I have this algae for about half a year now and have been unsucessful eradicating it. My last know ID was BGA but now i have some useful comments indicating that these are actually green dust.

Would appreciate if i can get some opinions from the experts here. Thanks.

Hi,

This thread may prove useful to you.

If you could provide some detail like your tank/lighting/substrate/fert dosing specs we could help more.

Aquarium Algae ID (updated)

Looks like a green dust or spot algae to me.

Is it only in a few spots (local) like the pics, or is it more widespread in the tank?

Do you get any direct sunlight into the tank at any point in the day?

Gerryd,

its wide spread on top of the soil and in the substract. Following are my tank parameters. Initially i believed they were bga as they resemble slime smothering my hairgrass, but it doesnt stink.

Tank Dimensions: 20cube 10L

Lighting Intensity(No of Watts) :12Watts
No. of hours your lights are on :9 hrs

CO2 Injection Rate (bps) : 1 bubble per 3 sec
Type of CO2 (DIY/Cylinder) : pressurised
Method of Injection (e.g. Diffusor/Reactor) :atomizer
Dropchecker used : ADA drop checker with 4/5dkh solution; green-dark green

Liquid fertilisers Used/Fertilization regime:
i prick a needle hole on the sechem bottle sealants and dose according to this drop.
2x drops sechem nitrogen - 3 times per week, mon/wed/sat
1x drop sechem phos - 2 times per week, mon/wed
1x drop sechem trace - 2 times per week, tues, fri
1x drop sechem potassium - 1 time per week, thur
1/6 teaspoon sechem equilibrium - 1 time per week, sunday during WC.

Type of Filter: gex 250l/h ohf
When was the filter last washed : weekly siphon of food, biomedia soak in tank water to remove excess mulm twice a week.
Filter media used : Mr aqua ceramic ring,Biohome plus, wool pad
When was the media last changed : added mr aqua 2 weeks back, soak 2
weeks in water before adding to canister.

Age of setup : 3 month +

Water change frequency : 1 week once
Amount changed :30%
Water top up per day : 500ml due to 9cm diy fan.

Water surface movement (None/gentle/turbulent) : gentle
Circulation (None/gentle/turbulent) :gentle

Tank Temperature :26-28C

Chemical Properties (current)
-------------------------------------
KH (dKH): 0
GH (dGH): 0
pH :5~6.6
Nitrite :0 ppm
Copper : 0 ppm
ammonia : 0ppm

Bioload (Number and type of fish and plants) :
Lushgrown taiwan moss as backdrop with japanese hairgrass. [5 months]
3 boraras brig and 2 snails. [5 weeks]

Feeding : Hikari micro tetra pellet
method of feeding - 3 micro pellets per day, pellets are flatten with tweezer, split in half then feed to fish. Food gets eaten immediately. Minority of food however does get sucked up the inlet if they can carried away by the current.

Currently i am doing the following.

-Substract cleaning of BGA and replanted all the HGs
-removal of bga infested wool filter and clean biomedia in existing tank water
-replace wool filter with new gex carbon pad
-rearrange biomedia to biohomeplus ->gex carbon pad -> mr aqua ceramic ring
-added 1ml sechem stability to biofilter after wc.
-aclimate boraras back into tank after 12hrs with 20ml of new tank water injection per 30mins interval
-redo fert regime to target
20ppm NO3 with 1ml dose 3x per week
1.5ppm PO4 with 1ml dose 3x per week
0.5ml trace 2x per week
1/32 teaspoon of equilibrium at WC
20ppm K with 1ml dose 1x per week, rest PPM substitute from equilibrium+sechem nitrogen

thanks.

I think bga is much darker than that, usually. Also it smells extremely bad if you take some out on your fingers. I don't think that's bga.