What is this string?

[DaniV]

So in my 20 gallon hex tank, I've noticed that the Anubias that I have glued to the top of my driftwood has been developing some form of algae.  There's strings coming out of the leaves themselves, and there's hard green speckles on them too.  Haven't seen this one any of my other plants and I'm not sure what exactly I'm dealing with.  Anyone know, and how to combat it?

Here are my water parameters:

• pH: 7.5
• Ammonia: 0
• Nitrite: 0
• Nitrate: 5
• GH: 214
• KH: 107

I dose the water every Tuesday and Saturday with 2 pumps of Easy Green, and 1 pump each of Easy Carbon and Easy Iron on Saturdays.

Here's the overall tank for reference.

Harles say hi!

[TheSwissAquarist]

It’s Hair Algae and green diatoms. Try adding Amano shrimp and Hillstream Loaches if you can.

Alternatively toothbrushes work well. 

[Theplatymaster]

@DaniV its just hair algae, im encountering it myself. I am using a mix of hungry platies, and manual removal with planting tweezers.

[CrashBandit05]

Adding floating plants helped reduce hair algae in my experience!

[Tommy Vercetti]

My Amano shrimp will not eat hair algae but I have had success with direct applications of seachem excel and floating plants.

[knee]

Kinda looks like staghorn algae. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 2/17/2023 at 9:48 AM, knee said:

Kinda looks like staghorn algae. 

Yeah... depending how easy it is to remove would determine it.  Staghorn is no fun.

It could be a leeching of iron or a different metal that causes it.  (excess metal of some kind)

One technique is to use tweezers or to use a fork and jam it into the tines then spin it like spaghetti.  If it is easy to remove you're looking at Green string algae.  If it's difficult, it's staghorn.

[JoeQ]

Staghorn gets my vote, hair aglae is usually longer, thinner and greener

[knee]

On 2/17/2023 at 12:17 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Staghorn is no fun.

Definitely not! I'd rather have BBA than staghorn but staghorn seems to like me too much 😡

@DaniV Was wondering if we can get a closer photo? If it's hair algae you can remove it manually, but if it's staghorn leave it in the tank or you can take the whole plant out and apply excel or easy carbon directly on it the algae then rinse it in a cup of dechlorinated water and remove as much as you can. 

[JoeQ]

On 2/17/2023 at 3:17 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Staghorn is no fun.

Id take staghorn anyday over hair!

[DaniV]

Thanks for all the replies everyone!

On 2/17/2023 at 3:40 PM, knee said:

If it's hair algae you can remove it manually, but if it's staghorn leave it in the tank or you can take the whole plant out and apply excel or easy carbon directly on it the algae then rinse it in a cup of dechlorinated water and remove as much as you can. 

I took my tweezers to the algae, and they're not coming off the plants easily.  Sounds like this staghorn.  As far as removing it for treatment, any ideas on how I can remove the Anubias from the driftwood without ripping the rhizome apart?

[knee]

On 2/18/2023 at 10:07 AM, DaniV said:

Thanks for all the replies everyone!

I took my tweezers to the algae, and they're not coming off the plants easily.  Sounds like this staghorn.  As far as removing it for treatment, any ideas on how I can remove the Anubias from the driftwood without ripping the rhizome apart?

what are you planning to treat it with?

If your water level during WC gets below the anubias id just spray or dose directly on the plant with excel. 

Is it glued to the driftwood? If not I’ll just pull it out during a WC, treat and place back before I fill the water. 
 

I’d also check this thread out if you wanna go another route of treating the algae 

 

[JoeQ]

Instead of just treating a symptom you should  also address the root cause, poor water quality. Namely flow, turn over, poor filter maintenance (clean your filter better/more) Poor tank maintenance, remove decay building up from both decaying organics.& over feeding. And to a lesser extent poor plant growth.

