Black Beard Algae - The tale of two totally different aquariums.

Again I am fighting black beard algae in my new 55 gallon tank. I had this problem in my previous tank and it got really bad. I did some radical things to that tank in my attempts to get rid of it or at least slow it down, but nothing worked. One time I completely stripped the tank of all plants, and ornaments infected with black beard algae, and half of my bio-media. And of course I went through another cycle, killing off half my stock. I was ok for a couple of months then it returned and again started spreading. I just gave up and let it go and as you can see the results in the picture below. End the end I through everything out plants, ornaments everything went into the garbage.



Now it is springing up in my new 55 gallon tank and the two setups are completely different. For some reason BBA was only getting really bad in my moneywort plants, so yesterday I cut the tops of those that where infected and thinned them out. I cut the end of the leafs off where it was showing up on my amazon swords. I have a UV sterilizer built into my large canister filter, so I am going to use that for a few days to see if it helps. I am cutting back on lighting and doing several hours a day of complete black out on this my new tank. I am slowing down on feeding my fish, and cutting back on Thrive C that I have been adding weekly.

Here is the two tanks and their differences in how I set them up.
29 gallon.
55 gallon.

Substrate:
29 gallon only sand about 2" thick
55 gallon aqua soil capped with sand then capped again with pea gravel 5" thick

Filter:
29 gallon Aqua Clear 50 HOB
55 gallon Large Canister filter with a small pre canister filter.

Lighting:
29 gallon Florescent lighting.
55 gallon LED lighting.

Liquid fertilizer:
29 gallon API Leaf Zone and Thrive Caps for root tabs.
55 gallon Thrive C.

I just hope I can get this under control, because if I can't I may just give up completely, and go to something like a shell dwellers tank, but then again it might also get really infected with BBA. I am so depressed about this.

Utar said:

Again I am fighting black beard algae in my new 55 gallon tank. I had this problem in my previous tank and it got really bad. I did some radical things to that tank in my attempts to get rid of it or at least slow it down, but nothing worked. One time I completely stripped the tank of all plants, and ornaments infected with black beard algae, and half of my bio-media. And of course I went through another cycle, killing off half my stock. I was ok for a couple of months then it returned and again started spreading. I just gave up and let it go and as you can see the results in the picture below. End the end I through everything out plants, ornaments everything went into the garbage.

View attachment 121606

Now it is springing up in my new 55 gallon tank and the two setups are completely different. For some reason BBA was only getting really bad in my moneywort plants, so yesterday I cut the tops of those that where infected and thinned them out. I cut the end of the leafs off where it was showing up on my amazon swords. I have a UV sterilizer built into my large canister filter, so I am going to use that for a few days to see if it helps. I am cutting back on lighting and doing several hours a day of complete black out on this my new tank. I am slowing down on feeding my fish, and cutting back on Thrive C that I have been adding weekly.

Here is the two tanks and their differences in how I set them up.
29 gallon.
55 gallon.

Substrate:
29 gallon only sand about 2" thick
55 gallon aqua soil capped with sand then capped again with pea gravel 5" thick

Filter:
29 gallon Aqua Clear 50 HOB
55 gallon Large Canister filter with a small pre canister filter.

Lighting:
29 gallon Florescent lighting.
55 gallon LED lighting.

Liquid fertilizer:
29 gallon API Leaf Zone and Thrive Caps for root tabs.
55 gallon Thrive C.

I just hope I can get this under control, because if I can't I may just give up completely, and go to something like a shell dwellers tank, but then again it might also get really infected with BBA. I am so depressed about this.

Click to expand...

Hmm..

Seems like something is causing co2 fluctuations.. or maybe high nutrient levels.. is co2 recommended for any of your plants? Also, is the leafzone and thrive products all you've used?

How is your surface agitation (low to high), and how is the current flow inside the tank (low to high)? Ever seen a weird 'oil slick' on the surface of your water from gas exchange issues?

