Wes L.

A couple months ago I purchased 10 ember tetras from my LFS, and they were very young fish. Not fry, but definitely juveniles. While they were bagging them, I noticed one of the "embers" had an odd body shape, so I pointed it out and asked them to replace it because that wasn't an ember tetra...and they replaced it. However, now that the fish have grown a bit, I see I have two more of these fish which are clearly not embers. There was also a fry in the bag, which I noticed before I dumped the water. I scooped it up and kept it in a little separate container, but now it's in the big tank and doing great, except it's also one of these fish. Being there was a fry in the bag, and the shape of these fish, clearly they are some kind of livebearer (and the two larger ones pictured are clearly males), and the Mickey Mouse shaped spots on the tail probably indicates this is some type of Mickey Mouse Platy? The coloring is consistent in all three fish, but they just don't look exactly like Platies to me. Does anyone recognize what kind of fish these are? And these are rapid growers. They have already outgrown all the fish in the tank.

I think your nitrates are clearly the issue. Black Bear Algae loves nitrates. 40 to 50 is high, and I know for a fact because I am currently walking that same walk. I also have a 55 gallon that all of a sudden after 4 years has had an algae bloom of BBA. After scrambling to figure out the cause (my nitrate levels kept spiking to 40-50 overnight), I literally started doing 60% water changes every other day until I could identify the source of the nitrate spikes. I have identified the source of my issue and corrected it, but even the week of water changes to lower the nitrates was already making a noticeable difference in the algae. Of course, the other way to eradicate the excess nutrients in the water is more plants like everyone was suggesting above. Plus, I think you are overdosing your fertilizer. Algae issues are from excess nutrients of all sources, so I would definitely cut back a bit.

One thing that really helps is hot water, as you have seen after your 1 hour of boiling the wood. Don't be afraid to repeat the boiling process a couple of times. When you do soak your wood for a week, fill your container up with hot water from the tap. You'll notice way more tanins being released with hot water. Do that for a week or so, and then once the wood is in your tank water, which is dramatically cooler than hot tap water, the tanin release is really slow. Just for kicks, fill up your container with hot tap water for a couple of days, and look how brown the water is the next day. Then one day fill the container up with cool water and watch how much of a difference there is in the color of water. The cool water will be way less tinted. You can never completely remove all the tanins from the wood, but hot water soaks really help speed the process up. I boil my wood several times, then soak the wood for about a week using hot water with daily changes, then after that I switch to just cold tap water and observe daily the color of the water. Once I don't see any discoloration of the water, or very little, the wood is ready for my tank.

Your GH could be an issue. Some plants are more sensitive to hard water. The high mineral content does make it more difficult for some plants to absorb the nutrients that they need. Some plants don't seem to care, but some seem pretty sensitive to it. I live where we have hard water and I have tried growing temple plants in my hard water (12 dGH) aquarium, and it never looked or grew that great. But then I had the same plants in my soft water aquarium (5dGH) and it grew like a weed. In my soft water aquarium, I have susswassertang growing out of control, so I took a handful and threw it in my hard water tank, and it's been about 3 days now it's about 50% dead. It also clearly doesn't like hard water.

How many hours a day are your lights on? I was looking at your light settings and from what I can tell it looks like the white light goes on around 9am and off somewhere around 11pm? Is that accurate? If so, that's probably your issue. Best to keep the lights on 8 hours or less. It looks like you have black beard algae growing as well, which is something I've been battling with lately. Spikes in my nitrate levels has caused it. It seems to like nitrates. If you keep your nitrate levels lower, so more water changes, that really helps eliminate the BBA. I've finally got my tank under control and the BBA is disappearing finally after a lot of water changes to keep the nitrates around 5. That seems to be solving my problem.

Wow, I think daily dosing of Easy Green could be a major contributor. If you have a medium light tank the instructions read just dose twice a week. I can't tell what your plants are from the photo, but they look like root feeders, meaning they will be getting most of their nutrients from the root tabs in the substrate. Root feeders don't take in a lot from the water column, so you could easily be over doing the dosing. I'd lay off dosing any fertilizer for a while and see if that helps.

Yes, I have tested the tap water, and every time it came up as zero nitrates, which makes sense for me because I have a water softener system hooked up in my house, and a water conditioning system and an RO filter. I have extremely pure water, which is why I'm so stumped with this nitrate issue. But my new theory is it's coming from my hands. It's the only thing left. I live in the desert, so hand moisturizers are used a couple times a day. Supposedly it doesn't come off your skin even after hand washing, however I'm suspecting that's not accurate and maybe I'm polluting my tank every time I stick my hand in, which has been a lot lately because I have adopted a zero tolerance towards pest snails. If I see one, I stop and take care of it, so a hand is in that tank a few times a day. I just ordered so gloves that go up to my shoulder, so we'll see if that makes a difference.

