[diehard]

Is this blue green algae? I have only seen pics of BGA once it has completely smothered everything but i was afraid this was the start of it.

It is only on the plants. It is on every plant except 2 that are in a shaded low light position. It looks very slimy and comes off easily by simply moving the vac near the plant. It comes back within 24 hours. I have seen a SAE nibble at it but I thought they didn't touch BGA?

The tank has been setup for about 3 weeks. I'm aware i also have green water.

Oh yeah, i'm new here so hello :biggrin:

 

[atomicflatulence]

maybe, is it in the gravel too?

do you use a carbon dioxide source?

 

[diehard]

i can't be certain about in the the gravel. It is certainly not on the gravel. Substrate is a laterite, fluorite, gravel mix. Yes i have presurised C02.

 

[Clone]

If it is it should wipe off your plants easily and have an odor.

 

[sandiegoryu]

Yes that is almost definitely BGA. Smell it and if it smells swampy and bad, then that's BGA. Check your nitrates and if they're on the low side, <10, then you should start dosing and manually remove the stuff. Then you could if you want, do a 5 day black out. Absolutely no light, no peaking. No feeding either. Just manually remove the BGA, then do a water change and dose nitrates. After the black out, remove any dead BGA, do another water change, and keep dosing nitrates regularly.

 

[diehard]

I’ve tried to remove the algae and smell it. It doesn't really have a bad odor. It is hard to get large pieces out of the water. It breaks up as i move it to the surface. Could this be thread algae? It certainly grows threads about 5cm long in 48 hours.

 

[kzr750r1]

Your in the early stages if you can't get too much out for a sniff. Increase the NO3 a bit and see if things improve...

I've had a similar outbreak at times with high bio load and old substrate.

Since your tank is new what are you doing for a dosing regime?

Welcome to the forum.

 

[diehard]

Thanks for the help guys and confirming the algae type. I stopped all dosing and cut the light period when the algae seemed to be taking over. So at the moment i am dosing nothing but have left the c02 running during the light period. I was doing only micro/trace elements daily. I thought this would be best until the plants were established. I've since learnt that macro's are also required early on to keep things balanced.

One more question... the general answer for BGA is to increase Nitrogen. Is this assuming i'm already dosing phosphorous & potassium. I read an article saying to dose Nitrogen + 1 of the others only to clear BGA but i can't not find it again.

 

[kzr750r1]

Kick in NO3 and K. Nitrate and Potassium. Easy with trace on a fresh plant but your into a few weeks already...

 

[ringram]

If that's BGA, it sure isn't bad (yet). I had a real bad case of it once.
BGA is generally considered to be caused by low nitrates(or zero), but I would bump up the Co2 and slightly decrease the photo period as well. Do several water changes as well, over the next week or so.