Black Beard Algae (your advise needed)

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Thanks for everyone's help with this issue, the BBA is under control and almost completely gone. Tried a few different things but in the end I think what worked was going through and cutting out the pieces that were a complete loss, adding three Siamese algae eaters, cutting back on the amount of co2 going into the system by half, new lights, and dosing with excel. Again, thanks for everyone's help and hopefully someone else will be able to get something from my experience.


 

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How exactly does one get rid of black beard/hair Algae lots of ideas out their but what would be a cheep and effective way to eliminate it
 

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Squirt some hydrogen peroxide on the bba with filters and power heads turned off. Wait for 30 minutes or so before turning them back on. During this time you'll see it bubble at the treated areas. The bba will turn brown and die off. But only do small areas at a time. So you don't overdose the tank and injure the fish or plants. Search YouTube for black beard algae removal. You'll find a video with a good ratio of hydrogen peroxide to use per gallon.
 
Squirt some hydrogen peroxide on the bba with filters and power heads turned off. Wait for 30 minutes or so before turning them back on. During this time you'll see it bubble at the treated areas. The bba will turn brown and die off. But only do small areas at a time. So you don't overdose the tank and injure the fish or plants. Search YouTube for black beard algae removal. You'll find a video with a good ratio of hydrogen peroxide to use per gallon.
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Interesting and y should the filters be off? So that the hp can settle on the serf ace of things ?
 

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Seachem Excel has something in it which also gets rid of bba
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The ingredient in question is Glutaraldehyde. I'm not sure on the dosing for these applications. There are plants that are sensitive to it, notably Vals, that will melt from it

To the OP: filters off for that reason, it would just let the H2O2 move about the tank without being concentrated enough to do what you're needing it to. There are dosing instructions for the entire tank, but spot treating is generally the most effective.
 
Saw someone mention boiling it off..... Is that effective on plants or could it potentially harm them
 
Saw someone mention boiling it off..... Is that effective on plants or could it potentially harm them
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That I haven't heard personally. Someone else may have to fill you in or you'd have to research that in more depth
 

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Hello Everyone,

So as you may have guessed from the title, I am having an issue with black beard algae. I constantly have go into my tank to rub it off the plants, my ornaments, and the glass. My bristlenose pleco has rendered himself useless in this battle.. so I have come here for some incite into a war I am currently loosing!

Bellow I have listed my setup, I don't believe I can do snails because of my assassins in the tank, shrimp may be possible but I'm not 100%.. other than that, leaves me with adding another small pleco, is an ASE in the air? how about an Oto? Rosy Barb?

any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks everyone!

Peter

Here is my setup and what we have to work with:

65G Wide Tank
(1) 6500k T5ho
(1) 2500k T5ho
(2) Coral Life (blue)
(1) 110 HBO filter
(1) 75 HBO filter

(1) Bristlenose Pleco
(1) Red Tail Shark
(1) Spiny Tail Eel
(4) Yoyo Loaches
(6) Serpae Tetras

(Sadly just lost my koi angle fish to an ammonia spike :'( .. )
 
I got rid of mine with pond snails. I now have a mystery snail that keeps it in check and I'm picking out the pond snails! Fun.
Good luck getting rid of the stuff. I hate it.
 
Only issue with snails is I have 4 Yoyo's .. so they decimate the snails , not sure how they would react to larger horn snails
 
Try spot treating with peroxide, not sure how bad of a problem you have but I've read decent success with this method.
 
Only issue with snails is I have 4 Yoyo's .. so they decimate the snails , not sure how they would react to larger horn snails
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Yeah, they would do a number on pond snails which isn't altogether a bad thing lol! Pond snails do have their place and can be helpful but more often than not they are just a pest!
I don't know what they'd do with larger horn snails either. I'm sure someone in here does though...

Try spot treating with peroxide, not sure how bad of a problem you have but I've read decent success with this method.
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Spot treating with peroxide? I've not heard about this technique for bba. How do you carry it out?
 
