fishieguy
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
What kind of algae is this? It's clumping on decorations, plants and the gravel in a couple of places.
What kind of algae is this?
- Thread starter fishieguy
- Start date
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What kind of algae is this? It's clumping on decorations, plants and the gravel in a couple of places.
Meredith
Aquarium Advice Addict
It looks like black beard algae to me. I have heard that amano shrimp MAY eat it, but don't quote me on that. you will probably just have to scrape it off.
jsoong
Aquarium Advice Addict
Looks like what I have ..... been trying to get rid of it for months .....
This may be black beard algae, or maybe some form of diatoms or blue green algae .... a close up might help, but true ID needs a microscope (& a biologist
!)
BBA is tough to get rid of, nothing will eat it (although some will as a last resort). I did lots of looking on the net (& the plant forum here) & eventually settled on correcting a presumed nutrient imbalance by adding KNO3 to the tank. This is supposed to work only in high light planted tank with CO2 (the K & NO3 gives the plants a boost so they can outcompete the algae).
I've had some success with this in my low light, no CO2 planted tank. I kept the NO3 level around 10 by adding 1/2 teaspoon of KNO3 a week. The BBA isn't all gone, but is not coming back after I physically removed it.
Last week, however, possibly because my hornwort had grown so much & taking in more nitrates than before, the NO3 level fell to trace .... and the BBA was back within a couple days ... so I am back to increasing the KNO3 dose & cleaning everything ... AGAIN ........
This may be black beard algae, or maybe some form of diatoms or blue green algae .... a close up might help, but true ID needs a microscope (& a biologist
!)BBA is tough to get rid of, nothing will eat it (although some will as a last resort). I did lots of looking on the net (& the plant forum here) & eventually settled on correcting a presumed nutrient imbalance by adding KNO3 to the tank. This is supposed to work only in high light planted tank with CO2 (the K & NO3 gives the plants a boost so they can outcompete the algae).
I've had some success with this in my low light, no CO2 planted tank. I kept the NO3 level around 10 by adding 1/2 teaspoon of KNO3 a week. The BBA isn't all gone, but is not coming back after I physically removed it.
Last week, however, possibly because my hornwort had grown so much & taking in more nitrates than before, the NO3 level fell to trace .... and the BBA was back within a couple days ... so I am back to increasing the KNO3 dose & cleaning everything ... AGAIN ........
