Help! Can anyone identify this algae

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upaquariest

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 26, 2006
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Houghton MI
This stuff is growing in my 75 Gal discus tank on the drift wood, im not even sure if its algae, ill clean the tank and scrub this stuff off and its back wtih in 2 or 3 days. There are 2 discus, both less then 3" and abouth 6 other small fish in the tank the parameters are as follows
Temp 85
Ph 6.4
Water Hardness about 75 ppm
Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates all at 0 ppm
5 Gal daily water change with a 20 gal change on the weekends.
There is 2 48" Flourescent bulbs that are on about 9 hrs a day and 1 24" undercabinet flourescent that is on 24 hrs a day
filtration is a rena xp3 that flows about 350 gph through the tank.
i have a rubbernosed pleco but he wolnt touch the stuff and have been treating with algae destroy daily for almost 2 weeks and havent seen any effect

Algae 001.jpg

Algae 003.jpg
 
I have the same stuff in my sevrum tank.....growing on my malaysian driftwood?????????????? I'm lost as to what it is!!!!:confused:

P.s. are you talking about the cottnony looking stuff or the green algae.......I have the green powdery looking algae (my best descrip)???
 
I don't know how you are pulling off 0 nitrates, but that isn't a good thing for algae, or your tank system at all. Is you tank cycled? That doesn't look like algae, but rather a bacterial outbreak. Plecos don't eat many types of algae, they generally stick to green algae and that is it. The types of algae that have threads are generally types of red algae.
 
I have that white cottony stuff on my wood too! some one help us!
 
Im talking about the grayish white cottony stuff, im not as concerned about the green, looks kinda natural and my pleco keeps it from getting out of control. I have been doing some research all afternoon and found that the stuff looks like brush algae, theres a link below to a site that i found this at. The problem is that they dont say how to get rid of it except that a chineses algae eater will eat it. My past experiences with chinese algae eaters is that aside from algae their next favorite thing to eat is the slime on the fish, which leaves rings all over the fish which I would hate to see on my discus. As far as the levels in my tank I check every 3 days and with the daily water changes it keeps everything down. My tank is cycled, when I started the tank new i removed one of the bio media bags from the filter on the old tank and had that run in the new filter for 2 weeks then added some fish and once the old tank was taken down the bio media from that tank was inserted into the filter.

Heres the link
http://www.floridadriftwood.com/algae_identification.html
 
It looks like thread algae that died.
 
here is part of an article i found...hope it helps:

Black Brush Algae. Short hairs (1/4" long), closely packed together. Appears dark green, black, or dark red. Grows on plant leaves, and sometimes on decorations/substrate. Often grows all around the edges of plant leaves.

BBA thrives in situations of high phosphates. Phosphates come from fish waste, excess food, and occasionally will be present in the water supply. The best way to eliminate BBA is to let the plants out-compete the algae for the nutrients.
In heavily planted tanks, BBA will often show up when the plants have used up all the nitrates. This causes plant growth to slow or stop, which leaves the excess phosphates available to the algae. By supplying extra Nitrate to a planted tank, we allow plant growth to continue until all phosphate is consumed. Then plant AND algae growth will slow/stop. As long as a usable (5-10ppm) level of Nitrate is maintained, the the plants will continue to use up the available phosphate, effectively controls BBA and other phosphorus-dependant algaes. See the article "Adding Nitrate to a Planted Tank" for detailed instructions on how to increase your Nitrate levels. Very few fish will eat BBA. The most famous one is the SAE (Siamese Algae Eater). I've got 5 of them in my 75g. I added several BBA infested stems of Bacopa to the tank recently, and overnight, the SAEs had completely cleaned it. But even these amazing fish won't be able to control it you don't have the phosphate level under control. Another fish rumored to eat BBA is the American Flag Fish. In tanks with very large amounts of BBA, the BBA covered leaves should be removed once the phosphate level is controlled.
 
so how do i get rid of it in a non planted tank, i ordered a removal pad from rena is there anything else that I can do. I have though about putting java moss over the brick work that is hiding the hardware for the tank, any thoughts?
 
It isn't a brush or beard or thread algae. To me it looks most like a bacterial outbreak. How did you prep the wood before putting it in the tank?
 
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