Spot treating with peroxide? I've not heard about this technique for bba. How do you carry it out?
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I am curious to trying this out .. Info on the "how to" would be great
 

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I spot treat with hydrogen peroxide as well. Once it's dead and turns a pinkish color, my fauna (ottos, shrimps, loaches, etc.) proceeds to eat a lot of it.

When's the last time you vacuumed your substrate? In my case I'm pretty sure it was all the muck sitting in my substrate that triggered my first BBA bloom. I've now gone back to a regular weekly cleaning schedule and that (along with the hydrogen peroxide) seems to keep it in control.
 
SAEs will take care of the BBA pretty quickly but they do get to 6ish inches and need to be kept in groups of 6. I'm no stocking expert so I can't say whether or not they will be a good fit.
 
Id like to make this page as solved!

Here was my solution!

Objective- To kill BBA within a 5-7 day time frame
-------------------------------------------------

Day 1:
- Water Condition Tests taken
- 40% water change
- 2 Cap fulls of Flourish Excel
- 2 Cap fulls of Prime
- Double Carbon (Liquid Co2) dose
- Lighting down from regular 8hrs to 2 hrs
- Black blanket over aquarium

Day 2:
- Water Condition Tests taken
- 30% water change
- 2 Cap fulls of Flourish Excel
- 1 Cap full of prime
- Lighting limited to 2 hrs
- Black Blanket over aquarium

Day 3:
- Water Condition Tests taken
- 20% water change
- 2 Cap fulls of Flourish Excel
- 1 Cap full of prime
- Lighting limited to 2 hrs
- Black Blanket over aquarium

Day 4 & 5:

- Same as Day 3

Day 6:

- BBA looks grayish red
- Yoyo's seem to have taken a liking to it
- Tank looks to be in a much better state
- Back to 15% water change
- Regular dose of Flourish
- Regular dose of Prime
- Regular dose of CO2
- Lighting to 5hrs

Day 7:

- BBA seems to have been defeated for now
- Lighting set to a steady 8Hrs
- Back to regular tank maintenance

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Now this is what seemed to work for me, Results may very. Also the high dose of Excel may be dangerous depending on what kind of fish you have to use with caution. My tank has no snails or shrimp so I can't comment on the effect. I hope this can come in handy for people with the same issue. I hope the BBA is done with attacking my tank for the time being aha!

Cheers
 
**Disclaimer this post is rather long, I just need lots of helps**

Also my first post ever on this site!!

Started this tank about 4 months ago with 5 black phantom tetras, 5 corydoras, 1 southern platy, 1 dwarf gourami, 5 rummynose tetras, 9 Amano Shrimp, and 1 Pleco.

Tank - 30 Gallon

Filter - Fluval 206 Canister filter

Light - Beamswork DA 6500K 0.50W Series LED

FE48ABDE-86D5-4941-BC48-ABFD27B8EC37

FE48ABDE-86D5-4941-BC48-ABFD27B8EC37

Whole tank shot

1 month ago I added a Fluval Co2 kit to my tank and it worked great for a few months then the regulator broke and I stopped messing with it any further. Took it out of the tank and tried DIY for now... couldn’t get that working right so I then removed all co2. (Have read fluctuating co2 levels can cause BBA, maybe it’s this that’s causing it in my tank? If so how do I fix without adding co2)

Since then I started dosing flourish excel into the tank every couple days and my plants grew inches a day. Everything was going great. Until this week. My whole tank is covered in BBA.

Drift Wood Covered.

465BDDF4-1853-4A3D-8813-2DEC43F40C37

465BDDF4-1853-4A3D-8813-2DEC43F40C37

Wood BBA

Anubias Covered.

413DC46E-67B4-490C-9315-345360FA0B8B

413DC46E-67B4-490C-9315-345360FA0B8B

Anubias BBA

Sagattaria Covered.

22811DB8-9E89-499E-98C3-6FF86F65B85F

22811DB8-9E89-499E-98C3-6FF86F65B85F

Sagittaria BBA

I read that flourish excel spot treated can actually help to get rid of the BBA. I started using a syringe to aI'm it directly at the plants and the wood. Nothing works so far. It’s been almost another 8 days since.

