Koi-lo wrote:

"Gill Passman" wrote in message
.. .

Koi-lo wrote:

OK, I just looked close. There may be two kinds. The stuff on the
glass and what's spreading on the plants looks sooty black - not
brownish or reddish. What's spreading on the bottom stones looks a
brownish red color. I'm afraid this crap is going to smother and kill
my swordplants and water-wisteria. :-(

========

Think I have the same stuff in my Malawi tank - it's the only one that
suffers from this. Reddish/brown/purple stuff on the glass - comes off
easily and is powdery.


Yes, exactly, except this stuff is sooty black - no purple, but then
everyone's lighting and eyesight isn't the same. It's only in one of my
tanks as well, a 55g with goldfish. The other tanks are not affected
(or is that effected?).

Then darker stuff on the rocks and the plants - I

suppose sooty could describe it.


That stuff isn't as sooty as what's on the back. It's more like a
"coating."

I've always put it down to the lack of

plants and the hardness of the water from the Ocean Rock leeching
limestone into it.


That's ANOTHER thing I noticed. None of my hornwart is really thriving
like it's done for so many years. Instead of growing like mad it's
staggering along or actually starting to disintegrate. :-(((( What
the heck is going on? The GF don't bother it and even in the platy tank
it's not doing well.

Plants are nigh on impossible to grow in this tank as

their leaves get covered in the stuff although I have noticed that the
Plec is starting to clean them up a bit.


While the GF are nibbling some of it off the back glass, they're not
doing that on the plants.

I also sometimes move them into

another tank and the otos lap the algae up...seen them clean an
anubias to as good as new in a couple of hours that I had despaired of
before.
Have you got any algae eaters in the tank? Might be worth trying....


I can't keep otos alive. Once the algae is gone they are too! :*(
Also, I would wreck the tank trying to catch them to move them to
another tank. You can't easily catch these AEs in heavily planted
tanks. I've given up on them. As for plecos. I like them, but after a
few weeks they *ALL* would wait for the fish pellets and did little
algae eating. Probably because my tanks don't have much algae. What
they do have is usually a light coating of green algae on the glass and
rocks that I remove myself. I haven't had much luck with algae eaters.
Another AE I tried liked fish-slime-coat a lot more than it liked
algae..........

Any chance you can send me a pic...address is quite easy to
decipher...at least then we can tell if we are dealing with the same
stuff which I still think we are...BTW I'm hopeless at pics as well so
don't get too concerned about the quality

I know what you mean about otos...I had some in the main tank but some
in a betta tank...it took 2 deaths for me to suss the problem...the 3rd
is still alive and kicking in the main tank that has algae...ime they do
not take any processed food...

BTW you should have let us know that you had updated the pics...looking
good :-) Can't see anything wrong with you photography on those.... :-)
Hoping to get my site up and running soon especially before the tank
upgrade...maybe if I nag hubby for help it might be next week....

Gill