This is the EXACT same way it showed up for me, barely anyone talked on the internet about this! I swear you are the only channel that fits my fish tank philosophy.
I would like to share what I did for BBA that worked... I had it along the edges of my sword plants and anubias. I took the plants out of the tank and applied Flourish Excel with a Q tip directly to the BBA then put the plants back in the tank. After 24 hours the BBA turned red. You can easily see if you missed any areas at this point. I noticed my ramshorn snails and guppies started eating it for the first time, probably because it was now soft enough to eat. The plants did not yellow or die back. It has been one month now and I am BBA free so far. Now, I'm not sure how it would work on crypts since they don't like to be uprooted or disturbed after established and my crypts weren't affected by the BBA. So I would use caution if you tried it. Anyway, I hope this might help someone out. If you have a question, just reply and I will try to help! Thanks! 😊🌱
I’ve noticed that bba first forms on anubias or val species of plants. Since anubias are not planted I remove them and place them in a glass vase adding a couple drops of seachem excel changing the water completely every 3 days. If it’s on the val I cut off every affected leaf and remove them while doing a large water change twice a week and cutting the light down to 6 hours a day from 8. Seems to work if caught early enough. If let go to long or gets out of control I tear down the tank and dispose of all affected plants. After having to do this once I keep a better eye on my tanks and also bought a net and piece of hose for each tank in order to keep cross contamination to a minimum. Black beard algae is probably the cause for a lot of people giving up on the hobby. It’s the one algae that gets me upset when it appears.
Yes, Amano shrimp does work very well I had a very aggressive blackbeard algae take over in my 250 gallon tank. I think this was because my CO2 bottle ran out and I didn't realize it for 2 weeks so the water changed very quickly. So I went out and bought 25 of them to start. within 2 weeks my tank was clearing up rapidly. Although this was a very expensive fix, but worked quickly.
the hard/soft water makes sense. Cory is always saying how he uses the hydro method and it works for him, also always talks about how soft his water is. Very interesting.
Girl! I've been fighting this for months now. Nothing gets it off and forget scraping it off the plant leaves.. it damages everything. Thank you so much! You have no idea how much I appreciate this video and information. My gosh, this black hairy algae is ridiculously tough to battle. Thankfully I got it under control but it always comes back with a vengeance. Have a great day. I appreciate this so much!
I agree, balancing nutrients and light is hard, but important to make sure that your treatments for algae removal are able to keep up with the growth of it.
ok my tank was a black mess..added new plants lighting and it killed my wisteria.. covered everything filter clogged every 7 days.. The cure, clean the items you can with peroxide out of tank soak them... then just turn the lighting off for 5 days... Clean the filter mine was green, just rinse in a cup.. Every other day...I have zero black beard algae... yes i soaked some of my gravel in peroxide not all for bacteria.(weekly it was just a mess).I swooshed it in a clean container and you would be amazed at the black algae on the gravel( i swooshed in clean water 5 times or so to remove the black algae still had some)...Threw out the really bad stuff... added new gravel ....all the black beard died..gone poof...back to a super clean tank now for 5 months or so... my tank was soo bad i scooped gravel out and it was black and hairy.. filter clogged... now zero black algae.. my accessories' stay white my filter goes a month or more and no clogging.. the key turn the tank lighting off, and clean the really bad algae with hydrogen peroxide... rinse really well... Never put peroxide on filter media just the canister.. So now yearly or so i am gonna turn the lighting off for a few days... added doubled over computer paper to adjust lighting taped to glass lid... Added lifelike fake plants.. really nice ones.. cut down and it looks real... one happy betta in a clean gorgeious tank.... I hate black beard algae.... It beat me down to wanting to stop my tank.. It took hours to clean weekly( my tank was 20 times worse then hers).. Now it takes 30 minutes done.. water changes and rearranging items only.. love my tank again..
You did an excellent job with this video. I'm catching up on freshwater shrimp and appreciated all of the information you've shared here. Thanks so much and thumbs UP!
I used Seachem Excel effectively to control BBA. I have a 15 gallon tank and I did overdose with 2-3 caps of excel, without harming the fishes or shrimps (I have a very heavily planted tank). I repeated it two to three times a week. The BBA turned brown and melted away next week. But, they tend to come back now and then. Also, please be careful while spot treatment with liquid carbon. In my experience, the mosses don't respond well (some of it actually got burnt)
Thank you for making this video. I have been fighting BBA for years in my 180 gal and I have 7 SAE and 12 hillstream loaches. Neither of them totally eradicates BBA.
Wow, that's an awesome army of algae eaters! Yeah, once I weakened the BBA with liquid carbon spot treatment and the algae started turning yellow, the hillstream loaches completely ate it all. Pretty impressive; hope it works for you as well!
Nice video. One note is that while treating a tank I found that doing good water changes helps a lot. I’ve also done 2 wc per week on a stubborn tank while treating the plants.
I will try your method with excel. My BBA is also completely flat, no "beard" at all. I was starting to think it was not BBA, just some weird black spot algae. Tried hydrogen peroxide, tried bleach, tried excel soak. All it did was weakening the plants. Thankfully my tank is very very low tech and im pretty lazy with the ferts, so the bba is very slow, but it still managed to spread onto most slow growing plants. Im determined to stop being lazy this year and conquer it. Thanks for giving hope!