I cut back on feeding my fish as well. Once a day and barely any at all. (Not working)

I cut back on lighting and have turned down to 8 hours a day. Was originally at 10 hours.

If I bleach wash my plants and clean them all off will it not just come back from the same conditions being there before?
P.s. - how do I clean the wood? Hydrogen peroxide spray? And toothbrush?
(But still again how will it not just come back ☹️)

If I can magically manage to find SAE’s can they even clean THIS much algae???

Sorry for this being so wordy I’m awful at writing things. I appreciate ANY helpful feedback. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!
 
**Disclaimer this post is rather long, I just need lots of helps**

Also my first post ever on this site!!

Started this tank about 4 months ago with 5 black phantom tetras, 5 corydoras, 1 southern platy, 1 dwarf gourami, 5 rummynose tetras, 9 Amano Shrimp, and 1 Pleco.

Tank - 30 Gallon

Filter - Fluval 206 Canister filter

Light - Beamswork DA 6500K 0.50W Series LED

FE48ABDE-86D5-4941-BC48-ABFD27B8EC37

FE48ABDE-86D5-4941-BC48-ABFD27B8EC37

Whole tank shot

1 month ago I added a Fluval Co2 kit to my tank and it worked great for a few months then the regulator broke and I stopped messing with it any further. Took it out of the tank and tried DIY for now... couldn’t get that working right so I then removed all co2. (Have read fluctuating co2 levels can cause BBA, maybe it’s this that’s causing it in my tank? If so how do I fix without adding co2)

Since then I started dosing flourish excel into the tank every couple days and my plants grew inches a day. Everything was going great. Until this week. My whole tank is covered in BBA.

Drift Wood Covered.

465BDDF4-1853-4A3D-8813-2DEC43F40C37

465BDDF4-1853-4A3D-8813-2DEC43F40C37

Wood BBA

Anubias Covered.

413DC46E-67B4-490C-9315-345360FA0B8B

413DC46E-67B4-490C-9315-345360FA0B8B

Anubias BBA

Sagattaria Covered.

22811DB8-9E89-499E-98C3-6FF86F65B85F

22811DB8-9E89-499E-98C3-6FF86F65B85F

Sagittaria BBA

I read that flourish excel spot treated can actually help to get rid of the BBA. I started using a syringe to aI'm it directly at the plants and the wood. Nothing works so far. It’s been almost another 8 days since.

I cut back on feeding my fish as well. Once a day and barely any at all. (Not working)

I cut back on lighting and have turned down to 8 hours a day. Was originally at 10 hours.

If I bleach wash my plants and clean them all off will it not just come back from the same conditions being there before?
P.s. - how do I clean the wood? Hydrogen peroxide spray? And toothbrush?
(But still again how will it not just come back ️)

If I can magically manage to find SAE’s can they even clean THIS much algae???

Sorry for this being so wordy I’m awful at writing things. I appreciate ANY helpful feedback. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!
Click to expand...
From what I have learn from planted tanks is that once your plants start to really grow CO2 isn't really necessary unless your trying to crop grow to sell. Enough growing plants in a well established tank should going through a Photosynthesis process to where you might be over loading co2. Excell is co2 in a bottle basically. This will make this type aglae thrive in my experience No expert just a thought
 
I saw a thread a while back about boiling BBA and having it turn a beautiful green coloration.

I’ll try to find it, but after it turns green, most fish will eat it.
 
I saw a thread a while back about boiling BBA and having it turn a beautiful green coloration.

I’ll try to find it, but after it turns green, most fish will eat it.
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I’ll look into it! Thanks for the help!


Great point. I’ll read up more on Excell. Thanks for the help!
 

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Actually, get a siamese algae eater and some amano shrimps and the algae will start to get beaten back and eventually eradicated. THese guys eat just about every kind.
 
