blackish hair on live plants?

Question

I have three tanks all are planted...two tanks have real fine fuzzy type black hair on the leaves ..its mainly the anubas that have it ...none on madagascar lace not really any on java... tiny bit on bamboo..ittle on water sprite none on java moss......its not the black velvet type ....this is fine fuzzy long hair about 1/4 to 1/2 inche long.....my nitrate is a little high in one tank ...other two tanks are good...I also feed the flourish once a week.

Answer 1

Not sure what you're calling black velvet - most truly black algae is black brush algae, although this can look differently from a fairly young infestation: http://www.floridadriftwood.com/brush_algae.jpg to one that's really taken hold: http://www.aquaticscape.com/articles/algae/bba1.jpg Maybe it's this last one that's been growing for some time you're calling "velvet".

If this is what you've got it's a tough one to get rid of. Siamese (not Chinese) algae eaters are the only animal that will eat it. It's a part of the red algaes, so it can tolerate lower light levels (and you probably wouldn't want to turn the lights off with other plants in the tank). You can control it some by doing more water changes (to reduce nutrients). Raising the pH is also supposed to help reduce it's growth. It's hard to remove from plant leaves without damaging them, so you may have to clip off any leaves that are infected.

Here's an article about black brush and controlling it - there are also some links to other websites in the article: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/algae/tonealg.shtml

Answer 2

The old food you noticed in the tank is the villian here. That algae needs nutrients in the water to grow. I would suggest you step up your water changes to once a week instead of every two. Also move rocks and clean under them with your gravel siphon when you do a water change so that you get as much of the uneaten food as possible. For the next few weeks you might want to do 35-40% water changes then step it back down to 25% weekly changes. That should solve the problem within a few weeks. Don't be tempted to try any of the algae killing products on the market please. Not only will they rarely work on this stuff, they usually make far more problems for the tank than they fix. Cleaning up the water a bit and starving the algae is the best way to go for the fish and the tank. MM

Answer 3

The thing you are describing is called black beard algae. I had that all throughout my tank earlier this year. I searched through websites and it said the cause is usually not enough co2 in the water. My first attempt, i dosed my tank with flourish excel (alternative source of carbon than CO2) and it showed signs of inhibiting further growth, but the algae was still there. My second attempt was buying two siamese algae eaters and those fishes REALLY did the job. After 2 days, there are no signs of black beard algae on the leaves. If you are planning to get siamese algae eaters, remember not to get them confused with chinese algae eaters or flying foxes as these other type of species will not eat black beard algae. There are websites that ggives you a good description of determining true siamese algae eaters.

Answer 4

It's just a form of alge. Live plants are prone to it especially if the nitrate and PH levels get a touch high. The green to black coloring is fine and just a cosmetic issue. If it turns brown to red (even higher PH imbalance) then I'd start to worry about the fish health in the tank. There are many alge clear products that will help control the issue.