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I upgraded the size tank when we moved 2 1/2 months ago. Added some new pool filter sand and capped it with the old substrate—mulm and all. Used same plants, rocks and driftwood from old tank, hoping to keep the beneficial bacteria alive. I do not like to disturb the substrate much because I want the substrate to be enriched to feed the plant roots. I have been watching this white growth develop and hoped that it was benign and maybe useful for the ecosystem of the tank. But maybe I am letting things get carried too far in this direction? Can anyone tell me what this is and if I need to intervene and remove it for the health of my fish?

Hey! So for those who know, about 2 weeks ago I got a bunch of plants to fill up the empty space in my tank. The problem is that algae blossomed EVERYWHERE in my tank. Green and brown algae on the glass along with green spot algae, and blue-green algae coating the substrate and covering the tips of my plants. I'm able to clean the algae off the glass, but I have no idea how to clean the algae off the substrate. I do have a sand vacuum, but it's quite big for a ten gallon and doesn't fit well between gaps in the rocks and plants. I don't have anything stocked in the tank except for a betta fish, but I don't think the quality of my tank is good enough to introduce shrimp or other cleaning fish/inverts. For example, the GH is way too high and I've been struggling to get it down, and there aren't enough hiding places for tiny animals like shrimp in case my betta gets aggressive. Any tips to how I can effectively clean the algae and muck without a cleaning crew or ripping up my scape?

Hello everyone. I have some kind of algae infestation and I’m not sure what kind and how to fix. It is completely covering all of my plants but nothing else. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Story time: I had a thriving heavily planted aquarium with 7 corys, 2 otos, 25 olive nerites, 8 amanos, and an indeterminate number of RCS's for a little over a year. I had to leave for a work engagement for about a month and had a friend (who knows nothing about aquariums) feed the tank a tiny pinch sinking wafers every three days. Friend told me the tank was starting to grow algae pretty bad, but I said, "don't worry about it." My octopus plants apparently took over the tank. I returned to a tank with horribly fouled water, ALL of my RCS's gone, all but one olive nerite dead and fouling the water, algae out of control with tons of that weird foamy algae that grows from too much protein. The Amanos all happy and healthy--nice and chonky--and all of the fish alive and healthy looking though hiding much more than usual. I'm still finding empty snail shells every once in a while after three weeks trying to recover my tank. My vals, java ferns, and amazon sword died from being covered in a film of algae. Crypts, octopus, dwarf sag, dwarf lily fine though disappointed in being neglected. The java moss died where I placed it and grew onto the log in the tank. Tank parameters: 60 gal; "hot rodded" HOB; airstone; bubble bio MB filter 75°F 7.3pH 0ppm NH3 0ppm N02 10ppm N03 0ppm Cu 10 dGH 10 dKH For an entire year the inverts in my tank have kept it great shape sometimes a little too much poop but nothing that was a problem. I had read that sometime neocardinias get some kind of black rot (from overcrowding, I think) that is very contagious amongst themselves and nearly 100% fatal if not dealt with. I took a sample of my water to the local aquarist shop to have them test to see if the water conditions were borked. They said the pH was a little high but nothing too bad. So I bought 30 more RCS's. Within a week, all gone, no corpses, no reds. I tested the water again with roughly the same result as above (I think the hardnesses varied slightly). I'm still battling the algae that grew on everything but the water remained clear and it is slowly getting back to being nice to look at. However, I'm very disheartened and on the verge of scooping up fish and amanos and re-doing the entire tank. TL;DR Did my corys get starved while I was away and have a taste of shrimp and that's what they want to eat now? Why did all of my inverts except Amanos, and one olive nerite die, but the fish are fine? Thanks for sticking through the story.

Starting this thread/ journal to track my algae battle with the Aquario Neo CO2 kit. My 29 gallon tank just cranks out hair algae, whereas it’s never been a problem in my 10 gallon in the hallway. I’ve got two limiting factors that made me decide to try a co2 kit for this tank: 1. This tank gets direct sunlight in winter, spring, and fall. Usually not more than 30 mins, but that’s still a lot (at least I’ve balanced it to where the green water hasn’t come back…) 2. My husband likes to stay up late and watch the fish with the lights on, which I’ve complained about before, but I also want him to keep enjoying the tank! I’ve been able to reduce the hair algae production to a steady, sort of manageable amount, but my plants are starting to suffer and they need a boost to compete. I’m using the Aquario CO2 kit, with the large diffuser from the coop instead of the small one in the kit. I put the diffuser in last night, so let’s see how this goes! ETA: this tank was de-algaed one week ago, but the really small hairs don’t come of the plant leaves easily, even with a toothbrush.

