Black Beard algae
blair thompson
scourge? Is there a fish that likes to chomp on it? Man, it sticks to
surfaces like velcro and is quite unsightly.
Would prefer some sort of in-tank treatment, short of using
bleach, which seems kinda drastic. I have a ten gallon tank with both
a subsand, and outside power filter running, and one sword plant which
is not doing too well at present. Fish all seem to be thriving
however. Thanks for any input.
Blair.
Dave
blair thompson wrote:
I haven't heard of a fish that likes to eat BBA. It's
kind of interesting (for an algae ;-); seems to be the
only algae of which I have any significant amount. I've
heard others say the same thing.
It seems to just come and go in waves. When it gets
to the point where I find it looking ugly, I just snip
off the offending leaves (it *seems* to grow most quickly
on slow-growing and older leaves). I don't know of any
other way of knocking it back.
bill peterson
I have had this problem years ago . It is really terrible looking and
extremely tough to clean off of plants and glass surfaces etc. I have
found a fish that works wonders on BBA . Its a Siamese algae eater . I
have a pair in a 46 gal aquarium and they do a wonderful job . It used to
be over run with the stuff but now with those guys it is finally in check
. The only other thing that I did , in combination with the SAE's , was to
add floating wisteria . Any other fast growing plant will work . The fast
growing plants suck up the excess nutrients in the water that the BBA
needs . Any BBA that gets a foot hold the SAE's take care of . They love
the stuff . Make sure that you buy true SAE's not a look alike like a
flying fox . Some LFS's sell them as SAE's . People buy them and they find
out that it does not work and they think that SAE's don't work when they
never really had one to begin with . I know that this is long winded but
BBA is a hard problem to cure , it took me literally years to beat it .
Just wanted to save you many years of aggravation . Good luck.
Bill
larryg
Most LFS's won't know this or will be confused about these fish. I just
bought 4 tonight, and two species were mixed in the same tank as SAE's.
Here's an online source:
http://www.aquariumfish.net/catalog_pages/wild/algae_eater_siamese.htm
"bill peterson" <pete...@phy.duke.edu> wrote in message
news:3CE39A3A...@phy.duke.edu...
Darcy
I have been buying fish supplies online for a couple years now. For
supplies mostly thatpetplace.com or drsfostersmith.com (formerly
petwarehouse.com). Everything is so much cheaper than any of the local pets
stores.
About a year and a half ago, I decided to try plants online. I just ended
up at trueaqariumplants.com from a search engine. I had a few plants
before, but no variety from the pet stores around here. I ended up just
getting a 50 gallon assortment (30 plants). Everything looked awesome!
About six months later I started to get a very bad algae problem, either red
hair or black beard. I'm still not sure what it is. (Probably a variety of
factors: no CO2 source like now, bad lighting, or something else, I don't
know...I was a beginner at plant keeping) So for a while struggled with it,
bleach treating plants, heavy pruning and trimming.
Finally after extensive reading, I decided to mostly dismantle the tank and
retry. I tried to save as many plants as I could after bleaching, bought
more lighting, did the DIY CO2. I finally got to see pearling! =) I didn't
have many plants left after this, so I went back to Phyl at
trueaquariumplants.com. Decided to go with the 50 gallon assortment again.
Got an email back saying thanks for coming back (a year later) and my
shipment schedule. Everything arrive on time again and looked wonderful as
before. A month or so later, the algae came back. So back to pruning and
trimming the heavy stuff.
Finally, I said enough is enough. I am going to try these SAE's that I have
read so much about. Back to the internet, but the only sources I could find
were either the Albany store (which the last I read, doesn't ship any more)
and aquariumfish.net. So I went with aquariumfish. I bought 5 SAE's (~2.50
each I think) and 4 rainbows (~8.00), just to make the flat shipping rate
(~22.00) worth it to me. Everything arrived on the scheduled day and all
arrived alive, and non have died since. (it has been a couple weeks) The
rainbows were each individually bagged and the SAE's were bagged one or two
to a bag (including a couple extra).
My schedule is to do my water changes, cleaning, and pruning weekly on
Friday or Saturday. I did that as usual. I did the recommended water
change a couple days before the arrival on Wednesday (poured the fish into
the tank from the bag as directed), and did my normal water change on that
following Saturday. And everything has survived. But let me tell you what,
those SAE's have done more work on the plants with the algae problem in the
past two weeks, than I have accomplished in the past year!!! I would really
recommend them to anyone serious about having a planted tank.
Now that I have finally gotten a hold on the algae problem, I think I will
finally invest my money into a CO2 tank and setup. Any ways, I am sorry
that I have rambled so long.
Darcy
yauming
a day.
Lately I added some baby yabbies (its an australian freshwater crayfish).
They are only 2 cm big and do a good job in eating the algae.
They do grow bigger, if the fish don't eat them first, but then I'll just
have to take the yabbies out.