Hi,

I have searched the web trying to find the type of algae I have. Not
successful. I think I got if from getting free hornwort from a LFS.
But, stupid me I did not know about the bleaching to get rid of it.
It's a black string that grows like a tree branch. It grows on my live
plants and my ornaments, does not seem to affect my filter or my glass.
My otto does not seem to eat it either. I'm thinking it's algae from a
pond because that's where he grabbed the hornwort. I'm thinking it's
Staghorn algae but it's seems black and not green like I have read.

Should I do a 25% bleach solution and dip them in? How long should I
dip them?

Thanks.

Marc

"Bigs" wrote:
Hi,

I have searched the web trying to find the type of algae I have. Not
successful. I think I got if from getting free hornwort from a LFS.
But, stupid me I did not know about the bleaching to get rid of it.
It's a black string that grows like a tree branch. It grows on my live
plants and my ornaments, does not seem to affect my filter or my glass.
My otto does not seem to eat it either. I'm thinking it's algae from a
pond because that's where he grabbed the hornwort. I'm thinking it's
Staghorn algae but it's seems black and not green like I have read.

Should I do a 25% bleach solution and dip them in? How long should I
dip them?

Marc,

Hornwort grows incredibly fast under the right conditions. Adding it to
your tank may have altered your nutrient balance enough to allow the algae
to grow. Do you know what your nitrate level is? I suspect it is too low.
I try to keep my tank around 5ppm and that seems to work for me. I dose the
tank every day with 5ppm and it's completely gone the next day. My hornwort
grows at least a foot a week (no kidding) and the only algae I have is green
water if I forget to dose the nitrates for more than a few days. Well, I
also get quite a bit of green algae on the aquarium glass, but that seems to
be a necessary evil. YYMV - you may have a different nutrient that is
deficient, but nitrate's a good place to start. Green Light Stump Remover
is a good sourer of nitrates. I got mine in the garden section at Wal-Mart.

You can dip the plants in a weak solution of peroxide. I don't remember the
exact ratio, but it's somewhere on the Krib's website - www.thekrib.com .
It will kill the algae, but if you don't correct the underlying nutrient
deficiency it will just come back. I battled the same stuff for quite a
while, but once I figured out what the problem was it went away relatively
quickly.

HTH,

Deb

In article , Bigs wrote:
Hi,

I have searched the web trying to find the type of algae I have. Not
successful. I think I got if from getting free hornwort from a LFS.
But, stupid me I did not know about the bleaching to get rid of it.
It's a black string that grows like a tree branch. It grows on my live
plants and my ornaments, does not seem to affect my filter or my glass.
My otto does not seem to eat it either. I'm thinking it's algae from a
pond because that's where he grabbed the hornwort. I'm thinking it's
Staghorn algae but it's seems black and not green like I have read.

Yup, that's the stuff, it's really awful.

Should I do a 25% bleach solution and dip them in? How long should I
dip them?

20:1 water to bleach. 5 - 10 seconds. The plants must be bare
root; you can't bleach them if they're potted.

Closer to 5 seconds for more sensitive plnts, closer to 10 for
tougher plants. They will die back but they will return.

Be very carful of snails. They can survice this bleach treatment
by withdrawing into their shells ans closing their operularum;
when they do this they can trap algae cells in there and it
can all come back from one cell. Stick any snails in a completely
blackkend tank for 3 months, feeidn them the ocasinal bit of
dried catfood; use the offspring, never the parents.


--
Richard Sexton | Mercedes Parts: http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
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The Genus is Comsopogon and it's a FW red algae.
It's coenocytic alga(Multinucliated) that's tube like.
Rather tough stuff to get rid of as Richard mentions.
It appears easily when I've added sources of NH4 or add a higher fish
load than the plants can absorb, again adding too much NH4 for the
system leading again to algae.

Namely trimming off , manually removing the algae followed by a normal
50% weekly water change and correcting the conditions(nutrient levels)
is the main way I deal with any algae issue.

Regards,
Tom Barr

"Richard J. Sexton (At work)" wrote:

Yup, that's the stuff, it's really awful.

Nice, really nice! I'm happy to see it's awful! I guess I'll learn by my stupid
mistakes.

20:1 water to bleach. 5 - 10 seconds. The plants must be bare
root; you can't bleach them if they're potted.

They are not potted. It's only a 10G tank... but heavily planted.

Be very carful of snails. They can survice this bleach treatment
by withdrawing into their shells ans closing their operularum;

He he he... I don't have snails! Used to have lots until I got my fine
Zebra Loach!

Someone said that I might be lacking Nitrates. I don't think that
would be possible. I have a good load of fish and do water
changes every 2 weeks and clean the gravel also. I haven't tested my
water lately... Maybe I should... But the plants all seem healthy.

Fish:
1 - Dwarf Gouramis
6 - Zebra Danio's
1 - Zebra Loach
1 - Oto

I have NEVER had algae problems (except when cycling my tank) but
now I have that hard crap. My Oto does not eat that either.

Here is my setup... Yes I know, nothing else to do with my cam!

http://members.rogers.com/bigscam/quickcam/fishcam/

Regards,

Marc

PS: Oh yeah! Thanks for the info!

At work) wrote:

Should I do a 25% bleach solution and dip them in? How long should I
dip them?

20:1 water to bleach. 5 - 10 seconds. The plants must be bare
root; you can't bleach them if they're potted.

Closer to 5 seconds for more sensitive plnts, closer to 10 for
tougher plants. They will die back but they will return.

It's pointless to bleach anything you're going to put right back in the
tank, unless you tear down and bleach your whole setup. The algae that's
now in the tank will simply climb right back onto the bleached plants. Not
to mention the algae sounds like cladophora, and 5-10 seconds won't even
bother it, let alone kill it.

Rebecca
--
Get the lead out to reply by email.

The algae appears when the NH4 waste is not being taken up by the
plants.
The plants might not take it up because of the missing nutrients which
slow the plant's abilty to uptake nutrients like NH4 in particular or
NO3.

NH4 will certainly cause this algae to appear if enough is present for
a few days/hours. Adding more fish or reducing plant mass too much can
cause this increase in NH4. When you cycle your tank it often gets
algae for this reason, since the plants are getting established along
with the bacteria. These two keep the NH4 down and algae as a result.

Regards,
Tom Barr

In article ,
R.C. Keely wrote:
At work) wrote:

Should I do a 25% bleach solution and dip them in? How long should I
dip them?

20:1 water to bleach. 5 - 10 seconds. The plants must be bare
root; you can't bleach them if they're potted.

Closer to 5 seconds for more sensitive plnts, closer to 10 for
tougher plants. They will die back but they will return.

It's pointless to bleach anything you're going to put right back in the
tank, unless you tear down and bleach your whole setup. The algae that's
now in the tank will simply climb right back onto the bleached plants. Not
to mention the algae sounds like cladophora, and 5-10 seconds won't even
bother it, let alone kill it.

Uh, yeah, I shold have mentioned that the entire tank, every filter
hose, rock, spec of gravel needs to be bleached, snails removed
and fish kepin in absilute dark over clean gravel for a week to
remove *every cell* of thread algae.

I've had no problem killing any kind of algae with that dose
and timing though.


--
Richard Sexton | Mercedes Parts: http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
W108, W126 Mercedes Classifieds: http://ads.mbz.org