As if I don't have enough projects going currently, I've decided to add a little 75 gal to the rack to explore aquatic algal ecosystems. I'm fascinated how many aquatic systems are largely algae based, in terms of the photosynthetic organisms. I'd like to play with how that will work in an aquarium setting. I have a terrible 75 gallon aquarium that I got on super sale. The silicone is a mess all over the thing. The glass barely lines up. And the company has a reputation for tanks of this size blowing out. I'll be leak testing it outside on a patio surface for a couple weeks before draining it and moving it into the rack (even though the rack has a floor drain below it). I've also sealed the gaps in the silicone and the ones around the plastic rim. If it holds, the next step is to drill and overflow into it. I don't think the sides are tempered. Well, I certainly hope not. If all of that miraculously comes together, my next step is going to be how to cycle an aquarium while building up algae. I've got "fishless cycle" ammonia and I'll probably do drops of that to get things moving. Normally I use snails and a few fish, but I am afraid the snails might hit the algae too hard before I can get it going. Fortunately, I have an algal mat that I can seed the tank with. I've been growing it for over a decade as a means of cultivating an associated plant. Look how great it looks: Imagine an entire 75 gallon with that floating on the top?! It'll be beautiful! I've been inspired to do this based on a few videos I'd seen of pupfish out west. Like this one: And this one: To me both of these are beautiful examples of algal dominated systems. I'd like to recreate them in my tank. ***Please note that I understand fully that those fish are endangered (ESA listed) and cannot be owned legally. I will not be attempting to replicate this sort of system with those species.*** I may try to do so with related "pupfish" like Florida flag or something. I just think those videos are show particularly beautiful and inspiring scenes. So, this will be a journal of my efforts to do what most people try to avoid, grow a tank full of mucky, matted algae and keep healthy fish in it. It'll be a slow process (like all my projects), but hopefully something interesting will come of it.

I know mulm and algae can look unsightly, but overall they make the biology of the aquarium better by harboring bacteria and helping with the overall 'metabolism' of the tank.

Ok so I am basically brand new to this hobby and I am really struggling when it comes to getting my plants healthy and controlling my algae. The only plant that I have noticed grow at all is my tiger lotus bulb. Everything else has basically stayed the same or gotten worse since it was introduced to the tank (melting, browning, deficiencies, etc). I struggle with diagnosing nutrient deficiencies because I’m new to this hobby and am not really sure what qualifies as symptoms of nutrient deficiencies vs regular plant behavior. Most of my plants have leaves that are turning yellow or brown, my Amazon sword has leaves that went from brown to yellow to translucent and also some have holes on them, etc. I’ll attach dated photos from when each plant was first introduced to the tank vs now. Plant symptoms Tiger lotus bulb - few minor holes but that’s it Amazon sword - translucent leaves, brown patches on leaves Anubias barteri - haven’t noticed much except little to no growth Anubias nana - haven’t noticed much except little to no growth Java fern - some holes on a few leaves Cryptocoryne lucen - hasn’t grown much, awkard leaf stem shape and occasionally leaves turn yellow Cyrptocoryne wendtii - completely melted, growing some small leaves now Pogostemon stellatus octopus - 50% leaves turning yellow or brown, 50% leaves green Water sprite - leaves are browning Water wisteria - didn’t grow at all, shriveled up and turned brown Java moss - basically all of it turned yellow brown Dwarf Sagittaria - not much change, few leaves have melted In this last month I’ve really struggled with algae as well (mostly hair algae). Every week I’ll do a deep clean of the tank (scrub walls + plants + decor, vacuum substrate, rinse filter) and get almost all of the algae out of my tank then do a 50% water change, but it just grows back a few days after. So I also need advice on balancing my tank. I want to dose more thrive fertilizer since I suspect my plants are missing out on many nutrients, but I also don’t want to encourage algae growth. I don’t know if I should mess with my light schedule, my fertilizer dosages, or both. My nitrates have been consistently high >40 ppm and Ive been dosing the recommended amount of thrive weekly for about 2 months now. My lights were on from 7 am - 3 pm for the first 2 months but last week I changed it to this schedule 8 am - 12 pm : On 12pm - 1 pm : Off 1pm - 3pm : On And I also noticed some water pests 1 or 2 weeks ago (detritus worms, hydra, I think daphnia / copepods, and rhabdocoela) but that’s a topic for another time Details Tank : 20 gallon long Substrate : fluval stratum Fertilizer: thrive c (dose 1x week) Light : Finnex stingray led light Filter : sponge Heater : Fluval E100 (I keep it at 78°) I set up my tank on August 1st 2021 and it’s not fully cycled yet (mistakes were made but the cycle is nearly complete now) When I set up my tank (8/1/2021) I planted the following all in substrate: Anubias barteri Anubias nana Amazon sword Java fern cryptocoryne wendtii cryptocoryne lucen Pogostemon stellatus octopus Tiger lotus bulb A month later (9/1/2021) I attached my anubias barteri and anubias nana to wonder rock and I attached my Java fern to a coconut hut I also added new plants (9/1/2021) : Java moss Water wisteria Water sprite Dwarf Sagittara Any help or advice would be very much appreciated, thank you 🙂

