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What is it? How to get rid of it?

692 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Diana, 
INADAZE
I managed to get this nasty algae a few weeks ago and I was forced to rescape my 3-gallon betta tank because it destroyed my plants. The tank has been doing great until I noticed it's back last night! The only thing that was kept from before was the the Eco-Complete substrate, a piece of driftwood, and two small anubias.

What is it?

How do I get rid of it?

Tested the water two days ago and everything was within normal, blue and yellow. I've been dosing Seachem Flourish, Iron, Excel, Trace, and Potassium based on the recommended schedule. I have a single 13w CFL bulb that is on from 7 AM - 9 AM and from 1 PM - 10 PM. I've decided to shut the light off in the meantime.

Pictures for reference:


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T
First pic looks like some sort of thread algae? What's the flow like in this tank? Second pic looks like it could just be diatoms. Nothing major to worry about there. By Flourish I assume you mean Flourish Comprehensive? Same thing as Trace, really. I also don't see that you're dosing nitrogen or phosphorus. I don't know if it's the lighting, but some of those green plants look a bit yellow, which is a sign of nitrogen deficiency. Your nutrients are probably out of whack, and you've got a long photoperoid compounding the issue. Id cut your lighting down a few hours today, and start getting the other two macro ferts in there (nitrogen being the most important).
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INADAZE
TwoTacoCombo said:
First pic looks like some sort of thread algae? What's the flow like in this tank? Second pic looks like it could just be diatoms. Nothing major to worry about there. By Flourish I assume you mean Flourish Comprehensive? Same thing as Trace, really. I also don't see that you're dosing nitrogen or phosphorus. I don't know if it's the lighting, but some of those green plants look a bit yellow, which is a sign of nitrogen deficiency. Your nutrients are probably out of whack, and you've got a long photoperoid compounding the issue. Id cut your lighting down a few hours today, and start getting the other two macro ferts in there (nitrogen being the most important).
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By Flourish, I did mean Comprehensive. I wasn't aware it was the same as Trace. If you were to stop dosing with one, which would it be?

I've been wondering about Nitrogen since I started dosing. I had assumed that there was a enough in my tap water. My concern with phosphorus is the potential to breed more algae.

The yellowing on the Ludwigia should be the lighting. Again that's what I'm assuming.

Course of action... Cut off limbs with diatoms, reduce the photoperiod to 7-8 hours a day, start dosing Nitrogen, and possibly stop dosing Trace or Flourish. Any other suggestions?
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D
The first picture shows something I had a terrible time with. Sort of wispy mass and bits of brown stuck in it. I thought it was some form of very fine algae and debris got caught in it. Not stuck to anything but sort of tangled among the plants.

The second picture looks like Diatoms.
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