Can someone please tell me how to get this damn black algae off my plants?

This thread might help.

Use sound like a DIY CO2 user and your CO2 levels need to be 2x what you have.

This is the main cause for 99% of the BBA issues.
Work on this.

Then, you can also work on keeping a decent amount of nutrients by adding KNO3, K2SO4, KH2PO4 and traces. Just four things. That will cover the nutrients.

For a routine for this:
55 gallon tank:

50% weekly water changes
Add 3/4 teaspoon K2SO4 once a week after water change
Add 1/2 teaspoon KNO3 2x a week
Add 10mls of traces 2x a week
Add 2-4 rice grain's worth of KH2PO4 2x a week

Repeat weekly.

Keep the CO2 in the 20-30ppm range and keep it there.
If it drops down too low during the light period, you will get BBA again and again.

Grow the plants well and you can trim off the BBA.
You will want to trim it off, maybe peroxide or bleach some parts that you don't want to trim off on some tough leaved plants, The Elodea will melt if you try dipping it in bleach etc. It's cheap fast growing etc, just trim this.

Then after you spend some time trimming all you can, then do the water change and correct the problems.

pH should be in the 6.6-6.7 range the whole light period long.
After a few weeks and if all is going well, add 3x a week the traces, KH2PO4 and the KNO3.

This is standard procedure for most algae issues.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Save yourself some money:
Fleet's Enema for PO4
NuSalt (KCl) for Potassium
Use SeaChem Flourish instead of "Trace". "Trace" is too watered down.
Len

I can't tell you much that plantbrain hasn't said except I had the same problem and it was due to the sudden removal of CO2 which I've been using for a year it only took 1 day for that stuff to grow in them. Most of what I found out suggested the use of Flourish Excel ( use this exactly as instructed ) and even [FONT=&quot]nutrient[/FONT] suppressing plants like water Hyacinth ( to lower Phosphates ) this is much easier than what plantbrain says but it may take longer to get rid of I'm guessing. The Black/Black Beard algae should lighter in color and brown then to a pinkish color then just fall off. Anyway from what I have read CO2 imbalance is a huge cause of this stuff.

Way to go to bump a 12 year old thread. Who knows if that tank is even still used. Or any of the posters still active. It is safe to assume that either the algae is taken care of by now or that it got tore down if it didn't get fixed.

Duckie said:

Way to go to bump a 12 year old thread. Who knows if that tank is even still used. Or any of the posters still active. It is safe to assume that either the algae is taken care of by now or that it got tore down if it didn't get fixed.

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lol, a 12 year old thread being commented on with advice lol. Anubis does not need the advice now petluvr! the problem is resolved or long since gone!