What type of Algae?

[Alaris]

What type of algae is this on my anubias nana? My tank is still cycling and I have no nitrAtes. I've had the lights on for 10 hrs/day since Wednesday and I added the nanas on Friday evening. The algae is only present on my two nana plants.

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

Not sure maybe just diatoms, although hard to tell.

Heres my experience/rant:

low or 0 nitrates is a problem. Plants use it for food. Its the nutrient they use the most of and had a great impact/limits plants which incurages algae. Goes along with the other macros(P/K)

Light mainly is the driving force, along with CO2 levels and nutrient levels for growth. Which means more light means you need more of the rest. since CO2 is limited, if you dont have ferts you need to reduce the light.

Watch out for segiment/crap/ect.. on plant leaves, it can cause algae. Thats why flow/water movement is important. If you move things its a good idea to do a vac to clean plants and crap that got disturbed.

Personally since you have a new tank, there is not alot of nutrients available for the plants to use, so I would reduce the lighting to 6-7hrs a day. This will just sustain the plants and make them not need as much nutrients that you may be lacking currently.


Once you get some fish in there for a couple weeks, then you could start to bump the lighting back up slowly to 10hrs max IMO.

Also consider adding some kind of algae eater to your stocking plan. Like maybe some shrimp(amano or RCS) or an Oto(1 for now, then 1 more later if you still have algae to feed it), or some snails like ramshorn.

In my 10G, its not fully stocked, and has been established since march, I had the 2x 13w bulbs on for 10hrs and was good, but i have RCS and an Oto that clean the tank. My nitrates would still drop to 5 or zero if I let it, so I needed to add some slight ferts. If your is fully stocked then you prob wont need ferts and can use 9hrs a day lighting.

 

[neilanh]

Brush or beard algae. It's very common on slow growing plants, unfortunately. Since they're so new it probably came in on them.

Nerite snails will sometimes eat it, or you can spot treat with excel.

 

[shrek_vn2002]

What type of algae is this on my anubias nana? My tank is still cycling and I have no nitrAtes. I've had the lights on for 10 hrs/day since Wednesday and I added the nanas on Friday evening. The algae is only present on my two nana plants.

View attachment 15258

I had same problem like yours http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f24/is-this-brown-algae-on-anubias-leaves-105396.html

As I posted in another thread, Flourish Excel may kill BBA. By the way, I think anubias nana dont like lot of light so I did put them in the shaded area. You can research it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubias

 

[Alaris]

I think the anubias nana came with BBA from the lfs. I didn't see it until a few days after I put it in my tank. After another visit to the lfs I saw their nanas had BBA. My mother-in-law also got BBA from the same nana and it ended up spreading throughout her tank. I started the Excel treatment, but I was doing the normal dose.

I looked around on the internet and found how terrible this algae can really get. I got scared and plucked the leaves that had the BBA off of the nana. It never spread to any of my other plants.

 

[bluerose]

Ah... that's what that stuff is...

so far it hasn't spread to my anacharis, but all my anubias leaves have it and even though the cories clean the plants (and I have tried to rub it off) it doesn't seem to go anywhere.

It's growing really well still... is there anything I can do? What is the treatment with Excel? (not trying to hijack, promise!)

 

[Alaris]

That's fine! The recommendation is to do 2x or 3x the daily dose which is 1ml/10g.

I saw an article about using hydrogen peroxide:
Fighting Algae with Hydrogen Peroxide - I

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

Flourish Excel got rid of all my algae - Algae - Aquatic Plant Central

 

[bluerose]

I'm seeing on that last link that people were having fish problems with high doses of excel.

Would it be smart to pull the plant out and put it in a treatment tank? It's just my anubias nana that's affected. I have some hair algae on a few of the anacharis (I think) but it's really minimal and comes and goes frequently.

 

[Alaris]

If your algae looks like my algae on the anubias nana, then I suggest just pulling off the leaves that are affected. I don't have fish/shrimp right now so I couldn't rely on a clean up crew.

Algae is an imbalance in your tank. Depending on the type of algae, you can figure out what needs to be added to your tank. While Excel may kill the algae, it will come back if you don't take action against what caused the algae to begin with. Since mine didn't spread or get worse, I assume it came from the store.

