[Brahma04]

Just joined planted tank! Im very greatfull to have you all to learn from- I've been in the hobby for a year now (both fw planted and sw) and LOVE IT!

I have this algae growing in my 1 year old nano tank and I still cannot ID it.

(Figured out how to add pics)
It's green, it grows out from one small general spot (like the size of a pinhead) into a pompom shaped 'poof', the biggest one is almost golfball sized. It's growing off of two of my snails (makes them look like they have hair lol) and my driftwood.

They look like dr Seuss lorax tree tops and are actually pretty neat looking.

Is this just really clean looking hair algae?

 

[sohankpatel]

It looks like a green BBA. I have never seen that kind of algae, in my tanks or online. Reminds me of marimo balls.

 

[Brahma04]

I do have a marimo ball shoved into my driftwood but this stuff is really soft but when you take it out of the tank it looses its form. Maybe it's from my tap water?

 

[harrynolan27]

Did a quick google image search for "green beard algae" and sure enough what you have there popped up. IMO it looks awesome!

 

[Brahma04]

I searched GBA and only saw one pic that looked like it the rest didnt. So I guess I have two forms of beard algae then, the other kind grows completely different and spreads very easy. this on the other hand has only put off 6 'heads'. I hope my excel dosing doesn't kill the gba just the bba , I love the look of this stuff!

 

[MCSLABS]

I think it looks great, neat stuff as long as it stays under control

 

[jmach]

It looks like some kind of algae that had spores on your driftwood, and could very well be a kind of fungus-algae hybrid much like marimo. I would not bother to remove it, it looks very natural.

 

[Brahma04]

I want to kill my BBA but I want to keep this, I'm hoping it doesn't die when 1.5x dosing excel. It's good stuff, it pops off from its single node(I thought GBA mechanical removal was hard?) you can super glue the starting node to whatever you want. Do you think excel will kill it? (Hard to say I bet)

 

[jmach]

Excel will probably kill it if it's cellular structure is like other algaes.

 

[sfshrimp]

same

Have the same sort of stuff. I thought it was a offspring of java moss or an old artifact of the moss balls. Looks ok, not going crazy. The fish don't eat it either. Nor shrimp. I remove it via tweezers.

Excel will probably kill it if it's cellular structure is like other algaes.

 

[harrynolan27]

I want to kill my BBA but I want to keep this

I wonder if you could put some in a tank of its own, handle the bba in this tank, then reintroduce it?

 

[nyskiffie]

I would do spot treatment of the BBA, should allow you to kill it without dosing the whole tank with high excel levels.

Just grab a pipette and squeeze some excel directly onto the algae you don't want.