DEFINE - What is staghorn algae?
Staghorn is a stiff, spiky algae that generally develops on the edges of plant leaves. It can easily be mistaken for black beard algae (BBA) due to fuzzy look. However, staghorn is generally stiffer than BBA, lighter in colors at times, and much more spikey.
General causes:
Excessive amount of organics in the water. Specifically ammonia and nitrites.
Temporary instabilities or changes in tanks water chemistry.
Overall plant stress and/or growth.
DISCERN - How to tell if its BBA or Staghorn?
This image below is a great example of the difference between black beard algae, aka BBA (left), and staghorn (right). Notice how staghorn looks stringy and stiff. Were as the black beard looks more like softer flowing hair.
Part of the reason why these to are really easy to distinguish is because the algae has matured, allowing us to see it in its full form. Though, it gets a little harder to discern when its just developing. But here is another good example of the difference between BBA and staghorn. In this example, there is both BBA AND staghorn growing on this leaf. The staghorn is longer than the BBA, more string-like and is a little lighter in color. Whereas the BBA is more fuzzier, shorter, and darker in color.
REMOVAL - How to remove this stuff
The methods we are about to mention will not prevent staghorn algae from coming back. We'll address that shortly. But here are a few ways to remove it from the tank.
Hydrogen peroxide - Remove the affect plant or hardscape from the tank. Fill a squirt bottle with hydrogen peroxide and spay the affected area and let it sit for a few minutes. We suggest to remove it from the tank so that you can rinse it well with dechlorinated water before putting it back into the aquarium. You can spray the affected areas inside the tank, but know that using too much hydrogen peroxide can kill livestock and more sensitive animals like invertebrates. This is why we suggest remove the affects plants or hardscape.
Bleach dip - There is very little that can survive a cleach dip. Mix 1 part bleach to 20 parts of luke warm water. Sensitive plants, like crypts, dip fro no longer than 90 seconds. Heartier plants like anubias can be dipped for 150 seconds. Do no dip mosses and rinse REALLY well with dechlorinated water after the dip session.
Seachem Excel (inconsistent) - Seachem Excel is a glutaraldehyde based algaecide and is NOT liquid CO2. It does great with BBA, and sometimes can kill staghorn in the early stages of the algaes develope. But generally after the staghorn get established, there is a chance Excel will not work on it. If you can, spot treat the affected areas with Excel versus treating your entire tank. Just know that glutaraldehyde can be hard on more sensitive plants and mosses. So use with care, and as directed.
PREVENTION - How to keep this stuff from coming back
I am going to say this in every algae article... we need to make changes to how we've designed our aquarium otherwise the algae will just keep coming back. The definition of crazy is: doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting different results. Do not rely on fish, algae eaters, snails, shrimp etc., to fix the design flaw that we've introduced into our tanks... and look at this poor plant. You can see Green Spot Algae on the leafs, holes due to a lack of nutrients, and staghorn growing all over it.
Solution 1: Filtration! Check your filtration and ensure you have adequate filtration and turnover. We suggest that your filter turn over your tank's water 10x every hour. Furthermore, make sure you have dedicated bio-media as to prevent accidently killing your bacteria during maintenance. Accidentally killing your bacteria during maintenance can cause an algae spike encouraging staghorn to develop. Check out our video that covers how to set up filtration for your planted tank properly.
Solution 2: Stabile water parameters. Plant stress will always increase the changes of algae development. Check your GH/KH to make sure it has not changed. Fluctuating parameters can stress the old growth out. If there was a know issue with your tank water chemistry and it has been sorted out, then simple trim off the effected areas and allow the new growth to come in. If you are not sure how to test your tank water chemistry, watch the video below. It will teach you how to test and adjust your tanks GH, KH and PH.
Solution 3: Lost of water changes! So if your filtration is fine, you are not showing any ammonia or nitrites in the water you are using for water changes, and your GH/KH is stable, then its water change time as a precaution. We normally recommend 50% water changes weekly, but in this case we'd recommend upping the water changes to 75% weekly, for 2-3 week, or until the algae resolves itself. During the water change make sure to siphon out as much junk, dead matter and detritus as you can. It can sometimes build up in your substrate, between rocks, and hiding in low flow areas. We want nothing in our tan that can be rotting, causing the release of ammonia in the aquarium. We use large water changes to purge our system of any dissolved organic compounds (DOCs) that might have build up over time, or introduced into our tanks through water changes.
ADDITIONAL EDUCATION - Issues with using tap water
Most of the time staghorn is fed through ammonia and nitrites. And the hard part is finding out where those are coming from. We could be reading zero in our tank, but something like a dead or plant can be releasing little bits over time thus feeding the staghorn before it traceable. The issue sometimes with using municipal water supplies, well water, anything other than RODI water is we could be introducing organics into our tank with water changes. A good example of this is when there is a heavy rain, the runoff picks up organic matter which enters into our municipal water system. This can cause a temporary ammonia spike in our tap water which we could be dumping into our tank. This is why RODI water is the great equalizer as if removes everthing from the water so we can simply put back what we need. So if you are seeing staghorn in your aquarium, but you are good about keeping up with your water changes, test the water you are using for water changes just to make sure a random event didn't cause ammonia to be present in your tap water... the same goes for well water.
Now I know we covered a lot. If you have any questions about algae, reach out to us on our new forum! We can help you troubleshoot your algae issues.
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