How much hydrogen peroxide is safe to add to a tank to battle algae? I added hydrogen peroxide to my tank today (in a localized spot) to try to get rid of staghorn algae. It looks like I added way too much. Most of my boras brigittae and a few of my pseudomugil gertrudae have died. 😭 I changed 1/2 the water, added more, and then changed 3/4 right away when I noticed the problem about 10 min after the H2O2 treatment. Hopefully I removed enough of it, but I expect to loose a few more fish. Shrimp seem to be fine. One nerite is upside down, so I am taking it out for now. 29 gallon tank

Hello, Need help identifying this algae and opinion on solution. I am 5 months into my 20 long low tech and I believe I am very close to having the tank balanced. I am autodosing 2mls of easy green 3x/week and keeping my nitrates at 25ppm which is primarily from fertilizer as my plants consume all my nitrates very quickly. I seem to be struggling with what I believe to be BBA on the edges of my plants and most of the algae affects leaves that are closer towards the top of my tank. Bottom plants don’t seem to be as affected. I am unsure what lever to adjust next to reduce the amount of BBA. I am running my fluval 3.0 at 30% for 7.5 hours every day and have a good mix of fast/slow growing plants. I have 3 Amano shrimp and a full blown infestation of cherry shrimp. Wondering if I should increase lighting, increase ferts, decrease both or a combo. My primary concern is that if I don’t figure out eventually i will have to keep trimming off the affected leaves that I’ve worked so hard to grow out. Thoughts?

