Does blackout of tank cure black algae?

[martinmin]

My plants start to get black algae, the leaves turns black, like drying, and some of them get black thread algae.

If I totally turns off the light for 1 week, can it fix this algae issue? My tank is 75gallon, has fishes, snails and shrimp.

Please see the attached. I added 50 amana shrimps, but it helps little. 

 

 

 

[Tony s]

I haven’t had bba yet, but, yes. Total blackout is supposed to clear it out. And should be okay for your plants as well. The key being absolutely black. So covering with black plastic seems to be easiest. 

[anewbie]

I tried it once for 2 weeks; didn't seem to do much.

 

[nabokovfan87]

BBA thrives on dying organics.  So... dying plants.

You do the blackout and the plants get weakened, the algae gets weakened. You don't remove the algae or treat it, just cut the light and it just comes back like nothing happened. 

Can a blackout work, yes, but it's a much longer term than just a week. You're talking weeks.  There is a method to treat a tank, hydrogen peroxide treatments and water changes to remove the spores the BBA sends out.

It's a bit of a fight.  I would recommend checking out my bba fight / algae thread in my signature.

[TMartins]

I’m been having a BBA issue in my 20 gallon high for a long time now.  I sometimes pull clumps of BBA from the gravel that has no business being there.  I’ve tried the blackout and it just ended up hurting the plants and the BBA came back.  Water changes and hydrogen peroxide treatments have kept it at bay and trimming leaves with BBA has been my only solution.  I’ve even tried algae treatments that killed the beneficial bacteria and not the BBA.

[JoeQ]

Algae is a symptom of A) poor water quality B) Poor plant growth and sometimes C) Nutritional Imbalance. Solve A & B before moving to C. 

[purrmaid]

I had some about 5 years ago on my plants and driftwood and got a trio of siamese algae eaters for my 36g. They took it out in a couple weeks and it hasn't been able to get a foothold since, even after 2 have unfortunately passed. That may not work at your stocking density, idk. There's also a lot of confusion online about is it a sae vs a flying fox? Do they only eat BBA when young? I'm definitely not enough of a pro to tell you any of those answers but I remember there was a lot of differing opinions when I was trying to solve my own BBA issue. Mine is just my personal anecdote so take that with a grain of salt

[Tanked]

On 2/4/2024 at 11:58 AM, purrmaid said:

I had some about 5 years ago on my plants and driftwood and got a trio of siamese algae eaters for my 36g. They took it out in a couple weeks and it hasn't been able to get a foothold since, even after 2 have unfortunately passed. That may not work at your stocking density, idk. There's also a lot of confusion online about is it a sae vs a flying fox? Do they only eat BBA when young? I'm definitely not enough of a pro to tell you any of those answers but I remember there was a lot of differing opinions when I was trying to solve my own BBA issue. Mine is just my personal anecdote so take that with a grain of salt

There is a lot of confusion!  I have been keeping SAEs for about 4 years.  I'm comfortable with the identification because SAEs  imo lack the coloration of the other variations.  They are hard workers in the planted tank, and are outperforming the SDs for algae eating in a different tank..