I've had an outbreak of green spot and brush algae in one of my tanks. I'm fairly certain that the cause of the problem is that the tank just doesn't have enough room above it to get a good substrate vac as the stand wasn't intended as a double when I built it. I think my nutrients in the tank must have just been too high and the light from a nearby window created a perfect storm of algae problems. Anyway, these fish are getting moved tomorrow night into a new tank and I'm wondering when I pull the driftwood and the attached anubias if there is something I can dip them in while I'm moving the tanks around that won't kill my anubias. The brush algae is really nasty looking purple-ish stuff that's nearly impossible to scrub off and the pleco won't touch it either. I've heard hydrogen peroxide can help? I'm going to scrub the brush stuff off as much as possible and rinse the plants in tap water but beyond that I'm clueless.
b considine
a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude
Here's a classic, written by Kris Weinhold of GWAPA:
http://gwapa.org/wordpress/articles/algae-in-the-planted-aquarium/
Blaise
http://gwapa.org/wordpress/articles/algae-in-the-planted-aquarium/
Blaise
Hawkman2000
Members
I know others have posted about hydrogen peroxide here before, but thought I'd share this.
I watched a video a couple of weeks ago where this guy had an awesome planted tank. He had a small spray bottle filled with hydrogen peroxide and he would spray the surface of the water to get rid of unsightly film and algae on the edge, and put the sprayer in the tank and spot treat algae in the plants. Apparently hydrogen peroxide breaks down quickly
So I got a little glass spray bottle and started spot treating my tank. I turned of all filtration so treatment would remain localized. 2 treatments and 4 days now and all BBA is white and dispersing, and the hard green stuff seems to be going away.
I watched a video a couple of weeks ago where this guy had an awesome planted tank. He had a small spray bottle filled with hydrogen peroxide and he would spray the surface of the water to get rid of unsightly film and algae on the edge, and put the sprayer in the tank and spot treat algae in the plants. Apparently hydrogen peroxide breaks down quickly
So I got a little glass spray bottle and started spot treating my tank. I turned of all filtration so treatment would remain localized. 2 treatments and 4 days now and all BBA is white and dispersing, and the hard green stuff seems to be going away.
londonloco
Members
+1 on the hydrogen peroxide, I use it on both my sw and fw tanks.
I ended up doing the peroxide dip. I filled a 5 gal bucket about 2/3 with warm water and dumped three large bottles of h2o2 in there. The GSA and brush algae bubbled fiercely when dipped for 5 mins and a lot of the gsa seems gone this morning. The brush algae looks lighter in color so I'm assuming it too is on the way out.
Hawkman2000
Members
BBA should turn red then white.
I noticed that my ancistrus wouldn't touch the stuff before but I saw him munching on it today. I'm guessing he can tell it's dying and they makes him want to eat it hopefully. When I had brown algae when the tank was new a few months ago he cleaned every bit of it in like two days. Poop everywhere but no algae.
londonloco
Members
I know most people advise to dilute peroxide with water, but I never do. I find it works best if you pour it directly on the wood/rocks you want to rid of algae.
Yeah I read that it is fine for wood and plants like anubias to use the 3% h2o2 undiluted. Because I was correcting the problem which originally caused the algae I figured that just helping it die off a bit would be sufficient. I will never double rack tanks again without sufficient room to get in the bottom tank and clean. The amount of poo and detritus that was in the water when I moved the wood and other hard scape materials bummed me out. I had such little room above the tank that I could never pull them out to really clean. I think that keeping their new tank at the same standard I keep my others in regards to vacuuming the substrate along with the fact that no sunlight hits the tank will finish off the algae problems. I also will continue to dose excel a bit above the regular dosage until the problem subsides. Today I took the excel in a syringe and squirted it directly on any problem areas that are left which I read can help.
