# Arrrggghhh ... (pix)



## Urkevitz (Jan 12, 2004)

Looks like BBA, black beard algae. Or some kind of hair algae.


----------



## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

Well _that's_ good anyway; that should just go away in a couple more weeks or so after the new plants settle in :icon_bigg and start growing (at least so I hope.) I recently did a major shake-up in removing and adding and re-arranging plants so I did expect an algae outbreak, but this stuff doesn't quite look, or act (easy to remove from leaves for instance) like the last stuff I had to deal with which was _very _hard, in fact nigh impossible, to remove from leaves. The only thing I don't have in this tank are SAE's and Amanos. I guess that's next on the list :icon_roll .


----------



## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

The way it looks and pearls... you know I don't want to say it, because you will hate me...

Take some off a leaf with your fingers and take a deep sniff of it. If it smells very strong like moist soil, it's BGA (oh no, I said it).

On the bright side, it is relatively easy to get rid of...


----------



## jart (Jan 17, 2003)

This looks like the stuff I've had in my tank for 2 months now. Easy to keep up with and never that much of an issue. I siphon it off with some tubing.


----------



## Momotaro (Feb 21, 2003)

Looks like some slimy BGA to me. Yuck! You should be able to get rid of it fairly quickly.

Question is, how did you get it? I know you got a bunch of new plants, could adding all the plants cut down on some of your water circulation and helped the BGA get a foothold?

Mike


----------



## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

Yeah, comparing it to pix it looks, and acts to me (sorry Urkevitz,) like the descriptions of BGA , although I've not had any personal experience with it to date. It started out looking like so many short, very, _very, _fine hairs along the edges of leaves and I thought it might be fuzz or BBA coming on, but then it quickly took on a sort of a "filmy" aspect which made me suspicious. NONE of the other stuff I've had in there ever looked "filmy" and it wasn't quite this color, either. Actually, it very definitely is blue-green although I have read it can be any of several colors.

Cutting out the old plants and re-arranging should have *IN*creased circulation as a huge bulk of ambulia was sitting right in front of where I've got the spraybar oriented. 

I knew about it supposed to be having a strong scent and I tried to scoop some out but it kept sliding right back off and back into the tank so I was not able to perform this test.

Ah, well, I guess I'll take a trip to PetsMart in the next couple of days and get some of their horribly overpriced erythromycin (Maracyn) :icon_roll . Although, on the other hand, I had planned to do my water change tomorrow so I _might_ try doing the water change, getting as much of it loose as I can and stirring things up and then running the Vortex for a long while. If it returns quickly (or at all) then I'll think about zapping it with the e-mycin. Although now that I think of it, this stuff being a cyano_bacteria_ is probably too small for the Vortex to do any lasting good, isn't it?


----------



## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

Look's like you dropped the ball on you're dosing regime.. get the C02 and N03 levels up. :wink:


----------



## fishwife (Apr 11, 2004)

RoseHawke said:


> It started out looking like so many short, very, _very, _fine hairs along the edges of leaves and I thought it might be fuzz or BBA coming on, but then it quickly took on a sort of a "filmy" aspect which made me suspicious.


Does it skim off the leaves easily with a fingernail? When I've had it before it came off quite easily. It was definitely blue green in color, but didn't have any odor that I could detect. Maracyn cleared it right up.

The fuzz intrigues me, though. I've got some kind of mutant algae going in my tank that started out the same way. It has two layers - fuzzy little hairs, covered with this cob-webby looking stuff that breaks off when you touch it, almost like diatoms. It also traps bubbles like BGA. But it doesn't look like any BGA I've ever had before. No film on the glass or substrate, no blue/green color. Weird.


----------



## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

Nope, Craig. Been dosing faithfully (although I did toy with the idea of cutting the dose a bit since I was going to have less plant density for a while.) Haven't tested, but I don't see how it could be low at all. I'll test today, before I do the WC, just to see. I have been testing KH, and I just did monthly calibration on the probe. The probe was reading a bit high, and the KH was a bit low. KH is now at 4 (I was actually shooting for 3.5---close enough,) and PH is kept at around 6.6. 

However I DID have to skip a couple doses when I was out of town last week. Surely that little bit wouldn't kick it off ? Besides that was right _before _I tore into it with planting the new stuff and pulling out 90% of the ambulia.


----------



## Aphyosemion (Oct 15, 2004)

Hmm....I actually don't think that is blue-green algae. It is a little hard to tell from the pics, but I have never seen BGA take on a hairy look like that. You don't need to pull off a leaf or anything to tell if it's BGA, by the way. If you just rub your finger on it and smell your finger, you will DEFINATELY know. It smells like a stinky, vile, old swamp and it is a strong smell. In the tanks that have BGA, I can actually just lean over and smell the water and know for sure, since I am familiar with the smell (unfortunately). It actually looks to me like you just happen to have a green hair algae. Regular hair algae is a darker green color. It grows slowly and makes kind of a little affro clump that is removed fairly easily with fingers or plant tweezers. 
-Aphyosemion


----------



## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

Well this was on the hairgrass this morning. It wasn't there yesterday, or at least not like this. This stuff has *literally *come up within a couple of days.


----------



## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

I just wanted to put in a bit of a follow-up on this. This algae comes off _extremely_ easily. I basically took my tongs and jiggled them around in most of the plants in the tank which cut it loose; meanwhile I was running the Vortex, then did my 50% WC. Tank looks much better although I don't know how long the algae'll take to come back. 

Also tested today since something is obiviously out of whack. I'll say! Nitrates at something like 35ppm while phosphates are at something like .5. This was before I did the WC, BTW. After the WC, I dosed my "normal" dose of phosphates, but no nitrates, which should go toward getting the balance back in line. KH is at 4, PH is at 6.6. Also, assuming at least some of this stuff is BGA, I've decided to go ahead and treat the tank. If nothing else I won't have to worry about any bacterial infections for a while :icon_bigg . 

Of course after all this messing around with the tank today, I've discovered tonight that apparently my Blue Rams have spawned :icon_roll . Also of course, my LFS _finally _had some cardinals to come in today and I wasn't going to pass that up now, was I?


----------



## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

Well, I did the e-mycin for the 5 recommended days and *thought *I had it licked. But apparently there was some left in the tank _some_where, _*sigh*_, as it's starting to show up again after a "clean" week.

I guess the next thing is the blackout route, but I'm going to leave that 'til next week and just be cleaning the thing on a daily basis 'til then (don't want to be looking at garbage bags over the weekend  .)


----------



## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

How are your levels doing? Still dosing without testing? :icon_roll 

Get your levels in line and with patience things clear up all by themselves ... sometimes.


----------



## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

*sigh* 

Nitrates 10-15 (Lamotte's)
Phosphates 1-2 (Red Sea)
Kh 3.5 (AP) (adjusted with baking soda as it's between 1-2 out of the tap)
Ph 6.5 (AP)
Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0

Additional iron added via Flourish FE 3x weekly as my tap has next to none, and of course you can't reliably test for the stuff. The _plants _look great.

*edit* In re-reading the BGA thread I _suspect _what may have happened is that I re-infected the tank as it did not occur to me that I also needed to clean my equipment. A matter you can be sure that I will rectify when I get rid of it this time!


----------



## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Bummer Cindy. :icon_frow You mentioned SAE's and Amanos early on in your post. Would those help? Sounds less painful than what you are going through.


----------



## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

Nope. From what I understand *nothing *eats BGA. If I'm wrong someone please correct me !


----------



## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

You may have to use Maracyn for a few days, then keep filter clean and N03 up.


----------