I had this problem as well, and in my case was because i was over fertilizing. I stoped fertilizing for a few weeks and the black algae dissapeard over time
This is exactly what caused it in my tank. I’m new to planted tanks and over fertilized thinking I needed to give the plants a boost. Hard lesson to learn but glad to know this going forward
Very interesting! I’ll keep this in mind if I ever have an outbreak that my ramshorn and pond snails 🐌 don’t take care of. I’m one of those people that love snails and, so far in my tanks, these guys have cleaned up that flat surface BBA you talk about. I always love your videos, Irene. Thanks for making such fun, interesting, and educational content.
Nerite snails did some damage on the alge bloom I had. Wavy green version but also the bushing black version too. That stuff would stick to the anubius. Noticed that after the tank settled for a few months and the addition of amano shrimp plus a small bristlenose pleco things cleared up slowly. Out of all the methods, including bleaching, the nerite snail seemed to do the most damage. Bleach method would work on the BBA but if the balance is off it comes back. I also did have some fish die off during this period but since then most of my livestock have been healthy. FYI this was for a 30 gallon with CO2 injection. Heavily planted from the start but with fresh filter and UNS substrate.
I can recommend Silver Flying Fox (Crossocheilus Reticulatus) if you got a big tank with big sturdy fish or for a smaller tank Florida flagfish (Jordanella floridae) both work wonders and no chemicals.
Thank you for this video! My tank has recently started growing this type of algae and I didn’t know what the name was or how to treat it Thank you for the thorough detail! Your videos are awesome!
This was so helpful! I couldn’t tell what was on my leaves because its also hard and dusty looking. I’ll give hydrogen peroxide first since it hasn’t spread much yet. Thank you!!
I fought this stuff on and off over the years, and it’s so robust. There weren’t good products like the ones you shared back then, and I have the same hard water / high ph water situation you do. Eventually, my only resort was pulling every plant to replace new, razor blading every inch of glass, and boiling the hardscape (big rocks and driftwood). How’d the boiling work? After boiling hardscape for as long as 30 minutes, I was certain I’d be able to just scrub it off with a vegetable brush. That was not the case AT ALL. I was able to scrub the rocks clean with a wire brush, but the driftwood was too tender for that and I couldn’t get that all scrubbed off. Black hair algae held on like iron, even after being boiled! I assumed it was dead after being boiled though… was it? The result was it never returned at the same levels, but the boiled driftwood only released where my pleco found areas of driftwood softened from boiling - removing the driftwood layer removed the algae. Firmer areas of driftwood… THE BLACK HAIR ALGAE RETURNED. Did it grow back from its “roots”? Did it just reestablish where it had favorably grown before? No idea. But it’s a perfect Hallowe’en topic, because black hair algae is the monster that won’t die!
AHHH, thank you so much for becoming my first member (who made a comment that I can see)!!! I'm so glad that your vallisneria ended up recovering too. Such a beautiful plant from the aquascapes I've seen.
all my plants are attached to driftwood or in small bond baskets. I remove them to a large plastic tray and place a fan over them for 5 minutes to dry the leaves and roots off. I then spray the plants and roots with liquid carbon and leave it on for one (1) minute and then risnse promptly. Any longer than the minute and I found the liquid carbon destroys the fine, feeder root hairs on the anubias and causes their growth to be held back. Does the job, but on balance I know there are bigger issues at play like too much phosphorus, too much light and perhaps not enought CO2 which is where I am now experiementing.....
Not gonna lie. Love the effort and diligence you put in for this video. See the self care you’ve been doing as well. Happy for you. Thanks for the informative information. 👌🏿🔥
Great video. Very informative. Did a great job covering all the bases and teaching everyone about the different processes you can go through to get rid of dreaded algae. My hat off to you
I took plants out, soaked in h202 for a couple min and it worked. But who wants to keep removing plants to soak em. Ok once, but very annoying if needed multiple times
I had some success with 2 min leaf soaks in H2O2. I also sprayed it on my decor out of water. However, I missed a tiny bit of this stuff on my tank and got another huge bloom.
IMO something you can do for that spot treatment is pour your full "daily dose" of Excel or liquid carbon in a cup. Then use that full dose is a pipette to treat as many leaves or areas as you can for that dose. Then wait however long and repeat to a different area. It's no different than what you were doing when you were dosing the water column every other day.
I cleaned out..scrubbed our tank. Removed all gravel. Removed all fish and placed very warm chlorinated water in it for ten min…killed all algae :) then I dechlorinated …suctioned all the dead algae. Haven’t had an issue since
My black beard algae was flag in the wind style. Not a short film. Flags all over my tank, on the glass, on the equipment and on the plants. Very very beautiful fuzzy soft black furry flags on everything. Boiling my gravel worked AFTER 4 hours or so of simmering. Bleach worked on my plastic plants. But it took about a week of 10% . I didn't know about the "aldehyde's". In the end I moved my fish to a small tank and blasted the plants with algaecides. A year later is seems to be gone. Scary tough stuff.
i’ve got 2 60 gallon tanks that are each covered in black beard algae, but it looks like dark grey grass covering everything so i don’t mind it. some plants like my jungle val and amazon sword can keep up with it, but anubias always gets covered and dies, as well as most stem plants
Not much has helped here in TX. So If i see it, i immediately pull it all out and trash it. I know but it did get rid of it and I just got some new plants. Check them carefully before bringing them to your tanks! Good luck.
I'm fighting the exact same BBA right now. I've found that a dry "magic eraser" takes it off easily. It's not a fix of course but you can wipe it off your leaves very easily. It's crazy how well it works. But you still have to fix the actual cause.
Ugh. Always seems to appear after getting a sword plant or Java fern. I hated dealing w that stuff in my brother's 100 gal I was in charge of. That's pretty genius doing the spot treatment.
