Something growing on my java and other plants. Not sure what I'm

[Calistmo]

Not sure what I'm dealing with here, doesn't look like black beard algae, any ideas? It doesn't move, just growing all over my plants. At first I thought it was roots, but then it started appearing on different plant types.

 

[Byron]

Black brush algae. It can be controlled by balancing the light and nutrients. Any data on the light will help, and what if any fertilizers are you using? And a photo of the entire tank which will show us the extent of the plants which is part of the balance aspect.

 

[Calistmo]

Fluval timed light and I use fertilizer from aquarium co-op.

Hope this helps.

 

[Byron]

I will assume the light to be sufficient (LED is confusing to me to begin with) as far as spectrum (7500K is a tad high, but should be workable) and intensity, so reducing the "day" period may help. I found that having my tank lighting on for seven hours each 24-hour period was the longest without having algae increasing. Floating plants also help as they use more nutrients faster, and shade the lower area. Use a timer for consistency, and limit any non-day lighting, by which I mean the dusk/dawn lower light level. Plants cannot use this but algae can.

As for the fertilizer, the list of nutrients given on their website does leave out some important ones, and includes nitrogen and phosphate which are both unnecessary. I would look at something like Seachem's Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Aquarium, Brightwell Aquatics' FlorinMulti, or another UK product I can't remember the name of but you are in the USA anyway.

 

[cdelly]

I've just posted my little battle with black hair (brush) algae in the algae removal section

Black Hair algae

Hi Not been on for a while, but first returned to forum, I was struggling with Black Hair Algae To try to combat this, I started with shortening of light period. Was running blue and whites from 10 till 8. Cut this down to 1 to 8. Didn't make much difference to be truthful

www.fishforums.net

I started by reducing my lighting period, I went from 10-8 to 1-8.

The next thing i did was dose liquid carbon (slightly over recommended) and added DIY co2

It has taken over a month to beat it and i still overfeed because plants don't like sterile conditions. They will take up extra po4 etc and yes i have some green algae but this i wanted due to having shrimps and octo's