Very tricky stuff.

Thanks for the replies everybody! I know you aren't supposed to do that, but it was too large to fit in any pot to boil it & I really wasn't worried about it. I used to do that all the time & so far this hair algae is the only thing that has happened. The wood is in a 55 gal. & has been there for a couple mo's. now. It leaked tannins at first but the water cleared in time with water changes. Apparently nothing affected the fish cause they have all been fine.

I pulled it all out, but there are some short threads left in the wood as the top is very irregular with lots of hide y holes for this algae to stay in. It's a beautiful piece of wood so I am not going to ditch it. If the algae keeps growing could I take the wood out & have hubby burn the top of it with a propane torch? I'm thinking that would kill any algae left & keep it from growing back.

What do ya all think of this solution?

Well hubby torched the heck out of the end of the wood.......or so he said. But when I put it back in the tank, then we could still see some green left. It wasn't strands, but more like the wood was painted green. He couldn't believe it!

So I'll just watch it & if it grows back he said he would cut it all out with his pocket knife. And if that doesn't work I will just have him saw that top portion off.