Algae ID

[bluestar76]

I don't think this is black beard algae but dont think its hair algae either. Anyone got any ideas?
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r274/dodaniel/fish%20pics/IMAG0231.jpg

[tmds3]

I had something that looked like that in my tank about 3 years ago and it was almost impossible to get rid of. I had to take out all of the gravel and boil it in bleach as well as all of my decorations. Took me forever to get rid of it. Hope it is not the same stuff.

[bluestar76]

I had something that looked like that in my tank about 3 years ago and it was almost impossible to get rid of. I had to take out all of the gravel and boil it in bleach as well as all of my decorations. Took me forever to get rid of it. Hope it is not the same stuff.

Wow.....not exactly what I wanted to hear....:(

[niko]

Staghorn.

Possibly mixed with some BBA (the short stuff).

The Staghorn appears because there was an Ammonia spike. Your water will not have it now, but once the algae appears it stays even if there is no Ammonia present.

Cure:
Water change to hell and back. Best approach - 10% every other day. Feed the fish less. The goal is to bring all waste disolved in the water to minimum.

You can also use Seachem Excel. Spot treat - don't just pour it in the water after reading the directions on the label. Spot treating means suck some Excel in a plastic dropper, put the end of the dropper close to the algae and squirt it over it. Excel is a poison that is used to kill barnicles in cargo ships' balast storage tanks. It will kill your fish if you severely overdose. Thank goodness the fish first start to get loopy and you know you have added too much. Also Excel breaks down in a day or two so overdosing is pretty hard to achieve actually.

You can use spot treating with Excel for very much any algae. It kills BBA beautifully, every time. But if the cause for BBA is still there they will come back.

Do not try to manually remove the Staghorn. It's extremely fragile and the pieces will float everywhere and grow there.

--Nikolay

[tmds3]

Yeah that sounds like what I had, to bad I hadn't found this site back then because using the seachem stuff sounds a lot easier to do than the bleach and boil over and over again until i got rid of it.

[bluestar76]

Ive been doing 20% twice a week, guess I will have to be stepping it up some. I am guessing that a turkey baster isnt the best way to does the excel. I have been trying it for a couple of days no to no result. Perhaps I should get some kind of syringe. Any idea how much I should spot done with? 5 ml?

Thanks in advance

Dave

[alta678]

Five ml is a lot. Do you have a Target or Walmart close to you? Go to the health and beauty dept. and look in the travel section. You should be able to find a dropper bottle meant for travel. If not, ask the pharmacy guys. They should have these I bet. Use the small dropper and put just a small amount down stream of this algae.

[bluestar76]

Five ml is a lot. Do you have a Target or Walmart close to you? Go to the health and beauty dept. and look in the travel section. You should be able to find a dropper bottle meant for travel. If not, ask the pharmacy guys. They should have these I bet. Use the small dropper and put just a small amount down stream of this algae.
I have been using a 1 ml syringe I found but have had no luck. I read an article stating to use prime and that it knocks it out like no ones business. Today I did a 40% water change and got that pictured spot out of the water. I dosed the top of it with 1 ml of prime and the Algae turned pink. I also read that a H2O2 solution could be used but I am concerned about putting something like that in my tank.

Does anyone think prime could be used in tank and be this effective? Also, what about H2O2. Anyone have any practical experience using it?

I believe my imbalance was cO2. Since adding a DIY diffuser that is more effective and another yeast bottle my algae growth seems to have stopped. Now I just have to get rid of what I have.

All advice is appreciated.

[cichlidkeeper]

SAE's eat this stuff. a 5 day black out can also get rid of it. it can also be caused by high lighting and imbalanced nutrients

[bluestar76]

SAE's eat this stuff. a 5 day black out can also get rid of it. it can also be caused by high lighting and imbalanced nutrients

I saw some true SAEs at fish gallery today and I thought about getting one. I read that they will only eat it if they are starving and not destroy it like otos on diatoms. Any practical experience in the matter? I also have a dwarf ram pair in the tank. I read that SAEs aren't the best tank mates for them.

[alta678]

Sounds like the Prime was effective!