# Need to identify this algae!



## Notydino (Feb 22, 2011)

Hey guys, I need help identifying this algae and why it's infecting my aquarium and only 1 plant to be specific.








Aquarium Specs
2ft x 1.2ft x 1.2ft (roughly 100 gallons?)
50 Watt Compact Flour
Timed 6hourly CO2
No ferterlizer (plenty of fish food and fish (a lot of fish) 
3 Months old but many things are recycled from 3 year old aquarium
Light 6 hours + 4 hours dark blue twilight
Fish + Plants + Shrimp. All Fauna and most plants are healthy.

Thanks in advance!


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## Amazonfish (Oct 20, 2009)

Welcome to the forum! That looks like black beard algae to me. BTW...Your tank is about 20 gallons!

Most often, BBA is caused by low or unstable CO2 levels. Do you have a drop checker? Do you know exactly what the level of CO2 is in your tank? It needs to be 30 ppm. Also, with higher CO2 levels, the demand for nutrients increases. You should be supplementing with macro and micro fertilizers. For more info on that, you can check the fertilizer subforum on here.


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## Notydino (Feb 22, 2011)

Yeah that completely makes sense. I've been having inconsistent co2 for the past weeks as a result of cost cutting measure. Is there a way to treat that or is the plant done for?

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## malaybiswas (Nov 2, 2008)

1. First you have to get the get a steady co2 (try for 25ppm, roughly below the 30ppm limit that is suggested to be safe from suffocating the fauna). Fix that to get long term success.

2. Remove as much as possible manually. Picture shows on anubias leaves. if that's the case, you are lucky, since they are not rooted plants. Simply take them out of the tank, remove as much as possible. if individual leaves are too infested, cut them off. If you have it on more plants/hardscape then you got some more work.

3. Treat with Excel or H2O2. If it is just on anubias. Soak them in 1:20 water:excel/h202 (3%) (yes this is the same proportion of bleach solution, and it works) for about 15 mins to 1/2 hr till you see the algae oxidizing (fizzing)...eventually it will turn into a pinkish color. At this point rinse the plant in plain water and put back in tank. You will most likely loose some of the leaves in the process but they will grow back.

For heavier infestation spot treat in the tank. Some suggest doing it over a span of days. I normally do it at one shot and works for me. Here is how
a. Remove all fauna from tank. Accidental over dose can kill them
b. With a turkey baster "spray" the liquid (excel/h2o2) on the infested areas (keep the filter off when this is being done). Depending upon the extent of infestation, leave it for a few hours (till same signs of of pink color, fizzing is prominant). 
c. Scrub the dead algae off as much as possible.
d. Run the filters (if you use h2o2 lot more things aparently unseen will get oxidized and float) for 1/2 hr or so to collect as much of floating debri as possible
e. Do a 90% water change and clean the filters.

if you have your root cause (co2, light, nutrients) addressed, this should give you the head start to get ahead of the problem. Otherwise, BBA or something else will be back to haunt you. happy algae demolition


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## Notydino (Feb 22, 2011)

Looks like a large battle ahead of me. Is there a way to fix the conditions and let it ' cure' itself over time?

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