Thanks everyone for your responses. It's clearly looking like the Mopani isn't the cause since others have it in their tank without having any negative consequences. I'm still baffled why my nitrates remain high. I just can't locate a source. I'm stumped.

What kind of substrate do you currently have? I have ADA Amazonia in my tanks and what I do is take my finger and poke a hole in the substrate all the way down to the bottom of the tank. The hole stays put long enough for me to put a root tab in and then I cover the hole...and root tab...with the substrate. I've never had one float to the surface and didn't even realize that was an issue until I read this thread. That seems easier than poking a hole in the capsule.

Very interesting. You were one of the ones I was referring to in my post who I noticed was having the same issue as me...and had Mopani wood in their tank. But what's odd for me is there is No BBA on my Mopani wood anywhere. It's only growing on my little rock wall in the tank and a bit on the Anubias. I actually took the plants out yesterday and dabbed Excel on them, so we'll see if this really works. I've never really had an algae issue before, so I've never actually tried any of the remedies. I'm so curious about your tank. Do you still have the Mopani in there and are you still having the BBA issue? The posts I read were from back in November I believe. How have things worked out for you?

Has anyone ever had an issue with adding Mopani wood to a tank and then have BBA sprout? I've seen some old posts on here where people were struggling with BBA and a few mentioned that they had Mopani wood in the tank. My tank has been pretty algae free for the past 4 years. A couple months ago I started replacing the driftwood and spider wood with Mopani because the old wood was literally disintegrating. And a couple months ago I started having my first ever issue with BBA. The more Mopani I've been adding, the more BBA. My nitrates have been oddly high, which I'm suspecting is great food for BBA, but of course the million dollar question is why is the nitrate level always high? My tank is 55 gallons and is sparsely stocked. I started doing a 50% water change twice a week...and still my nitrate levels get high very quickly. Then it just clicked today. All the BBA issues started when I added the Mopani. I'm wondering if Mopani decomposes faster than other woods and is causing the nitrate levels to remain high? There is a lot of Mopani currently in my tank and I was planning on adding more, but I hit the brakes until I can figure this out.

I know we're not supposed to post links to other web sites, however @Odd Duck& @Captain Salad maybe if I just say the name that is fine?......Aqua-Imports sells both the hummingbird and jelly bean tetras. Now let's see if I get banned.

I also don't think there's a problem with too much filtration...filtration does aid in the oxygenation of the water besides filtering. I have a spray bar on two of my tanks, so when it's feeding time, I just shut my power strip off for a minute or so and let the fish have their feeding frenzy, then flip it back on. That way no food is wasted and they seem to consume every morsel.

You need stronger light...I'm positive about this. I have this exact same situation here. One of my tanks is a 10 gallon and only has Hygrophila Corymbosa and Java Moss...just like your tank. Hygrophila is a med to high light plant. It's also a heavy root feeder. It takes practically nothing from the water column, so dosing anything is pointless...and I have never dosed anything in this tank. I only use flourish root tabs like you. The Hygrophila is growing thick, dense and healthy and at a rapid pace. I'm posting a couple pics below. The tall plant in the back is plastic. That was my algae garden for the shrimp and snails. Every month or so I had to remove some of the plastic plants because the hygrophila was growing so rapidly....and now they're completely gone. The first photo was taken on Oct 24th, the day I planted the Hygrophila...and they look kind of pitiful. The second photo was taken on January 4th, so just a little more tan two months later, and look at the difference. You can see the plants are not only growing taller, but very thick and compact as well. That's because of the bright light. We have to think of our aquatic plants just like house plants. House plants will grow thin and gangly (and leaves will deteriorate) if they don't get enough light, and it's the same for aquatic plants. The 3rd photo I just snapped today, 3/17/2021 about 10 minutes ago. The Java Moss is still in my tank but I have removed all the plastic plants and put the Java behind the Hygrophila to make more room. The plants couldn't be any more lush and healthy. There's just about a 5 month difference between the first photo and the 3rd photo. But what's also worth noting is at the end of January I cut the tops off of all the Hygrophila, which is why they are all the same height in the 3rd photo. I took the tops and planted them in another tank which has low light. And those Hygrophila in my lower light tank look just like yours with holes in the leaves. I'm happy to snap photos of the struggling plants if you're interested, but they look exactly like yours. And the plants are not nearly as thick and robust as in this 10 gallon. The leaves are all shorter and farther apart......and the plants are clearly struggling. Just for a point of reference I have the Fluval 3 light on both tanks. In my 10 gallon bright light tank I have all the light settings at 100%. In my other lower light tank I have 3 light settings completely off, and 2 the two remaining are only at 40%. So there is a huge difference in the amount of light the plants are receiving and a huge difference in the speed and quality of growth.

It's not API. I'm snapping a pic of the one I have. It's odd that Aquarium Coop doesn't sell a potassium kit...but they should.