Black algae on plants

[vvjosh06]

Good afternoon fellow fish keepers! I seem to have a problem that I cant get rid of. All of my broad leaf plants such as anubis have what appears to be black algae. The plants are still growing new leaves and such. Im just tired of seeing the black spots all over the leaves. Ive tried using co2 and also currently using NUALGI. Its supposed to removed algae but havent seen it perform as advertised. Any help would be awesome.

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[Niccobacci11]

A picture would help.
Does it appear fluffy?
If it does it is a good chance it could be black beard algae.

 

[vvjosh06]

Yeah the edges look black and fluffy and the insides look like plain green algae. And this app wont let me upload a pic

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[Coursair]

How long are your lights on ?
How often do you do PWCs ?
What do water tests show ?

You can try spot treating with Glut or Excel.

You can do a 3 day blackout.

Then put lights on timer for 6 hours only.

Up your PWC schedule.

Feed a bit less.

See how it goes. BBA sux


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[vvjosh06]

Currently lights are on about 12 hrs a day and im using current satellite+ leds. Do water changes once a week all levels are good.
I stopped using any kind of plant ferts cuz I thought that would help.
I've tried to feed less but end up having missing tetras lol. I dunno what else to do

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[Coursair]

Read up on BBA and decide whether to do a blackout or not. And then spot treat as needed. Def reduce lighting to 6 hours for sure.


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[Rivercats]

Only run lighting 6 hours and try moving the anubias to a more shaded location. Then you need to spot treat the existing BBA with either liquid carbon or hydrogen peroxide 3%. Turn off filters, pull up 3ml of either liquid carbon or peroxide and slowly squirt the algae. Leave filters off 20 minutes. Within 24 hours the algae will begin turning white, pink, or red which indicates it's dying. If you have a lot to treat you'll have to do an area each day.

Stopping ferts is not recommended and can actually make algae worse and starve plants. You get algae from an imbalance of light, CO2, and ferts.

 

[vvjosh06]

What do you exactly mean by spot treat? Like with a syringe? And the hyd peroxide wont kill snails or anything will it?

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[Fresh2o]

What do you exactly mean by spot treat? Like with a syringe? And the hyd peroxide wont kill snails or anything will it?

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Yes, you can use a syringe. I use a plastic pediatric oral medicine syringe (10 mL). I found them in the baby section of my local chain grocery store for a whopping $0.79. Sometimes I add a short length of airline tubing to the end of the syringe for those hard to reach parts if the tank (and it helps when your Excel or other treatment is running low in the the bottle).

 

[vvjosh06]

Whats the best algae killer?

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[MonkeyMonk86]

Flourish Excel can be used to kill algae and is beneficial to plants, an overload of it can harm fish. I read it stays in the water 24hrs. Idk if it works on BBA.

Just yesterday, I treated all my plants for snails and used a hydrogen peroxide dip followed by ( a few hours later) a 20:1 bleach 3 minute dip. The bleach dip will kill snails and algae for sure. Then, I rinsed over and over with over dosed dechlorinated water to ensure the bleach was nutralized completely. The java ferns and Anubis are still alive. I'm not sure if my new java moss will make it, but the subwassertrang looks good this morning.

I think I would try Flourish Excel first. Then, I'd try the peroxide dip on the plants. ( I used straight peroxide, but I believe it was supposed to be diluted).

 

[Rivercats]

I posted exactly how you need to do spot treatments with either liquid carbon or hydrogen peroxide 3%. If you follow those directions using a syringe (I have a 100ml one) it works great on BBA. I've prefer to use hydrogen peroxide 3% for spot treating and then use a liquid carbon for daily dosing in my planted tanks. It also gives algae a 1-2 punch. Peroxide at the level I listed is safe for in tank treatment but don't squirt directly on fish/shrimp/snails if possible. I've been using it for many years.

Then go to using a liquid carbon at 1ml for every 2 gallons of tank water daily as its tank life is 12-24 hours. Many things including lighting, bio-load, amount of plants, and types of plants used all effect liquid carbon. True overdosing of a liquid carbon in a tank is when you dose it and the tank clouds up but is clear by the next day. There is no one size fits all dose when it comes to using liquid carbon.

 

[Seeker_7]

I'm doing this h2o2 treatment now, Rivercats. Will 1ml per 2 gallons of excel harm shrimp? I have fire red cherry shrimp. Is this a permanent dose or just something to do until algae is gone completely? Following your above instructions to dose different sections daily, do I need to water change daily as well or does the h2o2 dissipate from the water? Hope it's OK to ask questions on another person's thread if it pertains to that information.

 

[Rivercats]

I honestly can't say if that small amount will bother shrimp or not. I do know when I had those exact shrimp they were very sensitive to liquid carbon, Excel so you have to be very careful when using it. Normally you use Excel daily.