nana petite dark spots

[CT_]

I've had this nana petite for about 2 months now.  It recently got covered in diatoms and then I introduced otos who ate the diatoms off but the edges of some leaves still look brown and some leaves have dark spots now.  Is that a new algae? a deficiency? Maybe those were gaps in the diatoms and the plant made more chlorophyll there?  I tried rubbing the leaves an nothing came off.  I googled a bit and I saw a few people with similar problems do a quick bleach dip to remove the algae, but I don't want to do that if this isn't algae.

[OceanTruth]

I think it’s called green spot algae. My slow growers get that as well.

[Koi]

With a little effort you can wipe it off.
 

A lot of people might disagree with me but I add more phosphates to keep it at bay.

[Jungle Fan]

It's the bane of every aquatic gardener's existence but as long as it doesn't take over it adds to the natural look. That said I'm slowly getting an edge, or maybe it's still hopeful thinking, with my military helmet snails, at least on the glass.

[CT_]

Okay thanks for the ID guys!  I may just bleach it then since it's easy to take the wo. Whole piece out.

[Jungle Fan]

@CT_I'd be careful with dipping the Anubias with the wood as the wood could absorb some of the bleach and then slowly release it back into the water. Just the leaves, sure no problem but the complete piece I'd hesitate.

[Brandy]

Nerites...I have a whole tree of this plant and I manage to fend off GSA with nerite snails and an army of shrimp. I don't know if the shrimp actually impact the GSA by eating, or if their little feet just disrupt it.

[Mitch_ScruffyCityAquatics]

I had Green Spot taking over my Anubias. I lowered my light intensity and added nerites. Now I’m clear! 
 

May not be that easy for you, but my strong light was the culprit. 

[CT_]

My light is in theory (I can't directly measure) about 50 par.  I do plan on shortening and splitting my photo-period but I've been too lazy to adjust it since its a bit involved for my setup.

 

I've been to busy to dip yet but yeah its a good point.  I'll be strategic when I do dip. 

[ElTigre]

@CT_honestly i think a bleach dip is too extreme for the plant. I feel like you could end up doing more harm than good using bleach. Id try adding some snail and or shrimp to see if they can clean it up naturally. Or if you have room in the tank you could add some otocinclus they have cleaned up all the anubius and other plants i have in my tank in combination with some nerite snails and pond snails. 

[CT_]

I put in 3 oto. and they cleaned up the diatoms.  A week later i got these spots.  The tank also had 5 Neo shrimp and I just added 12 more the day of the original post. 

[Koi]

Have you tried using hydrogen peroxide?

[CT_]

1 hour ago, Koi said:

Have you tried using hydrogen peroxide?

nope.  I plan to do some kinda dip probably thursday when i'll have some fish time. 🙂

will it get this kind of algae?  seems like a robust spot/film

[Koi]

I find that any kind of dipping is better for BBA or staghorn algae. If you are going to pull the anubias out of the tank. I think you might see better results spraying the leaves with hydrogen peroxide, you could even just pour a little on the leaves. You could dip the whole anubias in hydrogen peroxide for like 30 seconds but the key part is to wipe  the spots off after. You could also soak old filter material or a sponge with hydrogen peroxide and scrub the leaves. I usually wipe the spots off with my fingers after spraying or scrub it with a soaked magic eraser/melamine sponge.

 

[Dirtydave]

norm. Had that issue also on the slow growing anubias. I moved mine to a shader spot and thatseems to help

They grow in low light conditions in nature.

[CT_]

I'm just coming back to this thread with an update for posterity sake in case it can help anyone else.

 

I took out the wood with my anubias on it and squirted hydrogen peroxide until it was soaked on all sides at all angles and let it sit for probably 5 min.  I then dropped it back in the tank where it sad there bubbling for a while.  I didn't think to rinse, but apparently some say as much as 1ml/gallon of H2O2 is safe.  The next day it looked a tiny bit better and day by day its been looking better and better and now a week or two later its spot algae free and looks great!