Depending on what your stock/water parameters are like, you might be able to try and find species' that eat black beard algae like the SAE's (crossocheilus oblongus). They get through algae quick too from what I've read. Often mislabelled though - so be sure to identify it as a true SAE if you try them.

In addition to anything we dose, fish waste also provides certain macro fertilizers.. if you suspect it could be a fertilizer/nutrient issue, there is a nifty guide by a user from 2013 name Slim if you wanna dip your toes into mixing your own micro and macro fertilizers (haven't tried myself, but it's a great starting point for research).


Last note, I've read from a few sources that flourish excel will kill off BBA (tank dosing or actually dosing it onto the tufts directly with a pipette), but don't use Excel if you have fish in your tank. Some say it's ok some say it's not - best to play it safe. If you can move your fish, you could overdose excel slightly and then give it time to kill the algae (a day or 2). *Note - I've never tried excel because of mixed feedback, but it could be worth looking into how to use to to kill algae. Just make sure you get your water back to normal for a bit before replacing your fish with water changes/dead tuft removal.

*Edit: just crossed my mind about nutrients, what kind of sand is in both tanks?

*Edit #2: I seemed to find better info. about it using the terms Audouinella or Rhodochorton instead of it's commonly referred names, as BBA is a genus of red algae

I used hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle to kill the BBA and it worked. I had it on some anubias and spray the BBA let it stand for about 5 minutes and rise off or if it is bad just put the plant back into the tank. It took about 2 weeks to kill the BBA off. I had to spray about 3 times over that period.

Koglin said:

Hmm..

Seems like something is causing co2 fluctuations.. or maybe high nutrient levels.. is co2 recommended for any of your plants? Also, is the leafzone and thrive products all you've used?

How is your surface agitation (low to high), and how is the current flow inside the tank (low to high)? Ever seen a weird 'oil slick' on the surface of your water from gas exchange issues?

Depending on what your stock/water parameters are like, you might be able to try and find species' that eat black beard algae like the SAE's (crossocheilus oblongus). They get through algae quick too from what I've read. Often mislabelled though - so be sure to identify it as a true SAE if you try them.

In addition to anything we dose, fish waste also provides certain macro fertilizers.. if you suspect it could be a fertilizer/nutrient issue, there is a nifty guide by a user from 2013 name Slim if you wanna dip your toes into mixing your own micro and macro fertilizers (haven't tried myself, but it's a great starting point for research).

Pressurized Co2, Equipment, Flow And Fertilization

PLEASE NOTE: This thread was started in 2013. The links to eBay no longer exist and there are links to other websites which no longer exists. It may be possible to find the links using Wayback Machine https://archive.org/web/web.php Pressurized CO2, Equipment, Flow and Fertilization First...

www.fishforums.net

Last note, I've read from a few sources that flourish excel will kill off BBA (tank dosing or actually dosing it onto the tufts directly with a pipette), but don't use Excel if you have fish in your tank. Some say it's ok some say it's not - best to play it safe. If you can move your fish, you could overdose excel slightly and then give it time to kill the algae (a day or 2). *Note - I've never tried excel because of mixed feedback, but it could be worth looking into how to use to to kill algae. Just make sure you get your water back to normal for a bit before replacing your fish with water changes/dead tuft removal.

*Edit: just crossed my mind about nutrients, what kind of sand is in both tanks?

*Edit #2: I seemed to find better info. about it using the terms Audouinella or Rhodochorton instead of it's commonly referred names, as BBA is a genus of red algae

Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply

In my tank the plants I chose do not need co2 system, Amazon Swords, Temple Plants, and Moneywort. If necessary and as a last resort, then I will purchase a co2 system and install it. I just can't afford to spent a small fortune on my co2 system.