3 minutes. Not long enough I’ll tell ya the truth because today it’s the same color as before. BLACK
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Oh dang. If you attempt to reboil and manage to keep it green for a longer period of time please tell me how you managed it, I'm very interested in attempting this
 
I have the same problem and out of 4 tanks, only 1 has ever had it and I have tried excel, photoperiod, phospquard, etc.
I JUST bought 4 SAE today in hopes to get rid of the BBA. I won't know though for at least 4-6 weeks until my SAE get out of the QT tank.

Hopefully, if you get some, post results. I am taking pictures of my BBA now and will compare it a few months after the SAE get settled in the main tank.

DSC_2770.JPG
 
If it were me I'd do a black out period of 3 days. Make sure you're dosing enough ferts and make sure there is good water flow around the tank, otherwise another air stone or bubble wand thing might help. I personally break up the photo period but mostly just so I can have the lights on for the time periods when I am home.
 
I'm battling BBA as well. I found Double dose of excel is working for me. spot treating it, on day 2 some of the BBA turned pink/purple already. Also My Crypt parva was affected and I was still able to pull them out of the tank and sprayed with Hydrogen Peroxide and let it sit for 15-20 mins. 2 days after all bba on the parva turned purple green. I have 15 amanos, and mistakenly bought CAE instead of SAE lol. so far deads bba are being consumed by fishes and shrimps. I suffered a loss due to the excel overdose though, my Bamboo shrimp didn't tolerate it well.
 
I'm sure this has been posted multiple times before, but I have this nasty black beard algae... What do I do? I need it gone and to never come back!
 
Look up the "1-2 Punch method" of treatment.

Also trim off any heavily infected leaves and remove. I would also replace any mechanical filter media.
 

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Hydrogen peroxide 3% @ 1ml per 10 gallons and shutting filter down for an hour, daily dosing seems to help.
One of my filters didn't want to turn back on so I fixed it 24hrs later and was surprised how much algae was gone.
Also enough snails seem to eat every kind of algae you can imagine. Some plants I stick in my shrimp/snail tank for a few days and they come out clean.
 
I also recommend Amano shrimp and (if your tank size and stocking allows it) Siamese algae eaters. I only recommend the SAEs if your tank has a 48" long footprint.
 
I'm hesitant to add Hydrogen Peroxide to my tank. Something about that kinda has me on edge. I invested in a few smalls so we will see how that goes. I will look into Siamese Algae Eaters too.
Do the Amano shrimp eat the black beard algae?
 
Shrimp don't really eat beard algae in most people's experience. Seachem's excel is excellent at killing algae, but is toxic if overdosed. I would take out the affected plants/hardscape, use a paintbrush to dab on the right dosage, wait while keeping plants moist (spray bottle helps a lot), and put them back in. Or, to avoid taking plants out, if during a water change they are emersed in air you can do this process then
 
Things could be rinsed of excel / easy carbo that has been painted on before returning to the tank.

To avoid using too much expensive spray it could be diluted further before spraying (it is already in solution i.e. mixed with some water).
 
You don’t have to add the peroxide to the water you can remove plants or decor and dip them into a bowl of peroxide. 3 min for plants 5 for decor. Rinse in wc water before putting back in tank. Than invest in sae.
 
I use the peroxide in multiple tanks with no issues, Have some wood I'm trying to grow a moss carpet on that keeps getting full of algae I take it out and spray it and when I put it back in the guppy fry start pecking at it more.
 
Algae is an on going battle in aquariums you will never be able to eliminate it but it can be controlled.Lighting is a big factor and usually it is to much light so I would start there.Plants,fertilizers,and CO2 also figure into the equation.I took me over a year to get a handle on the algae an it is a constant battle.
 
I'm hesitant to add Hydrogen Peroxide to my tank. Something about that kinda has me on edge. I invested in a few smalls so we will see how that goes. I will look into Siamese Algae Eaters too.
Do the Amano shrimp eat the black beard algae?
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Amano shrimp certainly do eat it in my tanks. I had BBA in a betta tank so I threw the plants and decorations affected in with my amanos and they picked it clean in under an hour.
 

Random Great Topic!

Stop my fish from entering my filter?
Stop my fish from entering my filter?

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