# Evil Black Algae



## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

Hello, Everyone. 

Since I have been away at college my fish tank at my parents house has had serious algae problems. 

Days before I left for college I noticed a few black spots 
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/50509-black-spots-56k-warning.html


Now I have this 



























I don't know what type of algae it is and it is incredibly hard to kill, I have had my parents doing regular excel treatments to try to discourage its growth, but to little effect.

I do know that it is black, and that it appears like if someone spilled black ink on everything 

Tank Stats
10G with 20 watt lights (2wpg)
Ecocomplete Substrate
DIY microbrew CO2 system with bell diffuser
Flourish Excel (slightly elevated doses of it)
Flourish Potassium
Flourish 
Please Help me ID it and get rid of it:help:


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## dmbProducts (Oct 31, 2007)

If you have room - get a couple of Chinese Alge Eaters.. Cleared mine right up and brought back the bright green leaves.


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

I have a few baby platties in there so, that might not work out...

Additionally this algae is stuck on the leaves so bad that It can't even be scraped off without breaking the leaves, so an algae eater may have issues.


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

did you have this particular type of algae? This one just seems so much stronger and resilient than most algae...


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

I'm guessing that's diatoms, brown algae.
SAE & otos eat those...

Like stated in the other thread, you're missing nutrients, lights & co2.. And they don't go away. You have to get rid of it physically.


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

Thanks for the reply. I was getting worried thinking it was some form of rare unstopable algae...

Update I am finally going home today:bounce: !
One of the first things I plan on doing is treating the tank, with a bunch of things I recently ordered.


24-48 hour black out
excell 
Manual cleaning of tank (can't manually clean plants)
CO2 upgrade I am going to put in a microbubbler, so more CO2 gets in the water, then I am upgrading the CO2 system so that it is a 2-2liter system.
Flourish fertilizers NPK + flourish + iron+ root tabs (amazons are root feeders) eventually once I get most of the algae out


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## kunerd (Jul 19, 2005)

Your best tool to fight this is going to be your nippers. I had this in my 55g after I left for a 2week holiday and turned the co2 off. Came back to this and after getting it back into check and cutting off ALL the effected plants its all fine now. Good luck with it


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

I am going to try to kill the algae with with CO2 and Flourish. I can't cut it away, since the entire tank, every single leaf is affected.

Now that I am home and can examine the plants close up it seems like they have a number of deficiencies as well. 

Looks like I am going to spend some quality time with my fish tank this weekend.


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

*UPDATE:*
While I was home I upgraded the CO2 system and began to dose iron and phosphates.

I also increased the photoperiod to 11 hours, since it is a slow growing algae.
Right now I am hoping that it will be enough to encourage my plants to grow quickly, while not causeing problems with any other types of algae.


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## Spacefly (Jun 25, 2007)

That looks alot like Black brush Algae, does it turn red when you spot treat with excel?


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## mcd19 (Apr 30, 2007)

Looks to me to be Black Brush Algae. I had a problem with BBA on my swords also, but not to the extent you are experiencing. I removed some of the worst leaves, over dosed excel, increased my CO2 and lowered my lighting period. All of the above cleared the algae problem up and I have not had a problem since.


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

Interesting. While I was home I noticed that the charecter of the unknown algea had changed since last time I saw it. Now that it is more developed, it has alot of the charecteristics of bba. Time to OD excell...


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

I got home from college for winter break and its time to try to fix the tank again.:icon_conf

I am now certain that it is BBA, and am going to continue to do the previously mentioned things, but its a loosing battle. The BBA has killed about 1/3 of my plants! 

Should I just rip up the tank and start over again? 

Or is there some way to save it?


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## BiscuitSlayer (Apr 1, 2005)

I don't think that looks like BBA at all. To me, it looks more like old GSA that has just darkened with age. I had a very similar problem that I was able to reverse with some time and patients.

I dosed regular with excel. (I just used 5 ml per 10 gallons).
I also boosted my phosphates (what I think made the biggest difference).
Proably want to boost the CO2 a bit too.

The algae slowly receded, and eventually dissappeared.


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## BiscuitSlayer (Apr 1, 2005)

Forgot to mention that I spot treated excell with a syringe and the filter/flow was off for about 30 minutes or so.


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

Thanks for the feedback, I have had one hell of a time trying to find out what type of algae it is. I just settled on bba because it is a black algae that is difficult to remove manually, but some things didn't seem right. The algae has never grown tufts or strands. It is just a thin black layer that is nearly impossible to remove manually.

I am on day 5 of a 3X excell overdose cycle. It has stopped the spread of algae, and even lightened the amount of algae on some of the lightly infested leaves. (the algae doesn't die like bba, it doesn't turn red or white, it just becomes a lighter shade of black) But some areas are showing no signs of improving

I am going to try 

upping the phosphate hopefully that helps
spot Treat with excell
Just got ottos, hopefully they will eat the mystery algae.


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

BiscuitSlayer said:


> I don't think that looks like BBA at all. To me, it looks more like old GSA that has just darkened with age. I had a very similar problem that I was able to reverse with some time and patients.
> 
> I dosed regular with excel. (I just used 5 ml per 10 gallons).
> I also boosted my phosphates (what I think made the biggest difference).
> ...


How much phosphate did you add?


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## GIO590 (Jun 25, 2007)

BiscuitSlayer said:


> I don't think that looks like BBA at all. To me, it looks more like old GSA that has just darkened with age. I had a very similar problem that I was able to reverse with some time and patients.
> 
> I dosed regular with excel. (I just used 5 ml per 10 gallons).
> I also boosted my phosphates (what I think made the biggest difference).
> ...


Did you see the algae turn green as it died off? 
After excel spot treatments algae turns green, I am not shure what to make of this.

My phosphate level had been way off since I went to college. I didn't dose phosphates and my tank had a nitrate level of about 80 or so ppm, thanks to months of overfeeding. so my n/p ration was extremely high 

So the the nutrient parameters of my tank point in the general direction of gsa. I also regularly get it on the glass of my tank.


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## mapasm2013 (May 14, 2015)

I have the same thing in my tank, and cannot get rid of it. I have only just put in a DIY co2 reactor so may try some excel and see if that helps.


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