Hello friends, I have been struggling with BBA proliferating in my tank after previously battling green string algae. Currently, BBA is the predominate algae out of control but hair algae is also making a comeback. I will list a number of my tank parameters below and hope that someone has any ideas on how to modify my tank care to stop helping BBA (and hair algae for the matter) grow. I'm feel pretty defeated as of late and am contemplating getting out of the "high tech" tank territory since it has been quite problematic for the past number of months with algae. Background Story Some background, in August, I decided to switch to using Aquarium Co-Op's Easy Green (EG) from Seachem Excel in addition to Easy Iron (mistake). The reason I added Easy Iron (EI) was to try and support mini Alternanthera Reineckii and thought I should add some more iron to help contribute to the vibrant red color. I was dosing 2 pumps, twice a week with EI and EG. That's when the BBA started. After doing that for 2 weeks, I stopped using EI altogether thinking that was the cause. Perhaps foolishly, I also thought that I could "out compete" the BBA by starting to now dose EG daily (following George Farmer's fertilizing method) since I am running a high tech setup. I started dosing EG daily for 5 weeks with weekly 50% water changes and the BBA remained steady or got slightly worse. Presently, I switched back to dosing EG only twice a week still w/ weekly water changes. With every water change, I'm having to remove a lot of BBA including bleach dipping my C02 diffuser and cutting the top of all the Monte Carlo Carpet each time, trimming plants and replanting stems, etc. The BBA may have gotten slightly worse tbh after I stopped dosing fertilizers daily and switched to twice a week. I don't know what the main cause is. Perhaps my lights are too intense. Perhaps I need to use a different fertilizer. Perhaps by C02 is not dialed in. What I do know is that BBA is thriving now in this tank ever since I started dosing EI and it won't go away. Before I had BBA issues, I had hair algae issues. This has made it almost impossible to keep flame moss (or any kind of moss) b/c algae will inevitably grow on it. Water Solution Testing I took these measurements yesterday (10/25) before performing a 50% water change on my 22 gallon long tank. I should mention that the water I use is remineralized reverse osmosis water (RO) using Salty Shrimp "Shrimp Mineral" GH/KH+. I take RO water and remineralize to about 200-220 total dissolved solids (TDS). I follow this method from Flip Aquatics. pH = 6.8 Ammonia = 0ppm Nitrite = 0ppm Nitrate = 5ppm I still don't fully understand how interpret the GH/KH measurements but below are the number of drops it took to change the color of the GH/KH solution, respectively. GH = 13 drops KH = 6 drops Plants Monte Carlo carpet Rotala Macrandra Mini = x9 stems Rotala Indica = x6 stems Flame moss - used to be on the rocks seen pictured but got too covered in BBA and hair algae and now treating in sperate bucket with Seachem Excel and Hydrogen Peroxide. You can see some of it in the one "nice" picture of my tank I included. 3 Buce = there are 2 bigger buce you will see in the "nice" picture and 1 very small one elsewhere in the tank. I also removed the 2 big buce to treat separately with excel and H202 to kill BBA Hydrocotyle Tripartita "Japan" = a few "clumps" Cryptocoryne wendtii Bronze = 3 Critters Celestial Pearl Danios = approx. 12 Galaxy Rasboras = approx. 4 Chili Rasboras = approx. 18 Phoenix Rasboras = 4 Pgymy Corydoras = approx. 8 Otto Catfish = approx. 6 Red Cherry Shrimp = approx. 8 Amano Shrimp = 3 Used to have 1 female betta - R.I.P Lighting / Ferts / Filter / Water Temp / C02 / Type of Water / Substrate / Misc I attached the screenshot of my Fluval Plant 3.0 light. Looking at another post on this forum, I'm wondering if my lights are too high. You will see that the light cycle starts at 12pm and ramps up to 100% at 12:30pm and goes till 6pm (6 hours total) . I just changed that today to reduce my lighting time in hopes that would slow down BBA growth. However, for the past number of months (6 or so), my light was starting at 11am and ramping to 100% at 11:30am and turning off at 6pm (7 hour total). Filter - Oase Biomaster Thermo 350 w/ Seachem Matrix media, Seachem Purigen and filter wool Water Temp - set to 74 degrees fahrenheit w/ heater that is apart of the Oase filter Fertilizers - as mentioned above, I currently only use Easy Green Lighting - Fluval Plant 3.0. It is handing about 1.5 feet above water. C02 - 5 lbs. tank. Gets to 30ppm about an hour after the lights turn on. The C02 turns on 2 hours before lights turn on. I take RO water and remineralize with Salty Shrimp "Shrimp Mineral" GH/KH+ to 200-220 TDS. Tank size = 22 gallons (long) My tank is in a basement that has a pretty consistent temp, however, I heat my tank as mentioned above. The tank is located next to a window sill so it does get a bit of indirect sunlight every day and it goes with the season. I live in the midwest US. I started injecting oxygen into the tank for about 3 weeks now after I gave up for now on using water skimmers. I suffered to many fish deaths from my nano fish being sucked into water skimmers to their death. (See my other post - I have yet to follow up on it). Substrate - ADA Aquasoil 2.0 with ADA Aquasoil Powder type on top. Finally....I typed as much info as I knew to provide. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. Like I said, all this has made me want to get out of the high tech space for aquariums b/c of how many hours I have spent deep cleaning my tank and trying to diagnose the root cause of algae unsuccessfully. After being in the hobby for almost 2 years now, I still feel very much like a n00b and am humbled and frustrated! Thank you for reading and your help!

