# Brown algae or fungus on java moss?



## @[email protected] (Oct 24, 2007)

that is pretty bad. i have never seen that, at least not that color. you will need one of the algae experts to come and help you with that.


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## Arakkis (Dec 7, 2007)

It looks like fungus, get some amano shrimp to eat it off.. Alot of amanos


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## Revision17 (Oct 23, 2007)

Bloody heck... the puffers will consume the amanos faster than I could add them to the tank. Maybe I'll just remove it and treat with something.... rather than buying amanos just to eat fungus this one time.


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

Looks like Rhizoclonium. Imbalance of nutrients and/or low CO2. I would guess both are likely and this is the root of the problem, "30 gallon tall - 250 watt metal halide".

I would reduce lighting, make sure a drop checker is confirming 30ppm CO2 and increase it as much as the livestock allows, manual removal, and some Excel dosing until it's kicked, maintain current fert dosages. Your light level is creating a super high demand for certain nutrient dosing as well as CO2, rather than increase dosing and CO2 to the point of being expensive and dangerous, you can simply lower lighting to catch a balance.

Removing the moss _may_ solve the issue (I've done that against spyrogira), but the truth of the matter is that a problem exists in the balance of the tank or else the algae would've died off after the moss was introduced, and obviously it's loving the situation. Nine times out of ten, these filament algae problems are caused by a high light to CO2 ratio, the former must be lowered or the latter increased to regain and preserve a balance, ie light should be limited by the amount of CO2 diffused and present in the water column. If ever there was an amount of light too high for any safe amount of CO2 to balance with, I would imagine 250w MH over 30gl would be somewhere on the list. 

If you're not injecting pressurized CO2, then by no means should you be attempting to throw 250MH at the tank, I'm a believer that every tanks is different and high light is possible with no CO2, but I can't imagine that will ever be a successful endeavor for long.

Rhizo>>http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm


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## Revision17 (Oct 23, 2007)

Yeah.. I know the light's a bit out of control. I'm waiting to move my reef tank out into it's new larger home and relocate the halide there, and put my 2x24 watt T-5s on this tank. I do have it 2 feet above the tank, and the tank is 2 feet deep, so that should improve things a bit (IIRC light intensity exponentially (quadratic) decays as the distance increases), so it shouldn't be as bad as it looks.

I just removed the moss and stuck it in a plastic baggie.. I'll have to find another place for it where I can keep it alive.


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

Yeah, my 65gl had a moss /algae problem too. And it was spyrogira so it's going to grow in the same ideal conditions that plants need, maxed CO2 or whatever, it doesn't stop. If I reduce light, I don't get enough down to the bottom of the tank for carpet plants. I could slow it down with less dosing, basically starving it, and then the plants starve too... so out came the moss, problem solved.


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## Revision17 (Oct 23, 2007)

Last thursday I had just about beaten back the Rhizoclonium by adding DIY CO2 and using excel liberally. Only a few strands remained on the crinums.

I left my light timer set to "on" instead of "auto" on thursday morning. I was away till just an hour ago... Rhizoclonium everywhere. More Rhizoclonium than plants. Well not really in terms of weight... but it sure looked like it.

To make things even better as soon as I flipped off the lights one of the F8s jumped through a just large enough hole I had on the back. Fell onto the metal halide ballast (thankfully off!). Took me a good couple minutes to get to it. By then it had puffed up with air and I had to burp it.

Additionally other stuff in my life went awry today. Not a good day


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

Ugh, very sorry to hear things are happening the way they are. Just remember it's part of the job.. er, hobby, and just do what you can. :redface:

I just pulled a 20lb piece of DW out of my tank = major renovation that I didn't want to do if I didn't have to. :icon_roll


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## Revision17 (Oct 23, 2007)

As a conclusion to this somewhat... lowering the light (2x24 watt t5s), adding DIY CO2, and adding hornwort has significantly depressed the growth of this algae.


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