What algae is this and how can I try to manage it?

[Desktop Aquatics]

Hi there so this tank had algae issues in the beginning and finally lightened up for about 4 months. Within the last month this new algae has taken over and it’s not the same hair algae as before? Any ideas of what kind and has anyone managed to get rid of it? 
 

 

notes of the tank:

 this currently a grow out for some 30 apisto fry, I feed twice a day baby brine. This is also a botanical tank with a leaf litter bed and various botanicals. The tank has been up for 7 months. Doing water changes every other day.

[Zac]

Decreasing light is one of your best bets but that’s not always the option in a planted tank. I know there’s some chemicals you can use to treat algae but I wouldn’t risk it with fry. I would just vacuum as much out as you can during your water changes and see if that helps.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

What’s your substrate? Can you give us your parameters? Besides the bioload going up any other changes? Dosing regimen and equipment the same? Does it come off easily manually or is it really adhered on? How long are the strands? Is it mostly attached to the hardscape or to everything?

It looks like a cross between brown algae and BBA. I know sometimes BBA can appear reddish if its dying or turning over quickly. I have seen on other forums folks with sand substrates that get disturbed can get diatoms blooming again.

Theres a couple strategies. Firstly do not bomb the tank as the killing off of all that biomass will just create a nitrogenous waste spike which could devastate your fry. If you have a piece of hardscape you can remove easily I’d take it out and maybe try scrubbing it, maybe drop some h2o2 on it and see what happens. Kind of an experiment. It that works great then you could do some spot treatments in different areas of the tank. Manual removals and then water changes and vacuuming off anything that you remove.

In the end, I think your 30 fry and all the brine shrimp and waste is the culprit. The tanks out of balance. I’d set up a 5-10 g fry grow out and remove them. Then go about the slow process of rebalancing the tank.  

[Desktop Aquatics]

On 11/10/2021 at 9:48 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

What’s your substrate? Can you give us your parameters? Besides the bioload going up any other changes? Dosing regimen and equipment the same? Does it come off easily manually or is it really adhered on? How long are the strands? Is it mostly attached to the hardscape or to everything?

It looks like a cross between brown algae and BBA. I know sometimes BBA can appear reddish if its dying or turning over quickly. I have seen on other forums folks with sand substrates that get disturbed can get diatoms blooming again.

Theres a couple strategies. Firstly do not bomb the tank as the killing off of all that biomass will just create a nitrogenous waste spike which could devastate your fry. If you have a piece of hardscape you can remove easily I’d take it out and maybe try scrubbing it, maybe drop some h2o2 on it and see what happens. Kind of an experiment. It that works great then you could do some spot treatments in different areas of the tank. Manual removals and then water changes and vacuuming off anything that you remove.

In the end, I think your 30 fry and all the brine shrimp and waste is the culprit. The tanks out of balance. I’d set up a 5-10 g fry grow out and remove them. Then go about the slow process of rebalancing the tank.  

Yah I kinda think it’s the fry too they are grown out almost full and are making more waste. It comes off easy and is only growing on the plants as far as I can tell. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

A couple things.

You have wood in there? I had a piece of spiderwood in one of my tanks that dropped a whole lot of debris that looked just like it (and it was covered in it)

Also in my Oto tank I have a lot of hair algae covered by similar debris which I think is the scattered food from algae wafers. It looks like this but it's on plants/other surfaces.

The hair algae stuff is harder since it's kinda stubborn but I can turkey baste quite a bit of it out. If I ruffle the plants enough I can knock a lot of it off but then it just settls on the bottom I don't know which is worse (plus there are likely eggs on the undersides of the leaves right now so I'm not doing that). I mention the above because you have fry. Sometimes we feed more. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by xXInkedPhoenixX
rearranging...

[Desktop Aquatics]

On 11/10/2021 at 11:15 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

A couple things.

You have wood in there? I had a piece of spiderwood in one of my tanks that dropped a whole lot of debris that looked just like it (and it was covered in it)

Also in my Oto tank I have a lot of hair algae covered by similar debris which I think is the scattered food from algae wafers. It looks like this but it's on plants/other surfaces.

The hair algae stuff is harder since it's kinda stubborn but I can turkey baste quite a bit of it out. If I ruffle the plants enough I can knock a lot of it off but then it just settls on the bottom I don't know which is worse (plus there are likely eggs on the undersides of the leaves right now so I'm not doing that). I mention the above because you have fry. Sometimes we feed more. 

looking at this makes me believe more that its from my leaf litter and botanicals breaking down. I have alot of malaysian drift wood under all the plants. Im sure this explains some of the algae too as this tank matures.

 

[TomO]

On 11/10/2021 at 6:56 PM, Kyle C said:

Hi there so this tank had algae issues in the beginning and finally lightened up for about 4 months. Within the last month this new algae has taken over and it’s not the same hair algae as before? Any ideas of what kind and has anyone managed to get rid of it? 
 

 

notes of the tank:

 this currently a grow out for some 30 apisto fry, I feed twice a day baby brine. This is also a botanical tank with a leaf litter bed and various botanicals. The tank has been up for 7 months. Doing water changes every other day.

I had brown algae in my 75, I used a UV sterilizer and it cleared up in less than a week.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

On 11/11/2021 at 5:34 PM, Kyle C said:

looking at this makes me believe more that its from my leaf litter and botanicals breaking down. I have alot of malaysian drift wood under all the plants. Im sure this explains some of the algae too as this tank matures.

 

It definitely looks a lot like that to me- looks exactly like my spiderwood decay. I had to take that sucker out and scrub the c*** out of which helped a little, but you know it's natural material it will keep doing that eventually. I'm sure there is probably some algae but you might have a lot of debris from wood and leaves for sure.