Badjester1
Member
Hi everyone, firstly I hope the long post doesn’t deter people from reading and hopefully helping. I’ve had a problem for a few weeks in my tank now and after countless researching and trying various things. I’m at a complete loss. So I have a Roma 240 tank moderately planted. Some may say more moderate to heavily. I have swords, a few anubias, some I believe are a type of hygrophila, crypts and so on. I think about 20 or slightly more plants. Nothing too spectacular and I’ve always done exceptionally well with my plants. Despite using sand I do use root tabs regularly enough and I use TNC Complete with Profito and Easycarbo. I want to make it clear that I have been using this regime for 2 and a half years and I have had results I’ve been very happy with. I just don’t want to get into discussions about how I should mix my own salts and use this and don’t use that. I just want to clarify it’s been working great for me.
That is until something very strange started to happen about 6-8 weeks ago. I noticed that the plant I believe is a hygrophila (I think polysperma) started to get brown stains on the leaves. First I thought diatoms (I believe there are hundreds of types of these.) Then I noticed the brown starting to get onto the plastic casing of my heater. Never on the substrate or even on the glass. Just on my plant leaves and anything plastic in the tank. I have been using the light that came with the Roma and I know these aren’t particularly powerful lights. In the past I have opted for lesser light than more. Using the Fluval app my blue was down to about 20 reds and greens around 40 and white at a max of 60 at a 3-4 hour point in the day. Like everything in this hobby there’s conflicting info everywhere you look. Diatoms prefer low light, they prefer more light and so on.
Taking everything into consideration and looking at my tank specifically. I could see evidence that whatever this stuff is preferred low light. Like at back and in more shadowy areas. Something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time was to upgrade the light to a more powerful Aquasky. I learnt in the process of contacting Fluval that the light that comes with the tank is in fact not an Aquasky as I thought it was. It’s 24 watts and is basically a budget version. So I bought the 33 watt Aquasky which is the one for my tank. So I’m running both together now. In the whole process of trying to determine what this stuff is and how to get rid of it. I decided that perhaps my plants on lower settings were just not able to compete with whatever this stuff is. So I have slowly increased my lights (given neither light is particularly powerful) but enough for the easy growers in my tank. Back to whatever this stuff is…
So that brown I was talking about seems to be present in low or higher light now. It’s also turned black especially on my anubias plants. That and I imagine to most would spark off thoughts that it’s BBA. I took my anubias plants out recently (as they are on ornaments) and soaked them in a concentrated bucket of Easycarbo/water solution. Knowing that something like 60-80mls of Easycarbo in a 10 litre bucket should nuke BBA and turn it red and die off after soaking for an hour. That was a week ago and it hasn’t. So that’s swayed me back to the fact this isn’t BBA. My lights are on slightly longer now and I’ve upped them. I know a lot of people will say more light means more algae. I don’t even know if it is algae at this point? My theory is simple. That since upping my lighting that my anubias plants have started a lot more new growth, which tells me they needed more light in the first place. Also that plants can’t out compete algae (if that’s what it is) if they are not getting enough light in the first place. Which leads me back to the start of thinking is this diatoms due to originally having lower light? I know I mentioned at the start that my plants were doing great and they were. I just opted to grow my plants on a lower/shorter lighting strength/period and I don’t know if this has anything to do with this outbreak?