I have read about Flourish Excel helping to get rid of algae like this so seriously thinking of giving it a try. But moving my fish before using Flourish would be very tough, because of all the plants. I would have to remove the plants in order to catch the fish, and truly I am not wanting to do this. But if I must then I will. I used Leaf Zone in my old 29 gallon setup until I learned it was not really a good product. So I have been using Thrive C ever sense. But what you are seeing in the picture above is not because of Leaf Zone are Thrive, I had quit using these ferts and that did nothing to stop the BBA, instead it made it a lot worse.

As far as my surface agitation goes, I feel it is pretty adequate for the tank. I have a very high flow rate for the size tank using a large canister filter, also have a power head, and a very long, large air stone driven by a large air pump, and last a small double sponge filter also driven by the large air pump. My plants sway back and forth in the tank so I know there is movement. But on another note, I don't want the current to strong for my Angel Fish.

I think for now I am going to cut back on lighting time, feeding, and turn on the ultra violet light in my canister filter, the ultra violet light should kill any BBA spores that flow through the filter.

Retired Viking said:

I used hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle to kill the BBA and it worked. I had it on some anubias and spray the BBA let it stand for about 5 minutes and rise off or if it is bad just put the plant back into the tank. It took about 2 weeks to kill the BBA off. I had to spray about 3 times over that period.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

My plants all have deep roots going deep into my aqua soil, I could remove them but doing so would disturb the entire setup. I am going to do some research on others that have used hydrogen peroxide and see if there is another way that I might try using it.

I had experienced this late last year. From what I read and observed in my tank, I concluded the problem was organic buildup in my substrate. My substrate at the time was coarse gravel. There was a lot of space between the stones for organics to build up. I had been thinking of changing to black diamond blasting sand. Sand has very little space between the grains for organics to buildup.

So I removed all the substrate and did several water changes to get the organic mud out of the tank. At that point all the plants were floating in the water and there was no substrate.At that point all the BBA on the walls of the aquarium and plant died. snails then slowly consumed the dead algae.

One thing I didn't do was I did not sanitize the filter. Today the sand substrate is in and replanted. no BBA except on the filter spray bar. Rinse out the filter, scrub he spray bar. About a month later BBA appears o the spray bar. Clean the filter and wait another month.

StevenF said:

I had experienced this late last year. From what I read and observed in my tank, I concluded the problem was organic buildup in my substrate. My substrate at the time was coarse gravel. There was a lot of space between the stones for organics to build up. I had been thinking of changing to black diamond blasting sand. Sand has very little space between the grains for organics to buildup.

So I removed all the substrate and did several water changes to get the organic mud out of the tank. At that point all the plants were floating in the water and there was no substrate.At that point all the BBA on the walls of the aquarium and plant died. snails then slowly consumed the dead algae.

One thing I didn't do was I did not sanitize the filter. Today the sand substrate is in and replanted. no BBA except on the filter spray bar. Rinse out the filter, scrub he spray bar. About a month later BBA appears o the spray bar. Clean the filter and wait another month.

Click to expand...

I am really glad you got rid of it. But your tale is just the opposite of mine. In the picture of the tank at the start of this thread that became infected with BBA had Pool Filter Sand. I used PFS for over two years and cleaned it good, doing my best to control organic buildup to no avail. So this time I around I figured it was something about the sand substrate that made the BBA in my case worse. So I went with pea gravel this time in around in my new 55g.

But I believe it was the fluorescent lighting, that was the reason the BBA got so bad.

You have to understand that I started a whole new temporary tank, a 20g long, to home some of my fish while I finished cycling and getting my 55 gallon ready. In the previous 29g tank that had been home for my fish I only took a few of the plants. I cleaned the BBA from the plants as best as I could. So all this is happening in a tank with a brand new layer of pool filter sand. But with the same fluorescent light. The BBA grew like it was on steroids in that tank, look at the picture above.

Now in my 55g I was using a smaller fluorescent light to help my LED light cover more area for my plants. It was under this area of the tank where the smaller fluorescent light shined that the BBA took of growing first.