Ooo, it's good that you spot it now. Tackle it early on for faster success. I took me _months_ to finally get rid of this stuff because I had so much of it.
spot treatment (seachem excel) worked. I had a BBA from the buce I bought from a store and had to isolate it. Soaked it in Excel for 5 minutes and I don't see any of them anymore now.
I bought three siamese flying foxes, not sucking loaches or flying foxes. After just three days I could see the difference. Now after six months I have no algae problems at all.
I feed my tanks very carefully. I don't let anyone starve, of course, but I never overfeed. My lights stay on upwards of 12 hours and I've never had algae problems. I really think this is an overfeeding/over fertilizing issue, and not having enough plants.
I don't know about Easy Carbon, but Seachem Flourish Excel is actually polycycloglutaracetal, which is an acetal-linked polymer of gltaraldehyde's cyclic form. I assume it's significantly less toxic because of its increased molecular weight preventing diffusion across impermeable biological membranes (such as those in animals) and because the acetal bond is relatively stable at physiological pH, meaning it has to be broken down intracellularly to exert its effects as glutaraldehyde. It should be okay to get this chemical on your hands.
I hypothesize that polycycloglutaracetal gets macropinocytosed by algae and certain aquatic plants, entering the endocytic pathway, where it encounters a decreased pH, catalyzing the reversal of the acetal to its aldehyde form. Some organisms are equipped to sequester and eliminate toxic byproducts from their cells while other organisms are unable to do this effectively. Many plants have a specialized lysosome called a vacuole where they can sequester and store toxic byproducts and nutrients. Thus, the algae, lacking such sequestration machinery, gets poisoned when it breaks down the polycycloglutaracetal. I sure wish Seachem would release their rational for Flourish Excel. It's still an enigma to me, and this is all hypothetical (I am a biochemist).
I had this on one of my 4 foot tanks witch has slate fixed on 3 sides..I had 5 big pieces of bog wood 🪵 also.I call it purple beard 🧔♂️ algae myself lol it’s was everywhere…what I did was take out the bog wood 🪵 placed it in my shower 🚿 and brushed with a wire brush lol (this worked) 🤷 scrubbed the slate while in the tank and let the external filter pick it up..I did 2-3 large water changes each week for 6 weeks.2 months later the bog wood 🪵 is lovely and clean still and the same gos for my 3 sides that are covered in slate.the purple algae eventually disappeared from my plants.I do a 30% water change each week and this seems to be helping…I think 🤔 my problem came from the bog wood being large pieces and was covered in the purple pest..it was growing to well on there….it’s funny how a tank can change just like that sometimes 🤷Steve 🇬🇧
I just added 2 nerite snails to my tank which is overrun with BBA. In the last 3 days they've removed far more of the stuff than my panda garra has in 2 years. but most of what theyve eaten is the flat layer, like in your video, rather than the hairy/fluffy stuff
What worked for me with algae treatment was a short bleach bath of like 20 seconds or so with a thorough rinse and plenty of dechlorinator before putting back in the tank. 20 seconds or so was enough to kill the algae and turn it totally white then it just rubs off like slime.
@@GirlTalksFish Yeah it took me a long time before i got confident enough to try that method, all other methods I tried failed. Wasn't as scary as I thought it'd be just it has to be a chlorine bleach.
I have a weird white algae (I guess) and I can't get rid of it. It kinda look like melted marshmallows. I scrap it off everyday and it keep coming back. Don't know what to do. I read it can come from overfeeding so I reduced the food I give to my fish and I have a lot of bottom feeder to eat the leftover yet the algae is still here
I notice you didn't try soaking plants directly in "liquid carbon" bath. My 55g is a Black Bear Algae tank now, I gave up fighting it because there was a lot of cherry shrimp in there. Now that I gave a lot female shrimp away, the female left must of died off, so I only have male slowly dying off now. I'm thinking about re-tanking the shrimp for a few months and go to battle with the BBA. Have you try soaking BBA coverage into a Liquid Carbon bath for a few short minutes???
But then meanwhile, I saw a MASSIVE bichir tank that was covered on three sides and the deco with two and a half inches of black beard algae. It was the most beautiful tank, it legitimately looks amazing when it grows for enough time. When it's young, it definitely looks gross, but when it grows to the point that your tank is covered in gently waving anime hair, it's a valid option
CO2 and Siamese algae eaters did wonders for my tank. Unfortunately the timer on my CO2 got some of it's pins pushed leading to CO2 running over night killing a bunch of fish and it ended up coming back... I got a plug with an app timer now and I'm trying hillstream loaches. I really like their appearance and they are voracious eaters, but they don't worry about detail cleaning. Unfortunately my blind cave fish hunts snails to extinction cause that sounds tempting. (I have otocinclus as well and while they seem to enjoy the green hair algae, they are not so interested in the BBA.)
I got rid off my algae by reducing the photoperiod from 8 to 7 hrs a day also took the brightness down 25%, didn't chance dosing or CO2 period and the thank is clean again. have to mention due to some terrariums in the back of my tank I added extra light for them, dumb me not realizing it would affect the tank, so had algae bloom to make me realize the major mistake too much light, so had work on the source of the issue. cheers and I hope you planted tank goes back to healthy-looking plants soon :D
Thank you for sharing your experience! Yes, my problem was too much light and lack of certain nutrients. I'm getting some more potassium in the mail today, so looking forward to no more pinholes.
