The last batch of plants that I ordered came with a surprise supply of string algae. So now it's growing on top of all my plants in the tank.
I've been trying everything I can to get rid of it. The farlowella I have in the tank seem to keep it off of the sides of the tank, but they can't seem to keep up with everything that's growing off of the plants. It's all dwarf hairgrass and other thin-stemmed plants, so I don't think that they can comfortably eat off of them. I've been considering getting some nerite snails to try and help, but I'm kind of assuming they'll have the same problem. The water in this house has copper in it, so I can't really get any shrimp.
I actually do have a UV filter on that tank. It's helped with a previous type of algae bloom I had, but it doesn't seem to do much for this type of algae. I've also tried to supplement the tank with some Flourish Excel, but I think because I don't have any broad-leafed plants in the tank that the plants don't use up the nutrients needed to starve the algae.
I've gotten rid of almost all of it before by putting goldfish in the tank. But they also dig up the plants and eventually destroy them if they're left in the tank for too long. And since the string algae is a single-cell organism, it only takes one leftover cell for it to eventually take over again.
Since the last time, all my plants were destroyed by the goldfish except for the large "clump" of java moss that's in the tank, I'm pretty certain that's where it's hiding in. I'm assuming that the goldfish could never get into the moss effectively to eat all of the algae.
The last thing I've tried was taking all the plants out, and rinsing them off, to try and wash away the algae, but it's back again. I can put the goldfish back in the tank to get rid of the algae, but I'd like to get rid of it for good.
Is there a way to get rid of string algae from hard to reach places like inside java moss?