MICRO SWORD GETTING TAKEN OVER

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808

Candiru
MFK Member
Sep 3, 2008
347
2
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hawaii
I recently added some micro sword to my 10g planted tank and now its getting completely covered in this clear/white hairy stuff. It seems to be some kind of algae. The stuff is coming out of the edges of the leafs. In the last couple days its just gotten out of control and is moving on to the java fern. Any body know what this is and how i could get rid of it?
 
some type of filamentous macro algae.
i would do multiple water changes to lower nutrients levels to slow its spread. also stop fertilizer dosing.

i get patches that already sprung up under control i would prune the algae back and remove it.
to take care of the remainder you could get some otocinclus catfish and see if they will eat it(probably wont but there awesome little guys anyway).

if they dont eat it, i would start dosing flourish excel, use a syringe spray it directly on the algae. your gonna use maybe 2x or 3x the recommended amount(not the initial but the maitnence dose) for a couple days in a row. your water will cloud a bit thats normal. people will probably bash me on this recommendation of dosing "chemicals:irked:(i picture that is the actual expression there face makes saying the word lol)" however people have been using excel overdosing for a few years now to take care of problem algaes. btw i wouldnt use this if you have anachris or val, two plants sensitive to excel. the excel wont hurt your fish when its diluted but i would try not to hit any fish directly when using the syringe to spot dose.

btw excel is alternate carbon source, the plants can use it but algae hates it.

good luck
 
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Look like this?
 
Thanks sostoudt. So the excel will get rid of the algae? Only one thing though, i have a lot of val in the tank. Anybody else know what to do?
 
I think it could be a fungus, I get that stuff on driftwood a lot. You can try removing it manually, i dunno... I had a snail that ate it.

I doubt a blackout would work. Since chlorophyll is a pigment, any photosynthetic organism, like algae, would not be transparent.

my 2 cents...

The picture is fairly blurry. Are the leaves decaying/ fragmenting at the tips? The stuff I had was more gelatinous and filamented than "hairy." Rotting aquatic leaves tend to turn into stringy brown or clear slime. IDK
 
seds;3514672; said:
I think it could be a fungus, I get that stuff on driftwood a lot. You can try removing it manually, i dunno... I had a snail that ate it.

I doubt a blackout would work. Since chlorophyll is a pigment, any photosynthetic organism, like algae, would not be transparent.

my 2 cents...

The picture is fairly blurry. Are the leaves decaying/ fragmenting at the tips? The stuff I had was more gelatinous and filamented than "hairy." Rotting aquatic leaves tend to turn into stringy brown or clear slime. IDK

Thats not a picture of my tank, but the leaves arent decaying. It actually seems like the stuff is getting less and less now for some reason. Once i decided to go in there and take chunks of it off the plants by hand, it didnt reallly grow back as fast as it grew at first.
 
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