Brush Algae?

[Smells a bit fishy]

Do you think I have brush algae? There are black spots on my leaves of my crypts and Anubias plants. I have slower growing plants, can't remember the name, begins I think with plogo???

Any ideas whether this could be brush algae and how to deal with it, today I have put 2 54w T5 bulbs in, but before I had 1 40w T8 in. Lights are on between 6-8 hours a day, quite often less or at all, could the erratic amount of lighting time cause this? I also dose the tank with profito by easy life.

Any help in combating this would be greatly appreciated

 

[RadaR]

Intermittent and un-regular lighting wont be helping BUT, as I said in your other thread...all this light (on a 180litre) and no CO2 or macro nutrients is an algae explosion waiting to happen.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Fishy, seriously, get rid of those t5s! It is a problem waiting to happen, on my previous rio 180 I had 2 t5s 45w and i could only go a couple of days after water change without my sand amd glass having algae all over it, 2 t8s woild have been a better choice

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

I can only see brush algea at the moment, I understand, and I'm going to start dosing easycarbo and macro nutrients if I do get an algea problem, however this brush algea has been there for a good couple of weeks

 

[KkAaNnEe]

I was unable to ever get rid of my brush algae, its one of the worst. I cant really advise, i have heard that overdosing flourish excel or employing some siamese algae eaters can do the trick

 

[RadaR]

Have a looky

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Ok, I am now unsure it is BBA. As its more like black spots on the leaves. Could this just be malnutrition? I have started to slightly overdose ProFito, any other ideas?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I had BBA a few weeks back... I have VERY low lighting, about 0.3 WPG. I was doing frequent water changes, as I was trying to avoid a mini-cycle while adding new fish. I stoped my water changes (which were varying CO2 too dramatically) and added a second filter that I had been waiting on (which increased circulation) and without doing a single thing the BBA just disappeared. The BBA was only on some of my plants and there wasn't much, so it wasn't a big concern, but I was glad to see it be nipped in the bud. The BBA looks like a bunch of black fuzz, rather than black "spots" on the leaves.


Are the plants new to the tank? My swords went a brownish/black when I first added then, especially the older leaves. I just cut them off and the newer leaves are doing great, even under such low lighting. They get 6 hours a day of 18W T8 lighting in a 56 U.S. gallon tank (24 inch depth). My anacharis is also thriving - now that I figured out which part of the tank they prefer. Some of them just melted away to nothing but a stem, while others a growing like "weeds". Some plants just need some time to adapt to their new environment, and some will do better in different spots in your tank than others. I hope you get it all sorted out.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Yeh thanks . I am planning on doing more scaping tonight, so I know it will look rubbish after, hopefully afrer a month or so, they should be healthy and my tank looking good