I've got 3 nano tanks that have been set up for six weeks (edit: up since Aug 1. Brain fog math error). The shrimp/snails/fish in all three are doing great. The plants in two are also great, a little algae, but just enough to keep the snails happy. Then there is THIS 5gal portrait tank. The one I thought about for weeks while watching aquascape and getting excited by the hobby again. Even the java fern has struggled! The original light with the kit was said to be ok for low light (this is lo tech too btw), but the crypts, moss, and hair grass, etc., weren't thriving, even with 12hrs on a timer. Stem plants I added three weeks ago drastically melted and I had to deal with a bacteria bloom followed by managing a small ammonia (.1ppm) and then nitrite spike (.1ppm). Daily water changes of 20% helped. Decided it was time for a better light and some liquid fert (I did use an aqua soil also). I already had a bit of brown algae on surfaces, but knew this was common in new setups, and it made the snails happy. Added light, hoped the Buce and what was left of the melted stem planta would bounce back. The easy green arrived and I gave it one stingy pump since it is 5 gal. Within 3 days I had brown cotton candy throughout all the tank, but more closer to the light. Is it brown algae in a thread form? Hair algae that happens to be brown? I can remove a lot with a chopstick and in just a couple of hours it comes back with a vengeance. Afraid to add more fert, worried that if I drop light, I lose my struggling plants. Photos are from a couple of days ago, threads are spreading considerably lower now even as I remove quite a bit 1-2x daily. Probably have been overfeeding a bit as there is are 10 juvie chili rasboras I was worried about feeding enough. The betta is fine with them but no cleanup crew except nerite and bladder snails. The snails are enjoying the brown algae on surfaces, but not sure they can really go after all this suspended threadlike stuff and adding any other cleanup crew isn't an option because mean betta. Well water with a likely high iron content, 7.2 out of the tap. In the tank: Ph 7.3 Ammonia/Nitrites: 0ppm Nitrates: 20ppm, possibly a little less Gh: 180 Kh: 50 75-78 degrees

I was unexpectedly gifted a bunch of plants. I don't know what most of them are, and the person who gave them to me doesn't know what any of them are. I know I have an Anubias - a big one - and one of those banana plants. I'm pretty sure one is a sword plant, and there's a bunch of moss. Everything else is a big question mark. I don't know whether to be thrilled about this or not, as I have a Co-op order on its way. Well, I said I wanted heavily planted, looks like I'm going to get just that. I need to remember to leave space for my sponge filter. What do I do with big handful of moss?

I really want to get a great planted tank but I can't seem to be able to feed my plans without feeding algae. I wouldn't mind the algae but it grows on the plans and suffocates them. My lights are on timers and I'm adding flourish liquid fertilizer and root tabs. I've been trying to keep NO3 around 20 to 30 ppm and I've been pretty successful. My lights are on a timer and go on and off so they're on 8 of 12 hours (two separate two hour breaks in the day) I started using some gluteraldrahyde (the ingredient in easy carbon) to stop the algae and it's slowly killing it back but I'm afraid 1) it's harming the thin leaf plants 2) as soon as I reduce the dose I'm going right back to growing more algae. What should my next steps be?

Hi All! I'm battling staghorn in my puffer tank and based on the info I've collected from you incredible people, I've decided to try to tackle my lighting first but I'm not entirely sure that's right. I have Java fern, anubias, crypt parva, susswassertang and various swords in the tank. All the plants are doing very well! Thank you @Guppysnail@Torrey for recently describing the siesta period! The tank gets some indirect natural light in the late afternoon so I have my timer set for two hours in the morning and four hours at night when we're more active -- we're bakers so we're pretty nocturnal and view the tank more at night. But the lighting adjustment was just done yesterday so not enough time yet to know if that'll help. Nitrates tend to be on the high side because of the messy puffers so I do a ~40 percent water change once a week and don't use liquid fertilizer, just root tabs for the swords. So, long story longer, is six hours enough for now? Am I going in the right direction?

Ok new here, just joined. I have a 29 Gallon 8 month old planted community tank. For fish 4 Zebra Danios, 6 fancy guppies (for the wife) 8 small Neon Tetras 6 Cory Cats, 4 Amano Shrimp 3 Nerite Snails. I have 0 Amonia 0 Nitrites and 1 or 2 Nitrates. I do weekly 1/4 water changes. Use Prime in the buckets of fresh water from the tap that goes back into the tank. Tap water PH is 7.0. For Filter I use a Fluval C3, and have small bubble wall air stone. I use Seachem Matrix and Purigen in the chemical chamber and Matrix in the wet/dry chamber. I keep my tank at 76 degree. I had a awful Green hair algae breakout. Covered all my plants. was dosing it with Api c02 and using Thrive-s for the plants. I was using a LED light but found out it was not full spectrum. I ended up taking out all my plants and replacing them with nice green new ones. Also replaced the light with a true Full spectrum 6,700 Kelvin light and put it on a timer. 8 hours even have it ramping up and down to start and end so full light for 7 hours. I have Easy Green Plant fertilizer coming. Should that keep my plants happy and healthy. Oh for substate I'm using Landen Aqua Soil Substrate for Natural Planted Aquarium. Pricey but supposed to be excellent. Am I on the right track? Any input? I can not use a C02 system in my apartment complex. Here's 2 pictures of my new plants and tank. Any input or am I on the right track? Sorry for the long intro.

