Weird Algae

[kporteo]

Hi,
Ive had my tank running for months now, and ive noticed some strange stuff growing on my decor, its like little tufts of fluff and dark brown in colour, my plecs love trying to eat it but they suck and suck but they can't remove it. If someone can help on how to get rid and what it could be?
My lights are only on around 6 hours a day, water stats are perfect and stocking list is in my signature.

K

 

[Uriel]

Looks like black hair/black beard algea to me. I would start dosing easy carb or seachem flourish excel and it should die out. This is on the assumption you have a planted tank. BBA is caused by co2 issues just so you know.

 

[moochy13]

what are the issues ? not enough im guessing ?

 

[kporteo]

So i just need to dose up with either of those fertilisers and it should go? Is it bad for my fish?
Can i do anything to sort the CO2 issues?
K

 

[Uriel]

People have reported using it in double or triple doses even with sensitive aquarium creatures like shrimp. Personally I wouldn't reccomend doing this, just saying it has been done. You can put it in a syringe and spot treat the effected area too. As for cause i'll leave that for someone more educated in planted tanks to comment.

 

[waterdrop]

Definately looks like BBA. It likes higher flow areas of the tank (opposite of brown diatom algae) and is encouraged by the types of large fluctuations of CO2 that are caused when fresh tap water comes in as the refill for the weekly water change (one of the only down sides to easy water changing!) (This is something that happen is "non-CO2" tanks (in tanks with pressurized CO2 there's already more CO2 in there, so fresh tap water doesn't represent an increase like it does in low-tech tanks.) One possibility, although it's a hassle is to do short-term storage (not sealed) of the refill water so that there is time (overnight) for the excess CO2 to gas off (unlike chloramines, CO2, which is in excess in the pipes, will readily gas off (I forget how many hours, but I'm pretty sure overnight is good enough and that 48 hours would absolutely mean equilibrium.) Luckily, BBA usually occurs only in a few places and can be cleaned off via sponge after removal of the object to which the BBA is attached usually.

~~waterdrop~~