@@GirlTalksFish Hey Irene, have you tried phosguard? maybe you want to give it a try, it has made a difference for me since I started using it. I hope you the best hoping you show us a flush planted tank like you had before , and to make a note by the looks of the Bolbitis indeed you have too much light for those plants, other wise you will need to supplement CO2 to help the plants be much healthier thus inhibiting the algae. cheers! let us know how it goes be more than glad to help out :D
My Panda Garras will not touch the BBA that has been treated. I finally cut off all the leaves that had been infected but turned red after the peroxide treatment, the plants are growing back but like I said, the Panda Garras did not touch the stuff.
I have lots of rhizome plants (mainly anubias and Java fern) and small rocks with BBA that are easily removable for a while to treat out of water. Not having great luck spot treatment of H2O2 (if I leave it on long enough to kill the algae some of my leaves don’t survive) but I’m think I’m going to retry my Excel after watching this. If you’re treating with Excel out of water how long would you suggest letting it sit before putting it back in the tank? Sorry to miss you live! I was all set to watch and chat when my out of town guests awoke so I had to use my TH-cam manners 😄
I just kind of accepted this as part of the aesthetic of my tank, but now that I'm beginning to add live plants, I'm thinking of trying to at least keep it at a lower level (look, I really like the mossy look it gives some of my stone decor, so I'd rather just spot treat it as it grows elsewhere... yeah I'm weird)
I have beaten BBA in all my tanks.. Lots of unused iron and fluctuations of CO2 is good for bba. Excel can control it, just dose that by manufacturer instructions. To treat out of water, you can soak in 50 50 solution of water and hydrogen peroxide for 10 mins. OR spray straight on the plant but you need a hardy plants that don't melt away easily. 1 to 3 ml per gallon of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide. (wise to account for displacement and extra water that external filters provide) Dose whole tank. Turn off lights, and filter. Add it to aquarium and swish it around. If you use syringe you can spot treat. BBA turns red, pink, gray or white when it is dying/dead. Only then it is soft enough for my cherry shrimp eat it. Only SAE or Florida flag touches the bba straight raw and healthy. I have dosed 3ml per gallon daily for 3 days off two on 3 off 2 for like 2 weeks in all my fresh water tanks to include my cherry shrimp colony with no noticeable negative effects.
That's awesome! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Yes, I also found that my hillstream loaches and other algae eaters were more able to eat it once the algae was weakened from spot treatment.
Asian algae eaters are great when they are young, I never had a spot of algae. However, they get big and they switch to eating fish slime coat. I recently had to give mine up to a LFS because he was causing so, much stress for my fish as, he was trying to eat their slime coats and causing bacterial infections
dial in your tank, balance nutrients(ferts and co2) and shorter photoperiod is a must! cheers and hope you get rid of it it can be done a clean flush tank :D
Are you able to put 5 or 6 Albino Corydora Catfish in a 20 gallon tall and them still be comfortable or is that too smushed. And with introducing a betta fish to a tank should you first buy the betta fish and then his tank mates (which will just be the Cory catfish) or should the mates then the betta fish? They would all be in a 20 gallon planted tank.
![BLACK BEARD ALGAE [the *REAL* Reason it's GONE!]](/img/n.gif)
*Still need help fighting algae? Check out my other algae tutorials here: **th-cam.com/play/PLlBBJ7xBuquYN1TkIpb62os9kyqB_mvKr.html*
You used 3 ml of Excel each day?
This is the EXACT same way it showed up for me, barely anyone talked on the internet about this! I swear you are the only channel that fits my fish tank philosophy.
The internet needs more Irene!!!! Thanks for the update! Starting to deal with that same
Problem this week!
I would like to share what I did for BBA that worked...
I had it along the edges of my sword plants and anubias. I took the plants out of the tank and applied Flourish Excel with a Q tip directly to the BBA then put the plants back in the tank. After 24 hours the BBA turned red. You can easily see if you missed any areas at this point. I noticed my ramshorn snails and guppies started eating it for the first time, probably because it was now soft enough to eat. The plants did not yellow or die back. It has been one month now and I am BBA free so far. Now, I'm not sure how it would work on crypts since they don't like to be uprooted or disturbed after established and my crypts weren't affected by the BBA. So I would use caution if you tried it. Anyway, I hope this might help someone out. If you have a question, just reply and I will try to help! Thanks! 😊🌱
Great idea, I can't wait to try this
I’ve noticed that bba first forms on anubias or val species of plants. Since anubias are not planted I remove them and place them in a glass vase adding a couple drops of seachem excel changing the water completely every 3 days. If it’s on the val I cut off every affected leaf and remove them while doing a large water change twice a week and cutting the light down to 6 hours a day from 8. Seems to work if caught early enough. If let go to long or gets out of control I tear down the tank and dispose of all affected plants. After having to do this once I keep a better eye on my tanks and also bought a net and piece of hose for each tank in order to keep cross contamination to a minimum. Black beard algae is probably the cause for a lot of people giving up on the hobby. It’s the one algae that gets me upset when it appears.
Yes, Amano shrimp does work very well I had a very aggressive blackbeard algae take over in my 250 gallon tank. I think this was because my CO2 bottle ran out and I didn't realize it for 2 weeks so the water changed very quickly. So I went out and bought 25 of them to start. within 2 weeks my tank was clearing up rapidly. Although this was a very expensive fix, but worked quickly.
Three years later… thanks for the great video. I’m having some bb algae issues and this helped.
the hard/soft water makes sense. Cory is always saying how he uses the hydro method and it works for him, also always talks about how soft his water is. Very interesting.
