Re: Algae plant problem

["Cory and Susanne Williamson" <cswilliamson at telus_net>]

Sorry folks for no scale- the picture I provided is about 15 cm (5 inches)
square and the nodes between branches on the alage are about 1-2 mm. The
best representation of this plant are the parts on the middle right side of
the photo. I am assuming that my nutrients are out of whack such that this
guy will grow. I am thinking my iron may be a bit high- though I don't have
an accurate test kit. All of the other nutrients are in line and this stuff
is definately not staghorn algae and does not resemble anything I have seen
or heard described on this list. From a distance it resembles mats of green
steel wool- a loose aggregation of branching green fibres. I don't have a
digital camera- so it will be a while before I can post any photos of this
stuff in the tank.

Here is the photo link again
http://www.aquaticscape.com/temp/Algae_cory.jpg

Rachel wrote:

>>Stuff them in. Squeeze in a few more. If the conditions are
good for the plants, they will grow like crazy,

Thanks for the advice- most of my plant are growing like crazy- what I meant
with my previous comment about my scraggly looking tank is that due to
mechanical removal and trimming out the "infected parts", my tank has gone
from a very heavily "jaw dropper" of a planted tank  (many fast growers and
many slow growers as well), that need weekly trimming and thinning, to
something my wife now comments on as needing serious help to bring it back-
a month or so of new growth.

The only way of getting off a plant seems to be to remove spot where it is
attached- if I just pull off the matt, fibres break off and it continues
growing. I have even tried washing plant under running water to get this
stuff off. If you so much as leave one fiber on a plant, this is enough to
keep that matt growing. The problem is that in order to remove this stuff I
am needing to remove too many plants and I need an alternative approach. I
have a 20 gallon hospital tank that I usually store my excess plants in
before selling them to a local pet shop- any algae that is on these plants
usually disappears within a few days as there is no high tech plant care
once they leave the 90 gallon (ie. no CO2- nutrients  fertilizer, high light
etc.) This algae I have right now looks the same weeks after being added to
this other tank.


Daphne wrote in a private email:

>>This algae sounds rather familiar.  I have one which I have battled for
what
seems like forever.  Single strand that branches, very loose and coarse,
gets inch or so long before more branching occurs.  You CANNOT get this off
leaves, you have to cut leaf off.  It takes an incredible amount of bleach
to kill it.  If you don't find it while it is small, it grows into big loose
balls kind of like a big pom pom and is ugly.

This has been the closest description to date and I believe that we have the
same algae problem. I am curently using Tom Barrs approach to nutrients- I
am going to try to up levels of N and P relative to iron and cut back my the
volume of PMDD a bit to lower the trace levels while keeping the macro
levels up.

Regards,

Cory Williamson