I've been fighting it for a year. It has nearly brought me to such frustration as to completely give up planted aquaria altogether. At one point my planted tank looked breathtakingly beautiful, with a glosso lawn and several other lovely and rare plants.
But then this algae crept in, maybe on a new plant purchase or a new fish. I have no way to know. For a year straight I have tried everything I can and every method I could find in books and on the internet to remove this awful plague. It killed my plants in a parasitic manner; it grew over the leaves of my glosso and strangled off my plants by colonizing on, and snuffing out their leaves. Only my cabomba carolina (sp?) and java fern have been strong enough to resist the onslaught, and only the cabomba plants have been able to somehow keep the algae from establishing itself on their stems.
I can't identify the algae myself, but I have taken some very detailed photos, probably worthy in quality of inclusion in the algae database here at the barr report. We'll see.
I'd attach a few photos to this post, but the quality of a photo compressed in size enough to fit within the allotted 97kb limit for attachments here would be pathetically indiscernible to the point of precluding any possibility of assisting the viewer in identifying said algae. (Might I humbly submit that the limit in file sizes of attachments be increased?) Having said that, I'll include a web link to a directory on one of my web servers that has an array of snapshots of the algae from several angles. The most recent photos are of the higher quality as they have been taken with my best camera.
The link is: www.tommybutler.com/algaeproblem
Please help me get rid of this menace. I don't know how and I'm all out of ideas. I need a true plant guru team to guide me on my journey of planted aquarium enlightenment. Words can't express my exasperation, nor can they express my thanks to those who help me to graduate from the level of algae victim to algae jedi warrior, defeater of aquarium algae sith.
--
Tommy Butler
But then this algae crept in, maybe on a new plant purchase or a new fish. I have no way to know. For a year straight I have tried everything I can and every method I could find in books and on the internet to remove this awful plague. It killed my plants in a parasitic manner; it grew over the leaves of my glosso and strangled off my plants by colonizing on, and snuffing out their leaves. Only my cabomba carolina (sp?) and java fern have been strong enough to resist the onslaught, and only the cabomba plants have been able to somehow keep the algae from establishing itself on their stems.
I can't identify the algae myself, but I have taken some very detailed photos, probably worthy in quality of inclusion in the algae database here at the barr report. We'll see.
I'd attach a few photos to this post, but the quality of a photo compressed in size enough to fit within the allotted 97kb limit for attachments here would be pathetically indiscernible to the point of precluding any possibility of assisting the viewer in identifying said algae. (Might I humbly submit that the limit in file sizes of attachments be increased?) Having said that, I'll include a web link to a directory on one of my web servers that has an array of snapshots of the algae from several angles. The most recent photos are of the higher quality as they have been taken with my best camera.
The link is: www.tommybutler.com/algaeproblem
Please help me get rid of this menace. I don't know how and I'm all out of ideas. I need a true plant guru team to guide me on my journey of planted aquarium enlightenment. Words can't express my exasperation, nor can they express my thanks to those who help me to graduate from the level of algae victim to algae jedi warrior, defeater of aquarium algae sith.
--
Tommy Butler