What kind of algae is this?

E

ErrorS

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Dec 29, 2006
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http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/5433/10100485sm.jpg

that's not beard algae is it? I will say, on some of the thick-leaved plants without high water flow around them it is turning into a thick green/brown, but not as stringy as this.. at the lower parts of the jungle vals (right?) growing into a nasty looking, loosely packed, bush. Nothing like any of the beard algae pictures I've seen.

It looks white under the light but when I pull it out of the aquarium it is a dark green.

I'm trying to starve them out with no luck. Finances aren't so great but I'm looking into getting a canopy so I can increase my lighting. I have a single 48'' striplight with plenty of wattage (55x2, plus two 32w T8s, total of 14k lumens or so) but I'm sure lux isn't so great towards the front of the aquarium, it needs to be spread out better.

this is from about a week ago. I pulled the jungle vals out, pruned all the leaves that had growth on them (the majority) and put them back in the tank. Now the stuff is growing back and seems to have also spread to other plants.. growth isn't as bad (yet) as in this picture and growth may even be slower now, I'm just not sure. The jungle vals themselves are growing nicely, however, anything dies that has heavy algae growth on it. When it gets bad enough if I don't prune it will kill the entire plant.

I doubt there is anything anyone can tell me about controlling it that I've not already been told, but what the heck, why not?. More nutrients (co2 and other), more lighting (this stuff seems to grow quickest near high light sources), etc? I'm dosing with normal flourish right now, I'm not sure if it's helping or hurting the matter and I'm also running CO2 with a great diffuser.

I've got some java fern, wysteria, green moss -like stuff and hornwort which should be feeding off the water column.. with various other rooted plants.. and I dose with fluorish (not excel). Nitrates are back at 20ppm or so, all micronutrients are there, almost enough carbon, etc. I'm not so sure about phosphates as I can't find a test locally I trust for FW.

edit: Oh, two more things i might as well ask about.

Within hours after buyign the wisteria it shot upwards instead of laying down like it was when i bought it. Is it searching for lights like many non-aquatic plants do? Or is it just perked up and healthy? Some of the leaves seem to have brown on them (not algae) but that might just be areas I hadn't saw in the store. It's been a week and no leaves have died on it yet. Someone who has wisteria, does it seem to grow more as a bush close to the gravel with bent stems or does it have straight stems shooting upwards towards the light?

and my hornwort is both growing quickly and browning. This one is definitely browning.. but at the same time it is growing pretty quickly. No stems have completely died. Because of its shape I wonder if it's just blocking light to the lower parts of the plant? I'm not stressing this one too much.
 
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dupe
 
cut the traces for a while.<meaning the flouish>..up the CO2...prune...Just because you are running it with a great diffusor, doesn't mean it is making its way into your water column at high enough concentrations. What is your photoperiod? how many wpg u running?
Do you have any amanos, nerites, cherry barbs...otos....any algae eating crew?[/QUOTE]
 
the stuff in my sig isn't that up to date.

I run lights from 7pm to 8am.
I have two CAEs, 6 mollies, a rubberlip pleco, a flying fox (can't tell if it's a SAE yet, it's too small) and a small sailfin pleco. None of them will eat the stuff.

Every once in a while the Mollies will pick at it but they instantly turn away from it, they prefer smaller algae or growth they find in the lower parts of the tank. The Flying Fox wont touch it(he's a very small fish at the moment) and the plecos and CAEs, like the Mollies, prefer the more tender, less stringy algae found lower in the aquarium.

for lighting it's two 55W CFs (one 3k bulb, one 10k) and two 32W T8s, so that would be 3.1WPG.. but it's not like I'm hanging a suspended 200W MH from this tank, all the lighting is in the back half and theyr'e all crowded into a single 'dual bulb' 48'' striplight. Lux levels would probably bring it to around the levels of a typical 2.5WPG towards the back (where it's growing quickest) maybe 1.5WPG at the front, at most. Lighting isnt' great at the moment and i know that, I need to get a canopy so I can retrofit the stuff better.

for CO2 I'm diffusing it in a powerhead. The misting spread throughout my entire aquarium, the few tiny bubbles that make it to the top of my aquarium usually settle at the water surface.