I have a 15 g Fluval flex which is heavily planted and had 4 pea puffers. I’ve gotten rid of the puffers and want to stock the tank to balance it and clean up the algae outbreak. I am thinking of some Amani shrimp, a few neurogenic snails and a pleco. good or bad idea? Better ideas?

Has anyone ever tried barley Straw to get rid of algae in their aquarium? I have read it works even on the black beard algae. I'm thinking of trying to see if it works, I read its slow but natrual so I'm thinking of trying it out. Any info yall might have plz chime in.

hello i am new to plants in my aquarium never had problems with Algae before with fake plants and bristolnose pelco .. but i am having Algae with my live plants in low tech no c2o tank i have 2 Windelov" Java Fern and 2 Banana plant and 1 Anubias Barteri and i have all in one Easy Green Fertilizer my plants specially Banana plants have the algae bad on them and also Banana Plants have holes in the leaves.. i have clean and do water changes and it still comes back been doing this for 3 months and the Algae is getting worse specially on the plants .. do i need the Easy green Carbon and Iron too? will that help ? i use sand and the Java and Anubias is on rocks .. Banana plant on top of sand i have a planted light and have adjusted the light schedule down to only 8 hours a day but the aquarium sits with no lights or windows near it except aquarium lights .. i also adjusted the food on my fish feeding to lower the waste i was thinking of getting the Easy root tabs for the banana plants .. if i get the algae under control i was going to get a few root plants too thanks for any help it is greatly appreciated

Hello, I am looking for some help with identifying what type of algae this is. The algae has been present for quite awhile but I recently removed over half the plants to since I'm turning the tank brackish. The algae seems to have taken off more or maybe I'm just noticing it more with the lack of other plants. Thank you for the help.

Hi folks, This white stuff has been forming on the manzanita log. Anyone know what it is? Im a bit concerned. I've lost two otocilclus catfish in a week. I just did a water change, and now there are bits of this floating in the water. Did a parameter check, and everything is good according to the aquarium co-op test strips, including the separate ammonia one. Thanks in advance.

I have tried everything in my planted tanks but always end up with algae. I have a fluval 3.0 and have tried low, medium and high light, C02, no C02, fertilizer (low medium and heavy) and have good water quality….. All. I have to say is you people that have the algae free planted tanks are geniuses.

Here's the situation: 20 gallon quarantine tank, lightly planted, 4 mystery snails, 2 nerite snails, 2 small angels, 3 green cories (juveniles about an inch to inch and a half long) and 5 OTOCINCLUS. Tank parameters are good and steady, light came with the tank so it isn't adjustable. I've got Easy Green and I'm not afraid to use it. On our most recent trip to Petsmart, we picked up the otos. I like to have algae in this tank because it's the quarantine tank for the 75 gallon as we're doing the initial stocking. I had a decent amount of algae in there that the snails were slowly working through but the otos have eaten almost every scrap. I either need to grow more algae ASAP or I need info about anything else the otos will eat. They don't seem interested in algae wafers or Rapashy Super Green. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone. Just wondering if this is good or bad algae, I've never seen this before. I've mainly dealt with hair algae. I brushed the tank last week and it's slowly grown back. Not too worried about it unless it's really bad. Ps going to be getting a rubberlip pleco tomorrow, so hopefully he'll take care of it

Hello! I have a planted tank that's been set up for about 2 months now (no fish yet, just bladder snails and assorted microfauna), and yesterday after doing a water change I noticed this black branch-like stuff that seems to be growing from my driftwood. It doesn't look like algae, so my best guess is it's a fungus? Does anyone know if this could be harmful?