# Gsa Or Gda???



## SuRje1976 (Feb 2, 2006)

GSA tends to take a bit of effort to remove, so if you were able to wipe it off with a paper towel, I'd lean towards GDA. That's what it looks like in the pics too. That being said, if you do wind up with GSA, all you'd really need to do to rid yourself of it would be to increase your phosphates. I have to keep mine between 3 and 4 ppm to keep my tank GSA free. If I get it, I need a razor blade to remove it.


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

well it came off with a WET paper towel. it also wasn't built up that much either. only about a week or so worth of it. i think if i would have let it set for a few weeks, it would have been a lot harder to remove. that's where it confuses me. yea, i've had GSA before, but thankfully, my plants are free of it for the most part. my phosphates are usually anywhere from 4-5ppm.

anymore opinions?


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## darkfury18 (Apr 1, 2006)

It's GDA; GSA will be harder and you can see distinct circles, and even from the start, they won't wipe off with a paper towel.


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## RachPreach (Jan 16, 2006)

Yes definitely GDA. I had this a while back and read to just leave it alone for about 2-3 weeks and it will die off and go away. If you keep wiping it off then it will just keep coming back(trust me I know ) Its still ok to do water changes but just dont touch the glass of where it is. I even had this stuff growing on my plants but then one day it just all went away like magic! So have patience. If you want to know more about the whole dying off period just type in green dust algae in the search blank and you will find tons of stuff! HTH


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## danepatrick (Jul 17, 2006)

thanks a lot everyone. the only crappy part about this, is that i _AM_ developing a tiny bit of GSA amongst the GDA. grrrr. it's really irritating. but my phosphates are around 4-5ppm so it shouldn't come much more.


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## esarkipato (Jul 19, 2005)

I have the same problems, on my low light tanks/no co2. GSA developing amongst the GDA.

What's the consensus on ridding of GSA? increase co2?.....:icon_roll


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

esarkipato said:


> What's the consensus on ridding of GSA? increase co2?.....:icon_roll


The common wisdom on GSA is to increase PO4. IMO, unless you know your PO4 is sky high, if you see GSA, try bumping the amount of PO4 for a few weeks and see if it disappears. At least, that's how I'm trying to 'read' my tank.

As to GDA, I guess I've had that on and off for several years nows. When I get it, I try not to wipe it off until I've drained my water during a WC. Then, I wipe it off with a papertowel so as to remove the spores from the tank. It only reappears every few months for me. It's never been a sizable issue in my tank. Though, I'm glad I now know for certain which is which. Thanks for the thread.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

The 45 gallon tank I set up about 10 days ago now has GDA, even though virtually everything in the tank was transferred from the 29 gallon tank I had going, where GDA was just a bad memory. I tried a few times to wipe all of the GDA off this time, as it appeared, but just as my experience was before, it always comes back the next day. I was very careful not to get the wiped off algae into the water, but no one can keep 100% of it out of the water. So, I'm conceding the battle. I will let it do its thing for three weeks. I prefer winning wars to winning battles!


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