Very Strange Algae

[Ulu]

There is some strange lavender looking algae or bacteria growing on the silk plants in my brackish water system.

It's only on the end of the tank that which gets the most light.

 

[IllecebrousTanks]

It sort of looks like beard algae, but I’ve never even seen a brackish tank in person so I’m definitely no authority on them.

 

[Ulu]

There's nothing too strange about it except that it has about half the salt of a marine tank. I have ordinary aquarium gravel and ordinary rocks and biomedia and fake plants.

The lighting is a mixed bag and it sits with one end close to a window.

 

[IllecebrousTanks]

Those monos are really nice! I’ve always liked monos, but salt and brackish tanks have always scared me away. Maybe one day I’ll take the plunge and try them out though.

 

[kno4te]

I’d agree with the beard algae as well.

 

[Coryloach]

I agree it's a beard algae. There are great many theories why it appears and it's one of the hard ones to get rid of. My theory is bioload. Although the species between fresh water, brackish water and marine would differ, they're all from the same family of algae.

In my opinion and observations in fresh water tanks they've appeared in my overstocked tanks and they prefer high flow as well, particularly growing on surfaces that tend to get some organic particles and detritus stuck on them. I've moved severely infested plants from a problematic tank to a non-beard algae tank numerous times and the algae died off within a couple of weeks, plants spotless clean. So it is to do with favorable conditions.

What I normally do is reduce the stock in the tank in terms of fish or move the fish to a bigger tank. Also, improving the mechanical filtration and the flow pattern(in order to collect floating organics from the water column that land on plants and surfaces) can help as if it is appearing on the plants themselves it means you've got organic particles landing there due to wrong flow pattern. You can actually use you fingers to clean the plant leaves every so often to prevent the algae from growing on plants but the issue is high bioload and organics build up....in my humble opinion and experience.

 

[Thacarter54632]

Another option is to plant the tank. Usually once you get a couple of plants to tank hold they will start to out compete the algae for nutrients.

 

[Ulu]

The bioload is high, but managable. I'm changing 50-80% per week and keeping the gravel clean. Flow is modest at about 200gph for 65 gals. I have a lot of biomedia in the sump.

BUT, I'm not finding acceptable brackish water plants, besides the algae, so I grow the algae. It gets the crumbs too small for the guppies to bother with. I don't find it a problem as long as it's not killing the fish.

I've wiped it off some plants by hand, and not others, and rotated them into different light to see what would happen. If I painted the sunny end of the tank black, it would die off from lack of light.

I was just curious because I've never seen it lavender before. Always more lime green to drab green.

 

[Thacarter54632]

BracPlants

I dont usually like to post links, but most of your common hardy plants will adjust to brackish.

Mangroves too, but I think you need to be more dedicated to the mangrove than to the actual tank. I tried to get them to take off in my refugium once and gave up.

 

[Ulu]

I managed to kill all of my common petstore plants with salt. I don't think any of them would last long in the water that I'm using. I did a modest acclimation of two weeks to bring my water from fresh to 1.010 and all the living plants croaked.

Probably other nutrient deficiencies.