# ID white fuzzy algae?



## zachawry (May 28, 2013)

Actually, after taking some of the clumps out and examining them, the color appears more greenish/greyish. If that matters.


----------



## dzega (Apr 22, 2013)

it seems to me that green hair algae is forming on the glass


----------



## zachawry (May 28, 2013)

dzega said:


> it seems to me that green hair algae is forming on the glass


Yeah, I know that part. I was just including the green hair on the glass to show that it's been forming sooner than it has been. I was wondering that the algae in the first two pics are....


----------



## dzega (Apr 22, 2013)

zachawry said:


> Yeah, I know that part. I was just including the green hair on the glass to show that it's been forming sooner than it has been. I was wondering that the algae in the first two pics are....


no idea  white stuff i usually associate with bacteria or fungus, because white color means it reflects all visible light, hence does not do photosynthesis 
nevertheless, in most cases algae problems can be solved by focusing on healthy plant growth.


----------



## Orangespotted (Oct 14, 2013)

Perhaps the beginnings of staghorn algae? It grows a pale grey-green in my tanks. Looks like you might have little bits of other stuff too.


----------



## Dantrasy (Sep 9, 2013)

could be dying bba? have you changed anything in the past few weeks? more co2, less light, more plants etc.


----------



## anastasisariel (Oct 4, 2009)

I've had something like this before but only in tight groupings.. usually only around a plant that is dead or severely decaying. I've never had it really spread after I removed the source.. and I never really thought of it as algea; I assumed it was fungus. I hope someone else can give you some better answers. I almost want to tell you to try some antibiotics and see if that works but personally I've never needed them for this.


----------



## Elli (Sep 7, 2013)

The white fuzzy stuff in the top picture looks like the mold or fungus I had a few months ago. When it was in my tank it started by forming on stems/leaves but would also free-float if disturbed, like when I tried to clean it off the plants sorta like dandelion puffs.

Folks here and on another forum gave me two really great pieces of advice, so I'll pass them along:
(1) Make sure you aren't over-feeding, or leaving food on the bottom of the tank.
(2) Change the food you're using. I was told that some foods have more binders than others and sometimes those binders can cause fungus if left in the tank. I have no personal knowledge to back that up, but changing the fish food did resolve the problem for me.

I also had to pull out the worst-affected plants to wash off the white stuff (water and fingers only) and did a couple of partial water changes back-to-back with some aggressive netting out of any floating white stuff. The good news is that after that and changing the fish food the problem disappeared. Hope it works for you, too!

By the way, the green hair algae on the glass was happening to my tank, too. It also disappeared after changing the food.


----------



## zachawry (May 28, 2013)

Thanks a lot.

I had never heard of fungus in a tank. 

It's hard to believe I over-feed, considering I switch off between once per day and twice per day. So an average of 1.5 feedings per day. I have been using more frozen shrimp brine than usual, though. I wonder if that would contribute.


----------

