# Green Spot Algae on anubias leaves



## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

It's green spot and you pretty much can't rub it off, the stuff really sticks on tight. As far as prevention goes, I wish I knew. I keep nerite snails to keep it under control, but there's always some on the lower leaves of my plants.


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## Kathyy (Feb 22, 2010)

I have had GSA fade away when I used more phosphorus. Amazing. 

I watched a small ramshorn snail return several days in a row to a leaf completely covered in GSA and clean it completely off. 

If you don't clean all your glass at every water change you may notice no GSA above the lowest level of the water. Apparently it cannot stand to be dried out. Unfortunately while Anubias is a very tough plant it doesn't much like being dried out either. You could experiment, lift the plants for a minute and see what happens, 2 minutes and see and so on.

You might read up on other ways to kill algae like hydrogen peroxide and Excel.


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## maxima308 (Mar 24, 2010)

I've used some H202 recently to rid a few tuffs of BBA and figured I'd hit the GSA as well... It didn't have any effect on it while the BBA turned pink and was gone in a few days.


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## willbldrco (Mar 24, 2007)

I've nuked it in the past by spot-treating the affected area with Excel. Basically take the dose needed for the tank, put it in a syringe, then SLOWLY (like it's barely coming out) squeeze it on the GSA. Once you've covered all areas, stop - no need to use the rest in the syringe. If you need more Excel to get all areas, then load another dose, but don't go beyond that without a water change for the tank. The GSA will turn grayish after a day or so and then after a week it will be all gone. Note: Crypts will melt if Excel hits it (or levels of it get too high in the tank).

Excel can be tricky tho (I think using too much of it might have killed some of my other plants and some shrimp), so my current favorite GSA weapon is the old bleach dip treatment. That works every time (especially for Anubis!) and doesn't affect other plants or fish in the tank, since the problem plant is removed from the tank for the treatment.

Good luck!

Will


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