It looks like black brush algae, BBA, which usually shows up if you don't have enough CO2 in the water, and high high light intensity. Not having enough CO2 can be a water circulation problem, where there is plenty at the drop checker location, but not in and among the plants. So improving circulation and increasing CO2 can help, once you get rid of what is already there. Also, how long are your lights on and what size tank with what lights?
its a 29g tank, CO2 max, the co2 is via glass diffuser on one side and ventri reactor on the other side, am using eheim 2217 filter, there are 3 power head extra, water movment is verey good.
i have a 110watt light total for 8 hours
dont know if i should cut down on lights?
thanks
I used to use 110 watts of light on a 29 gallon tank and found it was almost impossible to control algae. Assuming that light is two 55 watt bulbs, it is better to use two 36 watt bulbs, in my experience. If the light is a AH Supply light the ballast is the same which ever wattage you use. The 36 watt bulbs are just shorter.
One way to kill BBA is to lift out the object or plant that has it, spray it with the whole tank dose of Excel and return it to the tank. Excel kills BBA pretty fast. But, the normal tank dosage can take a long time to kill any existing BBA.
Last month Tom told me he was able to kill green spot algae on a rock by pulling the rock out, sprinkling the tanks dosage of KH2PO4 on the algae, waiting a bit and returning it to the tank. And, I think that works well for blue green algae too, if you sprinkle it with KNO3.
Obviously if the tank has a lot of algae it would take a lot of days of dosing to hand treat every plant and piece of hardscape that way. So, it is best to just remove algae infested leaves, and limit the hand dosing to things like driftwood or rocks.
thanks vaughn, i did remove few leaves, but still , the tanks is 2 years old, no problems before with this algae, my SAE DIED about 1 month ago, am not sure if it was the true SAE.
I read for few hours on the net, it looks like the battle is difficult to win.
for now i will cut down on my kno3 to half, i will stop the po4. k will be the same.
one more thing i am having problem with is my Aponogeton ulvaceus leaves turnning white , yes white not realy translucent, it is still growing and flouring like crazy, i thought may be ca am adding somm gh booster, any thoughts.
thanks
Reducing your dosing of KNO3 and KH2PO4 will make the algae problem much worse. It is fast growing plants that discourage algae from starting, and that requires that they be adequately fertilized. Fertilizing is not a cause of algae problems unless it is from under fertilizing so the plants don't grow well. This is true for high light tanks like you have.
Rather than playing with the fertililzing, you need to either reduce your light intensity or work at getting much better distribution and concentration of CO2 in the tank, plus good pruning and cleaning routines. The usual way to reduce light intensity is to use fewer bulbs or lower wattage bulbs. The other way is to raise the light fixture further, and that usually means suspending it above the tank on cables attached to the ceiling or to brackets attached to the wall or to the tank stand.
It also helps a great deal to reduce the lights on period down to 8 hours a day or less.