Invasive Plant

[kcooley]

the first thing everyone asks for when someone mentions something in their tank is for a picture. i dont have one so bear with me here.

a while ago i started to see what looked like fine green barbed wire in my tank. i don tknow what the heck it is but since the first few strands of it i have been removing it by clumps. it tends to grow in places about 6" from the surface in ludwigia or rotala where it can stay put.

it literally looks like barbed wire, there is no other way to explain it, a green filament with a node and two barbels sticking out of the them. the nodes are about 1cm apart and the strands are about 6" long

any help is appreciated, since it is a planted tank i am guessing there is no way to annihalate it. but any info helps!

[kveeti]

Don't know for sure. Would you google pictures of staghorn algae and see if that's close?

http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=9
This page says " Seems to grow mostly on tank equipment near the surface."
It has 2 pictures but when I googled, there were others to look at and they were all a bit different.

Or, maybe you can see another picture on that page that might be close, if it is indeed algae.

The only other thing I can think of, not algae, is java moss.

[kcooley]

nope.

i have been searching the algae sites for about 2 hours now, i have not seen a single form that even resembles this. it is multicellular. it has a stalk, 2 nodes or blooms and 2 shorter stalks or barbs growing from the node. it literally looks like barbed wire




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like that... :huh:

[kcooley]

and it seems to accach to everything but glass too.

[fishcatch22]

Pics!!!

[kcooley]

i dont have a camera and i dont have media sharing capabilities on my phone.


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That is as good as it gets. it is very small and stringy. very annoying i had to throw away 24" rotala bunch i have grown off of for 6 months and sold shoots to the LFS. it is ruining all of my stem plants

[plah831]

Is it some kind of runner coming from the plants? Or is it really living on its own?

It sounds like a runner, or some other comparable structure, to me. Some plants propogate by those. They spread on the substrate and grow a new plant some distance away from the parent.

[justintoxicated]

I know what your talking about but I don't know the name. I believe the stuff grows extreamly fast if there are alot of nutrients in the tank.

[kcooley]

this stuff is growing out of control.

it is no part of any of the plants in my tank. i added a rotala wallachi bunch, a rotala magenta bunch, and ludwigia peruensis bunch and a alternanthera reineckii bunch. none of these propagate any other way but trimmings and shoots. stem plants. all of the other plants in my tank are atleast 3 months old.

justin, i think you are on the right track, i add nutrients every day at 1/5 the weekly dose.

i just want to kill it!!!!!

[IndianaSam]

Could it be Utricularia gibba? (http://www.plantarara.com/carnivoren_galerie/utricularia/aquatisch/utricularia%20gibba%20ssp%20exoleta%201.jpg)

Utricularia gibba is a bladderwort (http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/aquatics/utriculariagib.html) and is a pain to remove from you aquarium. I'm currently fighting an infestation right now.

Sam

[kcooley]

indiana sam... i owe you one!

you are a life saver. i dont think i could have figured this out on my own


to everyone else, thank you!

[kcooley]

i read salt will kill this plant, that is the only thing i could find.

have you tried this?

how much salt would be safe to put in a very densely planted tank? 1 TBSP per 5 gallons? just a little less? i dont want to slow the growth of my plants too much and cause an algae bloom

[fishcatch22]

if I were you, i'd just tear it out by hand.

[kcooley]

everytime i feed my fish i pull out a bunch of it. it propagtes too fast

[fishcatch22]

GO CRAZY!!! and please, don't use chemicals.

[kcooley]

i dont use chemicals. only meds after salt and temp changes dont work.

i will make a small rake out of paperclips and rake the stuff out :duh:

[fishcatch22]

i dont use chemicals. only meds after salt and temp changes dont work.

i will make a small rake out of paperclips and rake the stuff out :duh:yeah, just do a huge pull-out job. it's not hard to just yank that stuff out, you're a man! :D

[kcooley]

it is not hard, it is that when i start to put it out i feel like the 20 minutes i take never do me any good. it seems like it is everywhere and it takes so long to go around that i havent been able to just settle down and do it. working 12 hours a day doesnt help, beer gets the other two hours of my awake time.

[fishcatch22]

it is not hard, it is that when i start to put it out i feel like the 20 minutes i take never do me any good. it seems like it is everywhere and it takes so long to go around that i havent been able to just settle down and do it. working 12 hours a day doesnt help, beer gets the other two hours of my awake time.sorry, but I don't know of any safe way to kill it other than maybe tearing down the whole tank and letting the stuff dry out.

[justintoxicated]

Well good luck, and please exclude "invasive plant" from whatever your sending me lol.

[Star_Rider]

I think the problem you may have with this is if you leave any of it behind when you try to remove it.


we have infestationsof 'noxious weeds' here in washington in many lakes streams etc.

they have tried physically removing these weed(milfoil is one of the invaders , we also have anacharis-egeria densa,fanwort-cabomba caroliniana, hydrilla, baldderwort..etc)

it's tough stuff..if salt works..I'd try that along with removal.

[IndianaSam]

I talked to some people in my planted aquarium club (Pittsburgh Area Planted Aquarium Society - PAPAS) and one person suggested that increasing the hardness by adding calcium carbonate and reducing the lighting would case it to die off.

I haven't tried it yet. I'm actually trying to cultivate it right now so that I can turn it in for AHAP points at my next meeting. Then I'm going to use the above approach to eradicate it.

Sam

[fresh_newby]

everytime i feed my fish i pull out a bunch of it. it propagtes too fast
It is a carnivorous little plant. If you are vigilant about picking it out, you will get ahead of it and eventually eradicate it....No need to use chemicals or salt. Just get a long forcep <long tweezer> from ebay or a surgical supply and pick it out in strands.