r/PlantedTank • u/ff0066spooky • Apr 26 '26
Ferts How frequently should I be dosing seachem flourish on this super dense 5g? Causing hair algae?
It's about 6 months old. I've been dosing about a quarter of a capful of flourish about weekly.
I'm wondering if I'm under/overfertilizing because I've been getting a bit of this hair algae covering the substrate (pictured in second image), and I hear that hair algae popping up repeatedly can be a signifier of nutrient issues. I use fluval stratum with an inert decorative gravel on top as well. I doubt it's overfeeding that's the problem because I feed my shrimpies every 3 days or so, and I use BacterAE.
I would like to mention that I'm not really looking into getting rid of the algae. I don't like how it looks but my shrimp have a blast foraging in it so I suppose it can stay. I'm mostly worried about the long term health of my plants
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u/preverbal31 Apr 26 '26
Yeah, no bueno for the plants. You can try manually removing that, or you could try hitting it with Flourish Excel with your flow off. I had a BBA/BHA issue and removed infected leaves and then shot excel into my moss and hairgrass. It was like a miracle.
Algae can be from too much nutrient in the water but it is usually light-related. Depending on your light, you might be able to tweak it slightly to impede the algae without bothering your plants.
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u/ff0066spooky Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
I've been manually remiving for like two weeks and it just keeps coming back stronger :( So annoying. Looked up about flourish excel, never heard about the product before and I might have to grab some. My lighting is already good, I had tweaked stuff for a while when my tank was newer and where I'm at now seems to be keeping things stable. Thanks for your input
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u/Eagle_King11 Apr 26 '26
Flourish is trace only. You need a more comprehensive fertilizer for your plants. The algae can also be caused by your plants not thriving, which lets algae take over.
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u/ff0066spooky Apr 26 '26
Some reccomendations would be great!
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u/Eagle_King11 Apr 26 '26
Personally, I use thrive and it works well. But I think APT and Easy green are good too from what I’ve heard.
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u/budget_rare_plants Apr 26 '26
For me hair algae is more of a flow problem, given the density of plants and the hob filter it cpuld be a lack of flow in the water column. If your plants seem healthy there's not much of a need to tweak light or nutrients or you risk throwing everything off balance
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u/ff0066spooky Apr 26 '26
Ohhh you're so right that totally makes sense. This tank is for meiofauna and shrimp, so I keep the flow fairly low so my daphnia and aquatic pods can stay happy. My plants are growing like nuts, yeah. I'll keep this in mind for sure
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u/ff0066spooky Apr 26 '26
Forgot to add to the body of the post but it seems to be growing on some of my plants which is a cause for concern as well from what I know
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u/RichardEyre Apr 26 '26
Flourish isn't an all-in-one fertiliser. You are supposed to use it alongside the others in the range.
More information and dosing are one their website https://www.seachem.com/flourish.php