Girl! I've been fighting this for months now. Nothing gets it off and forget scraping it off the plant leaves.. it damages everything. Thank you so much! You have no idea how much I appreciate this video and information. My gosh, this black hairy algae is ridiculously tough to battle. Thankfully I got it under control but it always comes back with a vengeance. Have a great day. I appreciate this so much!
I agree, balancing nutrients and light is hard, but important to make sure that your treatments for algae removal are able to keep up with the growth of it.
ok my tank was a black mess..added new plants lighting and it killed my wisteria.. covered everything filter clogged every 7 days.. The cure, clean the items you can with peroxide out of tank soak them... then just turn the lighting off for 5 days... Clean the filter mine was green, just rinse in a cup.. Every other day...I have zero black beard algae... yes i soaked some of my gravel in peroxide not all for bacteria.(weekly it was just a mess).I swooshed it in a clean container and you would be amazed at the black algae on the gravel( i swooshed in clean water 5 times or so to remove the black algae still had some)...Threw out the really bad stuff... added new gravel ....all the black beard died..gone poof...back to a super clean tank now for 5 months or so... my tank was soo bad i scooped gravel out and it was black and hairy.. filter clogged... now zero black algae.. my accessories' stay white my filter goes a month or more and no clogging.. the key turn the tank lighting off, and clean the really bad algae with hydrogen peroxide... rinse really well... Never put peroxide on filter media just the canister.. So now yearly or so i am gonna turn the lighting off for a few days... added doubled over computer paper to adjust lighting taped to glass lid... Added lifelike fake plants.. really nice ones.. cut down and it looks real... one happy betta in a clean gorgeious tank.... I hate black beard algae.... It beat me down to wanting to stop my tank.. It took hours to clean weekly( my tank was 20 times worse then hers).. Now it takes 30 minutes done.. water changes and rearranging items only.. love my tank again..
You did an excellent job with this video. I'm catching up on freshwater shrimp and appreciated all of the information you've shared here. Thanks so much and thumbs UP!
I had a 10 gallon covered in this stuff too. What worked for me was the addition of 10 Nerite snails. Within a week they had it completely cleaned up.
Same! I had a bba infestation in mine from an infected java fern, nerites worked for me too!
Where’d you get your nerite snails? I want some but don’t know where to get them
Great video as always! You can never have to many tips to tackle the dreaded algae!
Thanks for dropping by and watching the premiere! Too bad you can't get this stuff easily in the UK; thanks for the heads up. :P
My girl!!! Needed THIS!!
I used Seachem Excel effectively to control BBA. I have a 15 gallon tank and I did overdose with 2-3 caps of excel, without harming the fishes or shrimps (I have a very heavily planted tank). I repeated it two to three times a week. The BBA turned brown and melted away next week. But, they tend to come back now and then. Also, please be careful while spot treatment with liquid carbon. In my experience, the mosses don't respond well (some of it actually got burnt)
Floating plants and flag fish did it for me. Much Love Irene!!!
Thank you! I'm jumping straight to the 4th method. Just ordered from your link. ❤
Thank you for making this video. I have been fighting BBA for years in my 180 gal and I have 7 SAE and 12 hillstream loaches. Neither of them totally eradicates BBA.
Wow, that's an awesome army of algae eaters! Yeah, once I weakened the BBA with liquid carbon spot treatment and the algae started turning yellow, the hillstream loaches completely ate it all. Pretty impressive; hope it works for you as well!
Nice video. One note is that while treating a tank I found that doing good water changes helps a lot. I’ve also done 2 wc per week on a stubborn tank while treating the plants.
I will try your method with excel. My BBA is also completely flat, no "beard" at all. I was starting to think it was not BBA, just some weird black spot algae. Tried hydrogen peroxide, tried bleach, tried excel soak. All it did was weakening the plants. Thankfully my tank is very very low tech and im pretty lazy with the ferts, so the bba is very slow, but it still managed to spread onto most slow growing plants. Im determined to stop being lazy this year and conquer it. Thanks for giving hope!
Liquid carbon spot treatment combined with having my tank on a blackout lighting schedule was very effective for me!
I had this problem as well, and in my case was because i was over fertilizing. I stoped fertilizing for a few weeks and the black algae dissapeard over time
This is exactly what caused it in my tank. I’m new to planted tanks and over fertilized thinking I needed to give the plants a boost. Hard lesson to learn but glad to know this going forward
I gotta sub to you!! You document everything i love the visual aids on your process!
Very interesting! I’ll keep this in mind if I ever have an outbreak that my ramshorn and pond snails 🐌 don’t take care of. I’m one of those people that love snails and, so far in my tanks, these guys have cleaned up that flat surface BBA you talk about. I always love your videos, Irene. Thanks for making such fun, interesting, and educational content.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Yes, I should've mentioned that I was fighting BBA in snail-free tanks. Glad to hear they'll eat the stuff. :)
Nerite snails did some damage on the alge bloom I had. Wavy green version but also the bushing black version too. That stuff would stick to the anubius. Noticed that after the tank settled for a few months and the addition of amano shrimp plus a small bristlenose pleco things cleared up slowly. Out of all the methods, including bleaching, the nerite snail seemed to do the most damage. Bleach method would work on the BBA but if the balance is off it comes back. I also did have some fish die off during this period but since then most of my livestock have been healthy. FYI this was for a 30 gallon with CO2 injection. Heavily planted from the start but with fresh filter and UNS substrate.
Where’d you get your nerite snails? I’ve been wanting/needing some but don’t know where to get em
I can recommend Silver Flying Fox (Crossocheilus Reticulatus) if you got a big tank with big sturdy fish or for a smaller tank Florida flagfish (Jordanella floridae) both work wonders and no chemicals.