I mean everything was relatively fine until a month or two ago. I did have an outbreak of diatoms which was around two years ago, which led me to buy ottos and they demolished it within a day. I only have 3 ottos at the minute and a SAE (the real one not the flying fox or CAE.) They don’t touch it. When I took the anubias plants out to cut off the bad and soak them. The black on them that looks almost velvety under water but has no actual feel to it. It’s literally just like a coating and will not rub off. Even the heater can be cleaned but it takes serious scrubbing. This stuff starts brown then goes black and is hard to scrub off. It’s not growing in tufts like I know BBA does and Easycarbo seems to not touch it? I am just completely baffled at this and was hoping that someone may have encountered this before? I know that this is a barrage of information but I needed to explain the full process I’ve gone through in order to identify and try to eradicate it. In one of those photos you’ll see where it’s turned black. But if I cut an affected leaf off and rub it. It’s almost like the black has no substance or surface, like the plant is stained. It may look velvety and physical under water but all you can feel is the leaf. It’s so disheartening especially since prior to this my tank looked perfect. 🙁
That is until something very strange started to happen about 6-8 weeks ago. I noticed that the plant I believe is a hygrophila (I think polysperma) started to get brown stains on the leaves. First I thought diatoms (I believe there are hundreds of types of these.) Then I noticed the brown starting to get onto the plastic casing of my heater. Never on the substrate or even on the glass. Just on my plant leaves and anything plastic in the tank. I have been using the light that came with the Roma and I know these aren’t particularly powerful lights. In the past I have opted for lesser light than more. Using the Fluval app my blue was down to about 20 reds and greens around 40 and white at a max of 60 at a 3-4 hour point in the day. Like everything in this hobby there’s conflicting info everywhere you look. Diatoms prefer low light, they prefer more light and so on.
Taking everything into consideration and looking at my tank specifically. I could see evidence that whatever this stuff is preferred low light. Like at back and in more shadowy areas. Something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time was to upgrade the light to a more powerful Aquasky. I learnt in the process of contacting Fluval that the light that comes with the tank is in fact not an Aquasky as I thought it was. It’s 24 watts and is basically a budget version. So I bought the 33 watt Aquasky which is the one for my tank. So I’m running both together now. In the whole process of trying to determine what this stuff is and how to get rid of it. I decided that perhaps my plants on lower settings were just not able to compete with whatever this stuff is. So I have slowly increased my lights (given neither light is particularly powerful) but enough for the easy growers in my tank. Back to whatever this stuff is…
So that brown I was talking about seems to be present in low or higher light now. It’s also turned black especially on my anubias plants. That and I imagine to most would spark off thoughts that it’s BBA. I took my anubias plants out recently (as they are on ornaments) and soaked them in a concentrated bucket of Easycarbo/water solution. Knowing that something like 60-80mls of Easycarbo in a 10 litre bucket should nuke BBA and turn it red and die off after soaking for an hour. That was a week ago and it hasn’t. So that’s swayed me back to the fact this isn’t BBA. My lights are on slightly longer now and I’ve upped them. I know a lot of people will say more light means more algae. I don’t even know if it is algae at this point? My theory is simple. That since upping my lighting that my anubias plants have started a lot more new growth, which tells me they needed more light in the first place. Also that plants can’t out compete algae (if that’s what it is) if they are not getting enough light in the first place. Which leads me back to the start of thinking is this diatoms due to originally having lower light? I know I mentioned at the start that my plants were doing great and they were. I just opted to grow my plants on a lower/shorter lighting strength/period and I don’t know if this has anything to do with this outbreak?
I mean everything was relatively fine until a month or two ago. I did have an outbreak of diatoms which was around two years ago, which led me to buy ottos and they demolished it within a day. I only have 3 ottos at the minute and a SAE (the real one not the flying fox or CAE.) They don’t touch it. When I took the anubias plants out to cut off the bad and soak them. The black on them that looks almost velvety under water but has no actual feel to it. It’s literally just like a coating and will not rub off. Even the heater can be cleaned but it takes serious scrubbing. This stuff starts brown then goes black and is hard to scrub off. It’s not growing in tufts like I know BBA does and Easycarbo seems to not touch it? I am just completely baffled at this and was hoping that someone may have encountered this before? I know that this is a barrage of information but I needed to explain the full process I’ve gone through in order to identify and try to eradicate it. In one of those photos you’ll see where it’s turned black. But if I cut an affected leaf off and rub it. It’s almost like the black has no substance or surface, like the plant is stained. It may look velvety and physical under water but all you can feel is the leaf. It’s so disheartening especially since prior to this my tank looked perfect. 🙁