Black hair algae?

[bkiggy]

Got fuzzy black hair algae/ fungus? On driftwood? Pleco or fish won't touch it. What's the deal? Just rub it off or boil it off?

 

[Rutrag]

The only things I've ever known to eat it are snails. Your best bet is physical removal combined with phosphate control, which is normally what fuels it.

 

[bkiggy]

Phosphates? Where would that come from? It's a 29 gal cube. Aquaclear 70 filter. No live plants. 1 DP, 3 syno cats, Pleco -- snails not an option, puffer eats them

 

[Rutrag]

Phosphates are introduced with food and may also be present in your tap water.

 

[bkiggy]

Oh. So the algae wafers, and brine shrimp

 

[Rutrag]

You might try adding a phosphate absorbing media to your power filter. I've done this in the past and had good results. It's not instant, but I've seen a difference over a couple weeks.

I'm no chemist, but my understanding is anything with protein in it is going to have at least some phosphate. If it's also coming in with new water, it can be difficult to control as you're constantly fertilizing it.

 

[bkiggy]

Is it toxic ? Or just unsightly

 

[Rivercats]

Most of the time BBA (black beard algae) is caused by too high of light left on for too long. What kind of light and bulbs do you have and how many hours a day do you run them for? Phosphate remover does little if anything to help with BBA, it does help in tanks with diatoms as the diatoms use silicates in the water and phosphate removers also remove silicates in the water. But back to the BBA. The way to treat BBA after figuring out and correcting the problem causing it is to spot treat the BBA with Flourish Excel. What you do is take a syringe (without the needle) and pull up a double treatment of Excel for your tank. The dosage would be 1ml per 10 gallons of Excel. So pull up the amount of Excel that you can use for your tank size then reach in the tank and put the syringe almost right against the BBA and slowly squirt the BBA with the Excel. If you have alot of BBA it will take several days for you to move around to the different areas to treat everthing. You will notice in a day or two the BBA will begin to turn white/pink/red which means it is dying. One thing tho is Excel will cause some plants such as Jungle Val and Anachrais to melt. Also if you have a very stubborn area of BBA you might have to go back and retreat it again. But know that if you don't correct the issue causing the BBA it will come back.

 

[Rutrag]

Is it toxic ? Or just unsightly

No, it's not toxic to any inhabitants, but will smother live plants.

 

[bkiggy]

No live plants. BBA on driftwood

 

[Rivercats]

This method works on DW, plants, filter tubing, anything. So don't run your lights more than 8 hours and depending if you have really high light like I run you might have to go down to 6 hours till you get the problem resolved.