Thank you for this video! My tank has recently started growing this type of algae and I didn’t know what the name was or how to treat it
Thank you for the thorough detail! Your videos are awesome!
Back to nature..I used siamese algae eater to eat BBA..it worked great!!
This was so helpful! I couldn’t tell what was on my leaves because its also hard and dusty looking. I’ll give hydrogen peroxide first since it hasn’t spread much yet. Thank you!!
The easy carbon worked for black beard algae, thank you 👍
Thanks very much finally a solution that worked after a year of battling it in our tropical fish tank the carbon has sorted it out. Thank you.
Flourish excel method worked for me!! Beautifully.
I fought this stuff on and off over the years, and it’s so robust. There weren’t good products like the ones you shared back then, and I have the same hard water / high ph water situation you do. Eventually, my only resort was pulling every plant to replace new, razor blading every inch of glass, and boiling the hardscape (big rocks and driftwood).
How’d the boiling work? After boiling hardscape for as long as 30 minutes, I was certain I’d be able to just scrub it off with a vegetable brush. That was not the case AT ALL. I was able to scrub the rocks clean with a wire brush, but the driftwood was too tender for that and I couldn’t get that all scrubbed off. Black hair algae held on like iron, even after being boiled! I assumed it was dead after being boiled though… was it?
The result was it never returned at the same levels, but the boiled driftwood only released where my pleco found areas of driftwood softened from boiling - removing the driftwood layer removed the algae. Firmer areas of driftwood… THE BLACK HAIR ALGAE RETURNED. Did it grow back from its “roots”? Did it just reestablish where it had favorably grown before? No idea. But it’s a perfect Hallowe’en topic, because black hair algae is the monster that won’t die!
Your videos are so helpful and enjoyable to watch. I’ve learned soooo much from them! A huge thank you!
same with me! the point is, keep your aquarium balance.
The final solution is also how I got rid of stubborn staghorn algae too! The vallisneria I had did die, but it's growing back
AHHH, thank you so much for becoming my first member (who made a comment that I can see)!!! I'm so glad that your vallisneria ended up recovering too. Such a beautiful plant from the aquascapes I've seen.
Hydrogen peroxide dip and tank treatments controls and or eradicated most algae in my problem aquarium.
Hi irene!!! You're just AMAZING!I wish I could join your membership sooooo much but I can't 😔. Awesome video!
No problem! Thanks for showing up at the premiere. Always great to see you in the comments. :)
@@GirlTalksFishAwwwwww thank youu
all my plants are attached to driftwood or in small bond baskets. I remove them to a large plastic tray and place a fan over them for 5 minutes to dry the leaves and roots off. I then spray the plants and roots with liquid carbon and leave it on for one (1) minute and then risnse promptly. Any longer than the minute and I found the liquid carbon destroys the fine, feeder root hairs on the anubias and causes their growth to be held back. Does the job, but on balance I know there are bigger issues at play like too much phosphorus, too much light and perhaps not enought CO2 which is where I am now experiementing.....
I can’t wait for this vid as my tanks are overrun with this stuff!!!
Oh man, it's a beast. Hope one of these methods work for you!
My Amano shrimps have been doing well at getting rid of BBA. You can see it inside them as they eat it.
Not gonna lie. Love the effort and diligence you put in for this video. See the self care you’ve been doing as well. Happy for you. Thanks for the informative information. 👌🏿🔥
Can’t wait for the video! Struggling with algae in a 20 I setup for my future Rummynose display tank :( Hopefully this’ll help! Love the channel Irene
Thank you so much! I hope these tips help; lemme know which one ends up working for you.
Great video. Very informative. Did a great job covering all the bases and teaching everyone about the different processes you can go through to get rid of dreaded algae. My hat off to you
I didn't realize that's what that type of algae was, I thought it was hair algae. I only get it on the tips of some plants and I just scrape it off
I took plants out, soaked in h202 for a couple min and it worked. But who wants to keep removing plants to soak em. Ok once, but very annoying if needed multiple times
Thank you for all this information! You just got a new subscriber!
I had some success with 2 min leaf soaks in H2O2. I also sprayed it on my decor out of water. However, I missed a tiny bit of this stuff on my tank and got another huge bloom.
IMO something you can do for that spot treatment is pour your full "daily dose" of Excel or liquid carbon in a cup. Then use that full dose is a pipette to treat as many leaves or areas as you can for that dose. Then wait however long and repeat to a different area. It's no different than what you were doing when you were dosing the water column every other day.
I cleaned out..scrubbed our tank. Removed all gravel. Removed all fish and placed very warm chlorinated water in it for ten min…killed all algae :) then I dechlorinated …suctioned all the dead algae. Haven’t had an issue since
My black beard algae was flag in the wind style. Not a short film. Flags all over my tank, on the glass, on the equipment and on the plants. Very very beautiful fuzzy soft black furry flags on everything. Boiling my gravel worked AFTER 4 hours or so of simmering. Bleach worked on my plastic plants. But it took about a week of 10% . I didn't know about the "aldehyde's". In the end I moved my fish to a small tank and blasted the plants with algaecides. A year later is seems to be gone. Scary tough stuff.
Great video! Hydrogen peroxide hasn't worked for me either and I didn't know why until watching. 8.0ph here, too. Thanks for the algacide tip!
I have exactly the same type of BBA that you had - a fine black dusting....'the process' begins tomorrow... 😮
i’ve got 2 60 gallon tanks that are each covered in black beard algae, but it looks like dark grey grass covering everything so i don’t mind it. some plants like my jungle val and amazon sword can keep up with it, but anubias always gets covered and dies, as well as most stem plants
And this is why it's said that aquarists have a lot of patience😂
It probably wasn't BBA. That would be why it didn't look like BBA and the typical treatments didn't work.