Edited February 19, 2023 by JoeQ
Pl

[Sleepy]

The suggestion of floating plants would be a good one depending on the flow of the tank unfortunately Anubis is a very slow growing plant and where you have it really close to the light so the only real way to combat it would be to get some shade or move it altogether lower in the tank anything else is probably just going to be a temporary fix.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Sleepy

[DaniV]

On 2/19/2023 at 2:56 PM, JoeQ said:

Instead of just treating a symptom you should  also address the root cause, poor water quality. Namely flow, turn over, poor filter maintenance (clean your filter better/more) Poor tank maintenance, remove decay building up from both decaying organics.& over feeding. And to a lesser extent poor plant growth.

Thanks for the suggestions!  As far as flow goes, I've got an air stone and HOB filter, which I just turned up to a higher setting (had it on a low flow).  It's not a very rough filter, so even turning it to its max strength won't throw the Harlequins around since they live in the upper half of the tank.  I clean and change the filter cartridges at the end of the month, going by the directions of every 30 days, so should I consider shortening that time?

I gave the tank a water change last night, I wanna say roughly 40%.  Enough to bring the waterline right below the Anubias.  I took an eye dropper and used it to drop some Easy Carbon on the leaves.  It definitely did something!  The algae was once flowing upright in the water, if you can call it that, and looking at it now, it's wilted and looks more gray with a hint of bronze on some ends.  Is that good?

[JoeQ]

On 2/20/2023 at 4:27 PM, DaniV said:

Thanks for the suggestions!  As far as flow goes, I've got an air stone and HOB filter, which I just turned up to a higher setting (had it on a low flow).  It's not a very rough filter, so even turning it to its max strength won't throw the Harlequins around since they live in the upper half of the tank.  I clean and change the filter cartridges at the end of the month, going by the directions of every 30 days, so should I consider shortening that time?

I gave the tank a water change last night, I wanna say roughly 40%.  Enough to bring the waterline right below the Anubias.  I took an eye dropper and used it to drop some Easy Carbon on the leaves.  It definitely did something!  The algae was once flowing upright in the water, if you can call it that, and looking at it now, it's wilted and looks more gray with a hint of bronze on some ends.  Is that good?

It looks good, but be careful! Easy carb is extremely toxic to some plants (crypts and vals off the top of my mind but there are a few more im forgetting) As for filter maintenance, ditching your cartridges monthly is not doing you any favors, and is probably very expensive!!! Doing this prevents you from growing much beneficial bacteria which helps maintain clean water!!! If i were you id cut your own foam inserts out. To clean these just rinse in old tank water during your water change and reuse. This will retain more of your beneficial bacteria and most likely add surface area for your a bigger colony. 

[DaniV]

I'll definitely keep that in mind about the cartridges!  Thanks again for the tips!

[mynameisnobody]

Those filter cartridges are the perfect way to get people to waste their money while never reaching a fully balanced tank. They’re awful and a scam. 

[DaniV]

New plants arrived!  Added some Water Sprite so I can start some floating plants, and added a Marimo Moss Ball for fun!

When I added them, I took a look at the Staghorn and it's disappearing!  Either the Easy Carbon did the trick, or somebody's eating it.  Even the green speckles seem to be going down.  Can't complain!

[DaniV]

OK, so good news and bad news.  Good news is, the Staghorn on the Anubias is damn near completely gone!  I've also seen some of the fish pecking around in the Water Sprite, even the Corys I've caught just swimming around in it.

The bad news is that it looks like it may have spread to other plants.

I guess to tackle this, I'll have to pump the Easy Carbon directly into the water itself.  I also went and got a timer to control the lighting.  Normally I turn on the lights before I go to work and turn them off once I'm home and have had dinner, which is often 12 hours.  A lot, I know.  I've set the timer to turn on at 8am, off at noon, back on at 3pm, back off at 8pm for the night, so about 9 hours.  Here's hoping all these extra steps help out!

[JoeQ]

I wouldn't go dumping ez carbo into the aquarium, you might be killing whole plants along with the algea. Focus instead on growing healthy plants! Trim lower leaves on your AR to eliminate the algae. Or better yet embrace it!!! Algae is there to help you achieve a balanced tank. 

[knee]

I'd remove the infected leaves and let it be. I prefer not to dose algaecides (Easy Carbo and Excel) for the whole tank.

If the leaf is healthy but a portion of it is infected, you can remove that whole leaf and your plants will be fine. Your algae isn't even that bad and it's only been two weeks.