How To Get Rid Of Black Beard In A Planted Aquarium?

[nukeonekitty]

Black beard must have came on plants I got and is now on the substrate. How can I treat it without hurting the plants?

 

[ShoC]

aha,
If I am wrong PLEASE correct me,

Take your gravel out and soak it in a solution of water/bleach, (then rise under running water for AGES

Keep in mind gravel hold bacteria also so don't remove parts thats are okay,

and wash VERY well after it has been soaked in bleach , Leave it for about 30mins or so.

and any plants that have it on,
soak in a 14 part water, 1 part bleach for 2min or so depending on delicacy of plant


Hope that helps,
again if I'm wrong correct me

 

[nry]

Forget the bleach initially - do you have CO2 in the tank? How much light and how big is your tank?

 

[Themuleous]

Most algae are in most aquarium its just a case of which ones are stimulated to grow. Instability is the cause of most algae.

Sam

 

[nukeonekitty]

My tank is a 20 gal with about 2.2 wpg and NutraFin Co2.

 

[nry]

Possibly caused by the instability of CO2 you get with DIY CO2, do you use two bottles for the mix and swap alternate bottles every 3-4 days? I get BBA if I play around with CO2 levels (I now use pressurised) - providing the CO2 is stable nearly all the time it does not show its head.

 

[DevUK]

I have BBA in my 180 litre Its mostly because I've not been dosing anything since setup several months ago (money constraints at the time). Anyway, I've started dosing properly using EI, swapped some plants around and got some faster growers, and started dosing Flourish Excel. I've only been doing this for a few weeks (excel started about 3 weeks ago) and virtually all my hair algae has gone and the BBA seems a little less prominent (but not gone).

Worth reading the DIY CO2 thread As I understand it, and as nry says, you need to really have 2 bottles of mix on the go at once. You stagger them by a couple of days. This is due to the CO2 output taking a day or two to get going at full strength, but then slowing down a few days later. Having two bottles means there is overlap and the CO2 output doesn't fluctuate too much.

 

[nry]

BBA does not usually like Flourish Excel, the tell tale sign of BBA dieing is that it tends to turn a red/pink colour - I find that adding the normal dose is sufficient though some suggest an overdose - only thing here is that sometimes amano shrimp et-al are sensitive and can die, had that happen occasionally myself in the past.

 

[nukeonekitty]

Well what can I do to quickly get rid of it? Boil the rocks? I have Riccia coming in a week so I need to be prepared to put that in.

 

[DevUK]

Well what can I do to quickly get rid of it? Boil the rocks? I have Riccia coming in a week so I need to be prepared to put that in.

Scrub ornaments and remove it from any plants as best you can. Not sure you can get rid of it that quickly to be honest.

 

[nukeonekitty]

Okay, well the algae that is on the substrate... will it die if I put a riccia carpet on top of it or will it just come after the riccia
?

 

[Dave Spencer]

BBA seems to target hardware and slow growing plants. Riccia should be too fast a grower for it to get a foot hold.

Next time you do a water change at low level, turn the filter off and spot treat the BBA with Excel. Leave the Excel in contact with the algae for a minute or so before refilling and turning the filter back on. I had BBA on a filter outlet once and Excel killed it in no time, and I have never seen the BBA come back.

Dave.

 

[nukeonekitty]

Is that safe for me to do with the fish in the tank?

 

[Dave Spencer]

99.9% of people who dose Excel will have fish in their tanks. The only issue is with inverts, which can be very sensitive to the polycycloglutaracetal in Excel.

Dave.

 

[Musho3210]

snails are fine with an overdose of excel in my case, dont know about shrimp, ive heard bad things about shrimp and excel....