Good stuff. Always good content.
Not much has helped here in TX. So If i see it, i immediately pull it all out and trash it. I know but it did get rid of it and I just got some new plants. Check them carefully before bringing them to your tanks! Good luck.
Hi Irene! any recommendations for floating plants for Red Cherry Shrimp??
Amazon frogbit is great because of its long fuzzy roots :)
Crystalwort and pearlweed are good for floating as well. Lots of surface area for shrimps.
I'm fighting the exact same BBA right now. I've found that a dry "magic eraser" takes it off easily. It's not a fix of course but you can wipe it off your leaves very easily. It's crazy how well it works. But you still have to fix the actual cause.
A coral feeder is also a good direct applicator. I find they have many usages.
Nuuu I woke up too late! Even though I don’t have algae problems I still watch it lol.
Ugh. Always seems to appear after getting a sword plant or Java fern. I hated dealing w that stuff in my brother's 100 gal I was in charge of. That's pretty genius doing the spot treatment.
I am excited to see the video....definitely need the tip as I think I have some forming in my tank now.
Ooo, it's good that you spot it now. Tackle it early on for faster success. I took me _months_ to finally get rid of this stuff because I had so much of it.
Thank You for The Awesome Information
spot treatment (seachem excel) worked. I had a BBA from the buce I bought from a store and had to isolate it. Soaked it in Excel for 5 minutes and I don't see any of them anymore now.
Thanks Irene. Great video. 👍📺😎
I bought three siamese flying foxes, not sucking loaches or flying foxes. After just three days I could see the difference. Now after six months I have no algae problems at all.
I’m going to try these in order. My 20 gallon seems to be flourishing with this algae. =\
Thank you for the video!
My pleasure! Let me know if which method ends up working.
I feed my tanks very carefully. I don't let anyone starve, of course, but I never overfeed. My lights stay on upwards of 12 hours and I've never had algae problems. I really think this is an overfeeding/over fertilizing issue, and not having enough plants.
Great video again!
I don't know about Easy Carbon, but Seachem Flourish Excel is actually polycycloglutaracetal, which is an acetal-linked polymer of gltaraldehyde's cyclic form. I assume it's significantly less toxic because of its increased molecular weight preventing diffusion across impermeable biological membranes (such as those in animals) and because the acetal bond is relatively stable at physiological pH, meaning it has to be broken down intracellularly to exert its effects as glutaraldehyde. It should be okay to get this chemical on your hands.
I hypothesize that polycycloglutaracetal gets macropinocytosed by algae and certain aquatic plants, entering the endocytic pathway, where it encounters a decreased pH, catalyzing the reversal of the acetal to its aldehyde form. Some organisms are equipped to sequester and eliminate toxic byproducts from their cells while other organisms are unable to do this effectively. Many plants have a specialized lysosome called a vacuole where they can sequester and store toxic byproducts and nutrients. Thus, the algae, lacking such sequestration machinery, gets poisoned when it breaks down the polycycloglutaracetal.
I sure wish Seachem would release their rational for Flourish Excel. It's still an enigma to me, and this is all hypothetical (I am a biochemist).
Hydrogen peroxide didn't work for me either, going to try spot dosing excel. Plecos did a fantastic job in cleaning up BBA , cheers
Perfect timing
I had this on one of my 4 foot tanks witch has slate fixed on 3 sides..I had 5 big pieces of bog wood 🪵 also.I call it purple beard 🧔♂️ algae myself lol it’s was everywhere…what I did was take out the bog wood 🪵 placed it in my shower 🚿 and brushed with a wire brush lol (this worked) 🤷 scrubbed the slate while in the tank and let the external filter pick it up..I did 2-3 large water changes each week for 6 weeks.2 months later the bog wood 🪵 is lovely and clean still and the same gos for my 3 sides that are covered in slate.the purple algae eventually disappeared from my plants.I do a 30% water change each week and this seems to be helping…I think 🤔 my problem came from the bog wood being large pieces and was covered in the purple pest..it was growing to well on there….it’s funny how a tank can change just like that sometimes 🤷Steve 🇬🇧
I just added 2 nerite snails to my tank which is overrun with BBA. In the last 3 days they've removed far more of the stuff than my panda garra has in 2 years. but most of what theyve eaten is the flat layer, like in your video, rather than the hairy/fluffy stuff
My snails, shrimp, mollies, and otocinclus ignore my BBA :(
Great Video!!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!
spot treatment worked great against BBA
What worked for me with algae treatment was a short bleach bath of like 20 seconds or so with a thorough rinse and plenty of dechlorinator before putting back in the tank. 20 seconds or so was enough to kill the algae and turn it totally white then it just rubs off like slime.
Wow, I wasn't brave enough to try that but I'll definitely give it a go. I have some anubias that I could experiment on.
@@GirlTalksFish Yeah it took me a long time before i got confident enough to try that method, all other methods I tried failed. Wasn't as scary as I thought it'd be just it has to be a chlorine bleach.
Oh yeah and I was misremembering the timing. It's actually more like a 5 minute bath not 20 seconds or so.
I have a weird white algae (I guess) and I can't get rid of it. It kinda look like melted marshmallows. I scrap it off everyday and it keep coming back. Don't know what to do. I read it can come from overfeeding so I reduced the food I give to my fish and I have a lot of bottom feeder to eat the leftover yet the algae is still here
I notice you didn't try soaking plants directly in "liquid carbon" bath.