If it helps any, when first turning on the CO2 I had brown algae growth closest to the powerhead, where I'm sure CO2 levels are the highest. Now at the powerhead output I have the stringy stuff coming off of it, it must be feeding on the CO2?
 
The algae isn't feeding off of the CO2...I have noticed that it grows in the high water movement areas, and I am sure the diffusor is that is doing it. But this is NOT the cause of your algae. Try dosing with excel on top of your macros, and pull back a little on the micros for a while, and maybe lower your photoperiod by a few hours. From your post, it looks like you run your lights all night...is that correct?
 
oh, no.. I just found that's the best time to take pics of my tank.

Like I said, they go on at 8AM and go off at 7PM, 11 hour period.

so you do think it's lack of macronutrients? assuming flourish is a good source of micronutrients (iron, mangese, calcium.. small amounts of nitrogen, carbon, etc, barely enough to matter) and excel will take care of the macronutrients?

The only thing I cannot test are phosphates, judging from everything else I've seen in these forums that's probably the cause.. excel seems to do all I need. I need to find something with plenty of phosphates, I might have a PH buffer laying around somewhere high in phosphates.

If I get Excel it will take a couple of weeks to reach my house. Being issued a new CC so I can't do any online orders at the moment (card shoudl get here soon) and nowhere locally sells it.
 
from your quote I run lights from 7pm to 8am. ...it seemed like you were running them all night. My apologies

OK as for 11 hours...not really necessary. Try cutting down the time to say, 9 hours.

Excel is a carbon source and has nothing to do with PO4. SPot treating with this can help kill it off though. PO4 is normally dosed....in my case, since I have tap high in PO4, I only dose 3/8 tsp once a week for my 90 gal. You have to tinker around with it. I buy it dry at www.gregwatson.com.

When I said to lower your flourish dosing <micros> I particularly meant the Iron, because sometimes Iron excess can spark this kind of hair algae growth, so cut it down. How often do you do water changes? Vacuum gravel? These things are necessary as well. Prune, clean visible signs and do water changes....lower photoperiod, dose excel, get sone PO4 and what about your Nitrates? How are you dosing NO3? Have you checked for NH4?
 
Ouch.

I increased the concentration of yeast in my DIY CO2.. right before bed.. what a dumb mistake, apparently it overflowed during the night. I feel like an idiot, I've always watched the reactors for at least an hour before putting into the aquarium. I'll never make that mistake again.. I added to the problem by turning down my filter during the night so my cats would get plenty of food (I do this maybe once a week incase one or two of them had trouble finding itb eforehand). The aquarium looked horrible this morning, little bits of yeast floating around, deep cloudy color.
All my fish look OK though and I guess that's the most important thing.

Anyways, now this algae is all over everything. I'm doing a 50% water change, hopefully that will help. Forget about pruning, at this point if I pruned every leaf with algae I wouldn't have any plants left.

I use RO water so I have to dose in every area, water comes out almost 0. With all the food I feed my fish, my high bioload, etc. I shouldn't have a whole lot of problems with most of the micronutrients and some of the macro (phosphates being one of them.. I do get brown blooms after a heavy feeding day)

I keep Nitrates at around 20ppm, I do my water changes at around 30, bringing it to about 10ppm and it's back at 20ppm within hours.

I had assumed Excel was one of those "all in one" ferts for macronutrients, I guess instead of assuming I should have read about it first. My fault, I just never expect to find some magical aquarium product that does something no other product does.
I have a local store that is ordering the stuff for me, it should be in either this Friday or next.

I can't believe everything I'm reading about this Excel, it apparently really really helps plants overtake algae problems.. I've seen more than a dozen posts from different forums along the lines of "I dosed flourish, my plants exploded and my algae died"

I probably do have a high iron content in the water. I had been dosing with an iron-only fert a while back, then starting adding the Flourish.. After the 50% water change I'm doing I wont dose the aquarium with any ferts and see if that helps any.

and 9hours a day is really enough? nice, I'll set my timer right now. 8:30am to 6:30pm
 
Hey, some of the algae is turning red.. on the left end of the tank with my 10k bulb and where the CO2 comes in. It's only in one small spot but it is a bright, bright red (almost nice looking), I wonder if that means anything.

and with my ecco+flourite substrate and high bioload should I be dosing with micronutrients at all? ever?
 
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