# Is this algae? Fungus? its destroying my tank



## Zefrik (Oct 23, 2011)

Looks like BBA on parts but something else weird I have never seen before.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

My first thought would be a mineral precipitate of some sort. 
Kind of looks like lichen, but there are not under water lichens. 

I can see the other algae, the black and the green, too. 

It might help if you could post all the things you know about your tank:
Tap water parameters
Tank water parameters
Everything you add to the tank, dosage, frequency, brand names
anything else you can think of that might help.


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## xbox360 (Apr 13, 2009)

My tank:
These results came from a 5 in 1 test strip so they are not very precise:
Nitrate: around 5
Nitrite: 0
Total hardness: around 100 (ppm)
Total alkalinity: a little above 80 (ppm)
Ph: 7.2

Tulsa City water: 
They don't have very many things they test for (it's very good water). Levels of most things (such as nitrate: 1ppm) are very low.
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite 0
Total hardness: 110
Total alkalinity: 140
Ph 7.4

Fertilizers: I only use flourish excel and it's used infrequently.

I think I'm going to use excel to get rid of the algae (BBA) (by overdosing). Ill see if that helps with the light gray stuff.


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## xbox360 (Apr 13, 2009)

This is a serious problem, anybody have any ideas?


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## iano7000 (Apr 21, 2012)

I would say start with what we do know. The black hairy stuff is BBA. You can search this forum for solutions. I just recently dealt with some in my tank. I started dosing the recommended excel amount. I didn't double dose as some suggest because I have scaleless fish that it can harm. I found that out the hard way after my catfish start swimming all weird.

I would also remove any hardscape that you can, (wood, rocks, ornaments) and treat them with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). I found the best way to do this is to get a spray bottle, load it with H2O2, then spray down your removed hardscapes. Let them sit for 15 mins, repeat the spray down, then rinse thoroughly before putting them back in your tank. It will take about 2 days for the BBA to turn bright red, then disappear.

As for hardscapes you cant remove, and for plants that are infected, do spot treatment with H2O2. You can get a needle-less syringe at a drug store for this. There are a bunch of posts on the forum for spot dosing, and a safe amount to use.

Just remember to do this at night and with the lights off as H2O2 breaks down quickly in light. And remember that excel and H2O2 disperse from the water within 12 hours. So I never bothered with daily water changes as some suggest. I just made sure to repeat the dose and spot treatment every 24 hours. So I would excel dose in the morning, and H2O2 spot treat at night.

This technique will cause certain plants to do poorly, or melt away completely. Jungle Val is one that doesn't do well with flourish excel. And others have had trouble with H2O2, although I never did myself.

If you search the forum, you will also find the whole debate of what is actually causing the BBA. You might have to look at what is out of balance in your tank.

Good luck,


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## Kwitzats (Apr 23, 2012)

seems to me that the unknown substance is detrius from algae that has died off imho.


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## xbox360 (Apr 13, 2009)

Please read my whole post, The problem is the mysterious light gray stuff not the BBA (which is easily controlled). This stuff is quite hard and is impossible to get off of the leaves.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I've never seen anything like this before but you have some strange combination of minerals or something in your water, but I would start by getting a water report from your local government if possible, is it well or city water? It almost looks like something you would see in a salt water tank, was this tank ever used as a salt water setup? I would break down the tank and see if you can clean any of that off of the leaves, remove leaves you can't save and replace plants you can't save, bleach and scrub any rocks or wood until they are nice and clean and do the same with filter intakes, etc.,then I would start over trying to use RO water from your LFS if that is possible in Tulsa.

It really looks like some kind of salt or something collecting on the leaves, liquid rock, or you may just have the hardest water in the whole country.


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## Kwitzats (Apr 23, 2012)

xbox360 said:


> Please read my whole post, The problem is the mysterious light gray stuff not the BBA (which is easily controlled). This stuff is quite hard and is impossible to get off of the leaves.


again left overs from bba, bba grows then dies off, it leaves leftover stuff on leaves, rock ect. sometimes bba dies off clean other times it leaves dead leftovers that no longer looks like bba in most cases this is brown dirt looking stuff(almost like diatom algae) in your case it seems to be whiteish grey maybe due to silica or other solids in water.
If it was some sort of percipitate due ultra hard water then you would notice it all over and very prominately at water line.
there is the possibility that it is some other type of independant growth but i doubt it.
as i said imho


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## xbox360 (Apr 13, 2009)

Based on the stuffs behavior, i'd say that it is alive. No other tank that I have ever had has had this problem. If it was a mineral imbalance or precipitation Etc. it would also happen in my other tanks. It does not, so we might be able to rule that out. It is also not leftover from BBA because it appears on surfaces that have never seen any BBA.

I shall perform a test:
I added new rocks to the tank and if the gray stuff forms on it, that might eliminate some possible sources of the problem. One is smooth, the other is rough:









I don't know about this one it is very porous because its bubbling, it seems to have clay in it. I hope we can distinguish the gray stuff from the rock.









If a change in the rocks' appearance occurs, then I will post new pictures


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

In addition to the BBA, I think I see some green cyanobacteria (BGA). Cyano can form weird symbiotic relationships and mixtures with other organisms, and isn't always green either.

I'd treat for both BBA and BGA, then see what remains.


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## Linsanity (Feb 23, 2012)

This is some weird stuff!!! Do you have live stock in your tank and how are they react to them?


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## xbox360 (Apr 13, 2009)

Yes, I have live stock and they don't react to it. They treat it as everything else.


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## Jules (May 20, 2012)

It looks a lot like yeast - is there any chance some DIY CO2 yeast got into this tank?

Edit: never mind - didn't read the first post carefully enough, if it feels like sandpaper it's not yeast, it's a precipitate of some kind.


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## sso (Jun 2, 2012)

almost looks like lichen (Sorta fungus.) on the rock, on the plant it resembles some bit scaly looking rocky fungus.

like some really hard fungus.

if it grows really slowly, cant you just pick off the worst leaves, try to amp the plants growth and outgrow it?


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## Kathyy (Feb 22, 2010)

Could something along the line of this be going on? 
http://www.public.asu.edu/~ferran/Microbialites.html


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

Kathyy said:


> Could something along the line of this be going on?
> http://www.public.asu.edu/~ferran/Microbialites.html


Interesting. Have no idea if that's possible in an aquarium. But it does look like mineral precipitation, and is certainly hard.. Again cyanobacteria would be the underlying cause.


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## anh (Jul 20, 2009)

I have seen this stuff before, but only in the wild attach to aquatic plants coming from water that goes through calciferous rocks like limestone. They really look like precipitation but they could potentially be some kind of bacterial colonies that use calcium as a building medium.


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