Black Beard/Brush Algae

@shihr, did it recently so would have to see if it does.

 

BBA is nasty. It seems to come back from time to time, no matter what you do. Mostly a problem in non-CO2 tanks, or DIY CO2 tanks. If you have constant high 30ppm CO2 then you will never see it. Best thing to do is lower the light levels and keep them low. To kill it, only Gluteraldehyde and bleach works. Also H2O2. But, as discussed that is dangerous stuff if used long term. So lower the water level to almost nothing, spray some Gluteraldehyde on the affected plants and hardscape items, trim off the worst leaves, take out the heaters, filter outlets, etc and wash those outside the tank in bleach, let dry, wash again thoroughly with clean water and return to tank. Maybe a few repeated treatments will beat it back for a long time, but until you solve the light vs CO2 balance it will return again. SAEs also eat this stuff, but only if you keep them hungry. Once they start liking your bloodworm and soft flakes they don't do much about the BBA. And they kinda just pick on it, so you need a school. Say maybe 1 for every 30 litres in the tank. I have found mine loves the hair and thread algae more, which is also great because those can be seriously annoying too. They constantly graze on that fine hair algae that sometimes grow on plants and have pretty much eliminated that in my tank.

But back to Gluteraldehyde. Overseas some people use Cidex, which is a medical grade equipment disinfectant. It is Gluteraldehyde and about twice as strong as Excel, but about 1/4 of the price. And needs to be handled with great care as it can cause skin irritations, serious issues if you accidentally get it in your eyes, and also respiratory problems. Just thought I'd mention this....

 

Just a thought... we all go through the pains of QT our fish. (Surely fish could also carry algae spores???) Some of us will QT our plants, some will do a bleech soak for 5 mins to kill any algae and snails, and some, at a bare minimum will just check the plants and rinse in normal water. We all agree that 90% of algae is introduced via our plants from LPS, and some of us take the correct precautions, yet algae still happens.

What are the chances that the algae spores could be slipping in through our tap water. Granted it is treated etc, but surely the chances of a few single algae spores surviving is out there?

 

@Laure, ur right.. when i had 2 t8 30w over my tank with DIY CO2 back in the day, i had no problems.. so i decided to get stronger lights to see what would happen..guess what? bba happened.. it seems that there is a point at which the lights are too strong and thus leads to a shortage / imbalance of co2 = BBA..

even after draining the whole tank, letting dry for a few days then re cycling that thank, after few months, it came back!

@Zoom, thats interesting.. but what im wondering is, for instance, in a pool, we add chlorine to kill everything.. but, unmaintained even if it hasnt rained, the algae will come back! whats up with that??

 

Leave a clean bucket of water outside in sunlight and don't touch it. Few days and you will have some algae growing. What does that tell you?

 

but even when you disinfect every thing.. after a few weeks of months, algae will develop.. so where does it come from? esp when you kill everything off in the bucket??

 

I think you answered your own question

 

Well either the disinfectant isn't killing everything, or it's in the air.

 

Let me give you another cryptic clue

The disinfectant will likely kill everything for as long as it remains active in the water.

 

But still.... if you disinfect 5litres of water... you can assume everything is dead... and remains dead for as long as the disinfectant is active. After "x" amount of days the disinfectant is no longer effective, you don't add anything, assume no rain, and algae will grow. Airborn!

 

uh.. i still dont know where it comes from.. anyways.. guess we just have to take it as a way of fish keeping.. there will always be algae lurking in our tanks..waiting to strike when we make a mistake

 

thats what i thought too.. but i doubt its airborn though.. think i'll go do some googling