My 55g is a Black Bear Algae tank now, I gave up fighting it because there was a lot of cherry shrimp in there. Now that I gave a lot female shrimp away, the female left must of died off, so I only have male slowly dying off now. I'm thinking about re-tanking the shrimp for a few months and go to battle with the BBA. Have you try soaking BBA coverage into a Liquid Carbon bath for a few short minutes???
Love your videos!
But then meanwhile, I saw a MASSIVE bichir tank that was covered on three sides and the deco with two and a half inches of black beard algae. It was the most beautiful tank, it legitimately looks amazing when it grows for enough time. When it's young, it definitely looks gross, but when it grows to the point that your tank is covered in gently waving anime hair, it's a valid option
CO2 and Siamese algae eaters did wonders for my tank. Unfortunately the timer on my CO2 got some of it's pins pushed leading to CO2 running over night killing a bunch of fish and it ended up coming back...
I got a plug with an app timer now and I'm trying hillstream loaches. I really like their appearance and they are voracious eaters, but they don't worry about detail cleaning. Unfortunately my blind cave fish hunts snails to extinction cause that sounds tempting.
(I have otocinclus as well and while they seem to enjoy the green hair algae, they are not so interested in the BBA.)
Good info!!
I got rid off my algae by reducing the photoperiod from 8 to 7 hrs a day also took the brightness down 25%, didn't chance dosing or CO2 period and the thank is clean again. have to mention due to some terrariums in the back of my tank I added extra light for them, dumb me not realizing it would affect the tank, so had algae bloom to make me realize the major mistake too much light, so had work on the source of the issue.
cheers and I hope you planted tank goes back to healthy-looking plants soon :D
Thank you for sharing your experience! Yes, my problem was too much light and lack of certain nutrients. I'm getting some more potassium in the mail today, so looking forward to no more pinholes.
@@GirlTalksFish Hey Irene, have you tried phosguard? maybe you want to give it a try, it has made a difference for me since I started using it.
I hope you the best hoping you show us a flush planted tank like you had before , and to make a note by the looks of the Bolbitis indeed you have too much light for those plants, other wise you will need to supplement CO2 to help the plants be much healthier thus inhibiting the algae.
cheers! let us know how it goes be more than glad to help out :D
My Panda Garras will not touch the BBA that has been treated. I finally cut off all the leaves that had been infected but turned red after the peroxide treatment, the plants are growing back but like I said, the Panda Garras did not touch the stuff.
Great video!!!
I have a floating plant thats roots are super coated in BB algae. Does applying liquid carbon directly to the roots cause any harm to the plant?
Aquarium coop doesn't sell this anymore. Any other recommendations?
I have lots of rhizome plants (mainly anubias and Java fern) and small rocks with BBA that are easily removable for a while to treat out of water. Not having great luck spot treatment of H2O2 (if I leave it on long enough to kill the algae some of my leaves don’t survive) but I’m think I’m going to retry my Excel after watching this. If you’re treating with Excel out of water how long would you suggest letting it sit before putting it back in the tank? Sorry to miss you live! I was all set to watch and chat when my out of town guests awoke so I had to use my TH-cam manners 😄
Thank you for this video. I will be pulling my plastic plants...lol...I know and dosing them with liquid carbon product you used
I just kind of accepted this as part of the aesthetic of my tank, but now that I'm beginning to add live plants, I'm thinking of trying to at least keep it at a lower level (look, I really like the mossy look it gives some of my stone decor, so I'd rather just spot treat it as it grows elsewhere... yeah I'm weird)
My dragon stone and anubias are all covered in black beard algae
Can you tell me how to set up live plants in a fish tank
I have beaten BBA in all my tanks.. Lots of unused iron and fluctuations of CO2 is good for bba. Excel can control it, just dose that by manufacturer instructions.
To treat out of water, you can soak in 50 50 solution of water and hydrogen peroxide for 10 mins. OR spray straight on the plant but you need a hardy plants that don't melt away easily.
1 to 3 ml per gallon of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide. (wise to account for displacement and extra water that external filters provide) Dose whole tank. Turn off lights, and filter. Add it to aquarium and swish it around.
If you use syringe you can spot treat.
BBA turns red, pink, gray or white when it is dying/dead. Only then it is soft enough for my cherry shrimp eat it. Only SAE or Florida flag touches the bba straight raw and healthy.
I have dosed 3ml per gallon daily for 3 days off two on 3 off 2 for like 2 weeks in all my fresh water tanks to include my cherry shrimp colony with no noticeable negative effects.
That's awesome! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Yes, I also found that my hillstream loaches and other algae eaters were more able to eat it once the algae was weakened from spot treatment.
Hi could you do a video on mycobacterium? I think it's an important topic in the Hoby that nobody ever talks about
Thanks!!
Asian algae eaters are great when they are young, I never had a spot of algae. However, they get big and they switch to eating fish slime coat. I recently had to give mine up to a LFS because he was causing so, much stress for my fish as, he was trying to eat their slime coats and causing bacterial infections
Do you have any ways to get rid of green spot algae?
dial in your tank, balance nutrients(ferts and co2) and shorter photoperiod is a must!
cheers and hope you get rid of it it can be done a clean flush tank :D
Are you able to put 5 or 6 Albino Corydora Catfish in a 20 gallon tall and them still be comfortable or is that too smushed. And with introducing a betta fish to a tank should you first buy the betta fish and then his tank mates (which will just be the Cory catfish) or should the mates then the betta fish? They would all be in a 20 gallon planted tank.