Black beard algae?!

[Skifflexie]

I have a 29g planted tank, with 1 African leaf fish, 2 Pictus cats, 2 Cory cats, and 1 albino bristle nose. I run a marineland canister,

I was gone for 4 weeks (just having my boyfriend feed) and when I came back it was cover in black fuzzy algae. What cause this? Ive never dealt with it. How do get rid of it? Please help, it's a horrible eye sore.


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[Caliban07]

Sounds like lack of water changes, over feeding perhaps. Are your lights on a timer or were you relying on your boyfriend to switch them off?

You will probably have to take measures now to remove it from plants/hardscape as it probably won't go away on its own.

If it wasn't there before you went away just remove algae and resume your normal routine and it shouldn't come back.


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[Skifflexie]

The lights are on a timer, but I'm sure he probably over fed. The tank also gets direct light, which has grown some bright green algae (that I personally thought looked ok, more natural) but the black had got to go. I've had this tank for 3 years and never had black algae. So I just scrub it off of every thing and change out a huge amount of water... I guess there is no easy fix for this one....


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[Caliban07]

The lights are on a timer, but I'm sure he probably over fed. The tank also gets direct light, which has grown some bright green algae (that I personally thought looked ok, more natural) but the black had got to go. I've had this tank for 3 years and never had black algae. So I just scrub it off of every thing and change out a huge amount of water... I guess there is no easy fix for this one....


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Unfortunately not. But think yourself lucky. Your previous routine has been BBA free for three years which means you stand a very good chance of undoing all of this pretty quickly and with minimal effort.

Some of us have not been so lucky ?. BBA can be hard to scrub off. Spot treating with excel will kill it all after a few days.


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