What Kind Of Algae Is This And How Can I Eradicate Them?

knives00005

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Apr 17, 2018
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Hello all!

Around a month ago this algae started and while I'm doing 2x water changes every week, and trying to remove as much as I can, they completely overtook my Pearlweeds.

They started on some of my Java mosses and I gave up on them so I removed the entire moss that's affected. After a couple of days, they started growing on the drift wood, then on the Pearlweeds.

I did spot blast them with Excel but my Hygrophillia Corymbosa don't seem to like it and I'm losing 3-4 leaves per day.
I don't have CO2 (will be getting some soon as I plan to restart the tank).
Ammonia and Nitrites are all 0 and Nitrates never went more than 10ppm.
pH is 8.2.
View media item 842
 

Tim Harrison

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You'll need to post a couple of good quality images if we're going to help...
 

Allwissend

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Hello Knives,
The images are not showing up for me. Rest of the text removed for brevity and on topic discussion.
 
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Allwissend

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Works now. Looks like cladophora to me. It is a green mesh of threads which are coarse to the touch. In my experience it is hard to get rid of it as it likes what plants like. Manual removal seems the best strategy coupled with spot dosing or whole tank dosing of H2O2. No algae eater really produced a significant dent in the algae in my experience.

The good news, it is somewhat slow growing. Kep your moss away nonetheless.
 

knives00005

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If I restart the tank, and not use any of the plants and hardscapes but use the same Aquasoil and then add co2 and Seachem Ferts, do you think it's going to go back?
 

Allwissend

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Some pieces also get attached to the top layer of amazonia but I guess you could dose a higher H2O2 dose over it and visually insect the surface

It doesn't really matter if you dose a little or a lot, it grows but like most algae grows more when plants seem to suffer. Rocks and wood can get a long bleach bath 19:1 water:bleach by volume for 10 minuter or so. Mix has to be fresh or it won't work well.
 

knives00005

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Thank you!
I'll try that.

Do you think adding co2 and following Seachem's dosing sheet would help prevent this in the future?
Also, I bought Hydrogen Peroxide on my local drug store, but it doesn't contain percentage.

It's says 500ml and 10 volumes.
 

Allwissend

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Hmm, it would help plants and mosses grow faster, so you can pick new parts and throw the contaminated bits.
With cladophora the only way I know to control is to avoid introduction. This can be done by quarantining new plants and doing H2O2 or bleach baths. Like I said, grw great in my high intensity, high flow, high dosing aquarium ... also grows great in my no dosing, no water flow, low tech , low light shrimp tank.

I would assume the H2O2 is the standard pharmaceutical stuff 3%