Another battle with algae

[meadeam]

I am being attacked by this black stuff.  It reminds me of the fungus that grows on the trees around a distillery.  It just turns everything black.  It is very fine, not at all hairy like some algae.  It is on the sand and rocks as well.

I did a large water change today and scrubbed a few larger plants by hand.  It barely comes off and it is impossible to remove all of it.   I'm going to avail myself of all this site and the internet in general have to offer on the subject, but thought I make a topic here to collect any info.  I'll post water parameters and other tank info as well. 

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by meadeam

[Patrick_G]

I’m not totally competent at identifying algaes, but it looks like black beard algae. It’s particularly hard to get rid of. I’ve had luck with reducing light duration or intensity or using a chemical like Easy Carbon. You can spot dose the plants with a dropper or syringe, or remove them and dip in a diluted solution. 
I think Cory has a list of fish that will eat it. I’ll post it if I can find it. 

[meadeam]

Thanks, I've always understood bba to be more hairlike.  This stuff is like paint.  Not at all fibrous or flowing.  

EDIT: after some browsing around awhile, I am fairly certain this is diatom.  Most of the photos I've seen are not as dark as what I have, but it does seem to fit the description otherwise.  

Edited November 7, 2021 by meadeam

[Patrick_G]

It cold be a dark type of green spot algae. I get that on my Anubias and it is a pain to remove manually! 
Here’s a pic of what I normally call black beard algae. 

And a pic of green spot on leaves. 

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by Patrick_G

[meadeam]

I'm more and more convinced it is brown diatom.  This is a relatively new tank, and I used Stratum capped with play sand which I have never done before.  From modestfish.com:

"When you add new sand substrate, especially play, blasting or pool sand, it creates a huge spike in silicates. Eventually, the diatoms should eat up the silicate and then die off, but this could take months."

Going to continue researching brown diatom.  I hope I can get rid of it without changing out the substrate.

[Kyle murfitt]

I've been struggling with the same and treated it like bba. Pretty sure that's what it is if ya let it go long enough to see the growth. I started dosing the whole tank with 3 ml of h202 per 10 gallons I believe, and a lot of flow In the tank. There's a site that explains it a lot better if you Google bba treatment . Still fighting it but lower light levels and h202 have helped a bit 

[meadeam]

  It is starting to go away!  I'm glad I took a photo at the beginning of this thread so I can see how far it has come.  I added Phosguard to my canister filter shortly after starting this thread, and have since introduced some mystery snails who I think do eat it.  It is literally flaking off of the rocks and can be vac'd off of the sand..  The plants seem to be ridding themselves of it slowly with the help of the snails.    I have some Red Cherry Shrimp on the way and hopefully they will eat some.  I've also reduced photo period to 7hrs, and added a mid-day siesta period.  Oh, and added supplemental CO2... So I guess I changed several things and have no idea what worked but I was going to do all of these things (with the exception of the phosguard) anyway.

I do see what appears to be a small amount of hair algae on a java fern, so I may have both but the majority of the brown stuff appears to be diatom.

Edited November 15, 2021 by meadeam

[WeehawkenFish]

I just came to this forum to post about the same issue, I'm really curious which of your remedies helped.  I've been battling what looks like the same thing and it's very frustrating.  I lowered the light significantly, but I'm wondering if lowering the intensity doesn't really help, but lowering the actual photo period is a better route to take?

 

[meadeam]

I didn't lower the intensity at all, just the total hours from ~10 to ~7.  I also reduced blue light to nearly 0 for most of the day, and only use it for moonlight late in the evening before total darkness.

I feel like the Phosguard may be what stopped the diatom.  I likely introduced excess silicates through the play sand substrate, and the phosguard removes silicates.  Apparently you can also wait it out as the diatom will die off naturally after all of their food is consumed, assuming you don't add another source of silicates.

[Tanked]

This is great timing as I have found myself with the same problem in recent weeks.  @meadeam describing the growth as "like paint" is very accurate, and just as hard to remove.  The only changes I've made prior to the outbreak was increasing the light an additional 30 min. to 7 1/2 hours.   I'm going to break out the peroxide shooter and try that first. After that I will reexamine the light situation.

The real frustrating part is that my nitrates have dropped below 50 ppm for the first time in years.  

[Patrick_G]

My experience with diatom algae is that’s it’s easy to remove. Green spot algae, on the other hand is a pain. Anything that takes a metal scraper or scrubbing pad to get off glass is going to be tough to get off leaves! 🙁

[meadeam]

Before and after Phosguard.  At my next filter maintenance I will remove it.  

[Patrick_G]

Looks great!

[Flumpweesel]

On 11/19/2021 at 3:58 PM, meadeam said:

Before and after Phosguard.  At my next filter maintenance I will remove it.  

That is a really great improvement, I've got algae on my plants and might give Phosguard ago.

One comment on Amazon claimed it cleared up cyanobacteria which would be a boon if true.

Current state of tank I could test both😔