An algae? Mold?

[chykityta]

Please see the image:


Are those red-ish stains on the Cholla Wood some sort of algae? When the wood was purchased, it was not labeled for aquarium use.


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[chykityta]

The wood has been in the tank for like 3 months.


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[Matt68005]

Not sure what i am looking at.

 

[chykityta]

Anyone else? I need to know whether I should take it out or would water changes take care of it.


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[katepost28]

If you're talking about the brown/red spots, it looks like algae to me. I have trouble with that type from time to time because I have really hard water. I would remove it and scrub the algae off as much as you can and do a water change. Do you know your nitrate levels? The brown algae seems to like sunlight, high nitrates, and hard water.

 

[chykityta]

I can check tonight when I get back home and provide the numbers then.


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[chykityta]

UPDATE:
Ammonia 0
Ph 8.0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 5
Temp 80°
No fertilizer except for root tabs

The only thing different to the norm of y tank is the Ph which normally was 7.4-7.6


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[chykityta]

The algae has gotten worse since I started the thread; almost throughout the whole wood. I therefore took it out and spread some peroxide. It did hiss so what's next? It is about a foot long and 5 inches wide. So, too big to get peroxide on the whole thing. Any suggestions would still help. The wood will remain off the tank until that red stuff comes off completely.


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[chykityta]

On a side note, I also have brown algae. I plan on adding more plants to the tank in addition to convincing my girlfriend to upgrade to a 40b from a 20 high. Meanwhile, only water changes are taking care of the town algae for a while.


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[katepost28]

The brown algae spreads very quickly. It really likes porous things. The peroxide should kill it. I suspect the high pH is what's allowing it to spread so quickly. Water changes should help. Maybe even try changing out some but not all, of your filter media. To the best of my knowledge, it isn't dangerous to fish. Good luck trying to get rid of it.

 

[chykityta]

You are right, I control the brown alarm by cleaning the surfaces. But that is not the solution about the red algae. It it not coming off after spreading half a bottle of peroxide and boiling a section of it (it is too big to boil it all at once).


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[jessipanda]

If you have some sort of rubber maid tub or cooler big enough to fully submerge it, I'd say soak it in a bleach/water mix. It should kill ANYTHING on it. Don't need much bleach though, and once its clear, sun dry it and then resoak it with some Prime to ensure all the bleach is gone. Sundrying will dissipate all the bleach on the surface, but may not fully remove the bleach inside cholla. Hope this helps.

Also, adding more plants should help reduce brown algae, however it can sometimes be hard to grow certain plants in higher pH. See if you can get ahold of some hortwort (guppy grass) or water wisteria and float it. Both a super for absorbing extra nutrients, plus they absord good amounts of nitrates.

Good luck!

 

[chykityta]

Thanks for the advise since I set it up to dry without anything else. I will give that a try.



Meanwhile, I already did purchase additional plants. Waiting for them to quarantine and later add them.


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