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phosphorus/phosphates, black brush (hairy) algae
i had inquired about eliminating this pest from one of my tanks. it dawned
on me that it is the only tank that has this problem and it is also my only
tank that has a large chunk of driftwood. i had thought, maybe taht is the
problem. some of you wrote back to say it probably is not the source of
excess phosphates.
i don't use CO2 injection. it is a low-tech tank, as all of mine are. from
what roger and others have posted, i can see that there are some problems:
our water is soft and acidic, the tank used to have a forest of java fern
growing on this piece of wood, now it's been mostly decimated by the BBA.
the other plants in the tank are 3 huge swords. recently it is being
overtaken by giant vals (there are at least 6 of them), a large Cryp.
balansae and a Nymphaea, al recent additions. it has had a large explosion
of water lettuce, which has now gone through some decline. i don't test my
water, although a friend had taken a sample home and tested and it came out
that it was overloaded with phosphates. he gave me some phosguard to use and
it doesn't seem to have made a dent in the problem.
i'm still puzzled as to why it only happens in this tank. i'll reduce
feeding (although i generally feed all my tanks 5-6 times a WEEK). i tend to
think i don't overfeed them. i'm puzzled as to why the explosive growth of
the vals have not cut down on the BBA. my amazon swords used to grow a lot
and even bloomed and produced plantlets. now they are just huge and don't
grow much bigger, although their plantlets have not reached the mother
plant's proportions. this tank produces a lot of plant waste, as the plants
shed lots of parts taht are attacked by the algae, and it's an uphill battle
to keep it clean. i know that this rotting vegetation only adds to the
problem.
i have also noticed that the areas in the tank that are darker tend to have
less of a problem, so light obviously does benefit the algae.
tsuh yang chen, nyc, USA