Black beard algae in 20 gallon tall

[Crustyshellback]

I rescaped my 20 gallon tall community tank about 3 months ago. I took out all of the artificial décor and added a glass canopy, coralife light with 2 T5 6700k bulbs, drift wood, java fern, Anubius nana and Amazon sword. I have a medium gravel substrate and only use fertilizer tabs for the Amazon sword. I use 2 bubblers in the back of the tank cause I read somewhere that it would keep the CO2 level high enough without having to inject CO2. The plants have been doing great until this week when I noticed black beard algae growing on the Java fern and black along the edges of the Anubius. I'd rather not have to inject CO2, but I will if I have to. I need suggestions before the algae gets out of hand. Would reducing the light level do the trick without affecting the growth of the plants? If I inject CO2, do I need to remove the bubble bars? What about dosing liquid carbon? Any advice would be welcome.
Thanks

 

[Delapool]

Liquid carbon I find useful in keeping BBA at bay.

This chart will give some idea of a guide on the ph/kh/co2 relationship.

CO2_Graph_zps9c124ef0.gif gif by plantbrain | Photobucket

In my cases, reducing light has slowed BBA as it has balanced the tank back to the co2 & ferts availability. I've also seen new plants or changing lights bring in algae problems that may settle down as plants adjust.

What time period are you running lights for?

 

[Crustyshellback]

Sorry it took so long to reply. Busy week. I had been running my lights for 12 hours on a timer. Found out that was way too long, so I reduced it to 8. I also trimmed the worst of the algae from the Java fern on the advice of the owner of the LFS and picked up some Flourish Excel. I'm doing a water change today. Do I add the Excel directly to the tank, or mix in water before I add it. The bottle doesn't say, and I don't want to harm the fish if they get a blast of it.

Thanks for the reply

 

[Caliban07]

Sorry it took so long to reply. Busy week. I had been running my lights for 12 hours on a timer. Found out that was way too long, so I reduced it to 8. I also trimmed the worst of the algae from the Java fern on the advice of the owner of the LFS and picked up some Flourish Excel. I'm doing a water change today. Do I add the Excel directly to the tank, or mix in water before I add it. The bottle doesn't say, and I don't want to harm the fish if they get a blast of it.

Thanks for the reply

Yeah straight in to the tank. Keep up on water changes and removing dead leaves/decaying organics from the tank. The BBA should reside quickly. Manually move as much as you can.


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[fishenthusiast]

If need be, reduce that lighting down to 6 hours until the BBA subsides. You can directly dose the Excel on the BBA to kill it, then adjust ferts and CO2 to lighting levels for a balanced regimen.


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[Crustyshellback]

Thanks for the advice. I'll let you know how it goes. I plan to plant my 55 gal long sometime in the near future, and I'm trying to gain some experience with the 20 before I try a more ambitious project. I've read a lot of posts. Seems like there's a lot to know to be successful.

 

[Caliban07]

Did this work?


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[Crustyshellback]

It seems to be working. I can see a little algae still, but it doesn't seem to be getting any worse. It might even be getting better. Thanks for the help.

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[Crustyshellback]

Just a quick shoutout to everyone who responded to this thread. I took all of your advice and the BBA is virtually gone. I reduced the lighting to 6 hours a day, started dosing excel every other day and flourish weekly. I did cheat a little and added 2 Siamese algae eaters. I know they will get too big for this tank, but they will go into the 93 gal cube when they are old enough to hang with the big kids. Thanks for all the help.

 

[jarrod0987]

BBA is high light and slow growing. It seems to spread out from a starting spot(s) etc. I started beating mine by taking the occasional leaf that was heavily infested and that got me 85% of the way there. Lowering the light just a tad got me the rest of the way. I might have tried that first. Some people told me that increasing water changes would get rid of it but after 6 months of 30% a week it had not helped much in my non co2 injected planted tank. Also...people recommend CO2 injection a lot for this one. I never tried that but I would like to some day. Also SMA is supposed to eat it but you have to make sure your buying a real SMA. Many fish are sold under this name and only the real one eats it. I never tried that either. Couldn't get the SMA around here. Excel does kill it if you apply it over the area but then it burns the leaf and you have to cut the leaf off anyways so I see no point. Dosing Excel to the whole tank for months did not help in my case either.

 

[Delapool]

That's interesting with the excel. I find that excel will slow BBA down in my tank whereas for others it will knock BBA quite quickly. As far as I know it's all the same glut(?) so I don't quite understand this.

 

[jarrod0987]

That's interesting with the excel. I find that excel will slow BBA down in my tank whereas for others it will knock BBA quite quickly. As far as I know it's all the same glut(?) so I don't quite understand this.

It is is interesting what you say about slowing it down. Mine does spread super slow and I have been dosing Excel for most of the time so maybe the BBA would have spread quicker if I was not using it. I also sometimes wonder why certain things work great it some tanks and not in others. Water systems are complex to be sure.