Ugly Black Algae, Help!

[Fluffie]

I've got a heavily planted tank, it is 57 liters and is a community tank. Now I have been struggling with a black algae problem for months now. I have tried everything under the sun, I have a CO2 system going, I regularly use fertiliser and all my normal plants are bright green and thriving, apart from the odd few plants covered in a furry layer of black algae. Not all the plants are covered, but the ones that are, look awful, even though they are thriving and growing well.

I have tried chemicals, I have next to no ammonia and nitrite. My Nitrate levels were a little high a few weeks back, but I have used a chemical to lower it and its now lower then it has ever been, infact everything is lower now then it ever has, as I am doing 2 or 3 water changes a week to try and get rid of this ugly black algae. But the algae has got worse. I have been leaving the light off, but even that seems to have no effect on it. This algae seems to go against everything, it needs to die!!! Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

[Graeme Edwards]

Some pics would be good.

It sounds to me ( depends on the plants its growing on) that the plants are slow growing and dont out grow the algea.(poorly writen)
The only experiance of that sort of thing i have is, i had a plant - anubias sp and it was in strong light and the ugly black stuff would grow on the older leav's perhaps try moving the slower growing plants under another plant or in a more shady spot in your tank.

Also try removing any plant matiral rocks ect that have the black stuff on it and see whart heppens next.

Just throwing ideas at ya

 

[zig]

It sounds like bba, you could overdose the tank with flourish excel, search this section of the forum for posts on overdosing with flourish excel for bba.

The water changes probably are not helping in this situation, because i presume this is a non co2 tank (the limiting factor) and each time you do a water change you are adding CO2 into the tank which just encourages the bba to grow further, for some algaes water changes will help, but for bba it will do nothing and may encourage its growth. The excel will work.