What is on my plants?

[KidneyMittens]

Is this fungus or algae ect.? And is there any easy way to fish it? It appears on the older leaves of my plants and not the new ones, progressively gets darker until it looks black

 

[Rivercats]

How long has the tank been set up? When you rub the leaf between your finger does the brown come off the leaves? What ferts are you using? What size tank and lighting? Lastly what type plants?

It looks like a nutrient issue to me but doing the leaf rubbing test it will tell if there is a diatom issue.

 

[KidneyMittens]

It is a 10g tank that has been set up for two months with no added fertilizer. I can look up the plant species when I get home and will check on the rubbing the leaves then too

 

[KidneyMittens]

Okay, sorry for the late response, I have been very busy recently. I checked and the stuff does in fact rub off of the leaves, although I do have to rub them vigorously to get it off, so should I rub it off the rest of the leaves or is there a better way to get rid of it? Also is there any way to prevent this from happening in the future?

 

[Rivercats]

If it rubs off the leaves then most likely you have diatoms. Diatoms are self limiting and once excess silicates in the water are used up they will die off naturally. Only run lighting 6 hours to keep diatom growth down. Then you can get some nerite snails which will eat any diatom growth. Nerites can't breed in freshwater so you won't get over run with snails.

 

[KidneyMittens]

Awesome! Will my LFS have year snails? (Also can you send me a picture so I can be sure I really get the right snails?) however, will my goldfish eat the snails? (And if so are they cheap enough that this wouldn't be a huge concern?)

 

[Rivercats]

Just type in Nerite snails for freshwater tanks as there are tons of different types available. You wouldn't want to get the small horned or spiked nerites tho. Goldfish will only eat snails that are small enough to swallow and there are many larger types of nerites. I order mine from BobTropicalPlants.com as he usually has a large variety. Some fish shops carry them and some don't so you'd have to call around in your area.

 

[brynunez]

Just type in Nerite snails for freshwater tanks as there are tons of different types available. You wouldn't want to get the small horned or spiked nerites tho. Goldfish will only eat snails that are small enough to swallow and there are many larger types of nerites. I order mine from BobTropicalPlants.com as he usually has a large variety. Some fish shops carry them and some don't so you'd have to call around in your area.

What's wrong with the horned snails?

 

[Rivercats]

Horned or Spiny nerites are small and would be the most likely for goldfish to bother. I had some large fancy goldies for years and I was amazed how large the Malaysian Trumpet Snails were that they could eat. There was never any small MTS in the tank and even the large ones only came out at night as the goldies would still try eating them.