 

[bluerose]

Unfortunately while the BBA is only on my anubias nana- it is on every leaf. I'd have to whack it back to the roots.

Being that it was my most expensive plant I'd like to avoid that if possible... it's growing rather well and the cories love to hang out under the lower leaves.

It came in on the plant- there are only very small spots of what I think is hair algae otherwise in the tank and the occasional spot on the glass.

 

[Purrbox]

Something that works really well with Anubias covered in BBA is to remove the plant from the aquarium, dip an aquarium only tooth brush in Flourish Excel and then brush the affected leaves. This gives a high dose directly to the algae. Place back in aquarium and should start to see the BBA start turning colors and dying off in a few days. You can repeat the treatment as necessary. I wouldn't recommend this for most plants, but Anubias are so tough they they come through it with flying colors.

 

[bluerose]

Will do purrbox! just need to *find* the Excel first........... grr.

 

[JohnPaul]

Just chiming in here that I've pretty successfully treated BBA with hydrogen peroxide. Though if I had to do it again, I'd probably do the Excel option as overall it seems a little less risky.

 

[Bidgette]

Yea, I bought the same kind of plants, and the algae took over my take within a week. My 30 gallon is sitting between two windows, both of which have unshaded arches on top, so the extra light really made the algae happy!

I wound up tearing the tank down and bleaching the rocks. Discarded all my plants, even the swords that were original to the tank and were sending off shoots! GRRRRRRRR

BTW, when discussing this issue with my lfs, I mentioned that I have a plecostomos(SP) which was growing too large for my tank. He started out in March as about 3/4 inch, and is now almost 7 inches....with a 2 1/2 to 3 inch sail! (I had lots of algae for him to munch on!) She said, "No problem, just take him out to the lake and let him go! He'll grow and be very happy!"

DOH! And she was writing on the bags they send stuff home in with labels all over them that state "DO NOT RELEASE INTO THE ENVIRONMENT!"

Guess you really have to take the "expert" advice with a grain of salt.



If you don't spend time creating what you want, you will have to spend time coping with what you get!

 

[bluerose]

I got some Excel today and gently scrubbed the anubias with it- a lot of the BBA came off outright.

I dosed the tank with the regular 'initial' dose- I also added more anacharis so I figured it couldn't hurt. It's an 8gal- what dosage should I follow? The initial dose (1 capful/10g) daily for a week since I applied some directly to the affected plant (as opposed to 3-5x dose)? The maintenance dose is 1 cap/50g but I have a low-light tank so I don't think I need it otherwise (although would it hurt to dose once every couple of weeks to keep the plants happy? I had very low nitrates *before* nearly doubling my plant count...)

 

[Purrbox]

A capful is roughly 5ml. You'd want to add 4ml for the initial dose and ~0.8ml daily. Most people treating for algae would dose 2-3x the normal daily dose. So ~1.6-2.4ml per day. For these smaller doses a children's medicine dropper is very helpful.

 

[bluerose]

Interesting results!

No change on the Anubias- I understand it takes a few days.

But I have one particular spot on the back wall that likes to grow algae... I can rub it off and it'll be back within 24h and will spread really quickly.

I put a few drops of Excel on the tank side of my mag-float and scrubbed over all the algae on that wall.

Still completely clear a day later.

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

I had very low nitrates *before* nearly doubling my plant count...)

Thats the root cause of your issue

A capful is roughly 5ml.

I'm pretty sure that depends on the bottle size, which should be OK unless you have a 2 liter bottle of Excel like me(10ml cap size). I just use a syringe anyway(actually it was for medicine that I got from the vet, unused ofcourse).


If you have fish just be aware that larger doses can be an issue with some fish from what others report. So I would not dose the "initial/water change amount" everyday. Stick to 3x max daily IMO, if you have fish in the tank my opinion would be to gradually get up to that level(like with everything else) so the fish can get used to it.

I like the 10-15 min of no filter running, spot treatments.

 

[bluerose]

I tested nitrates again today- they're up to 10ppm from 5. Hoping my algae will start to go away now that they're rising a bit more. (Still 0 ammonia/nitrites.)

If I'm not doing spot treatments in the tank (since I went over the affected plant with a rag w/ Excel on it), should I still turn the filter off for a bit?