# What kind of algae is this?



## Baburelli (Jan 1, 2017)

Would anybody know what type of algae this is and what I can do about it? My Ludwigia Rubins and Rotala Rotundifolias have gone from beautiful plants to ones that are now covered in algae that I cannot wipe off the leaves. This has been the case for many months now and nothing I have tried made a difference. Not even dosing with H2O2 (30 ml) and Excel 5 ml on the advise of the Plant Guru on the PlantedTank.net (The "One-Two Punch" Whole Tank Algae Treatment). It killed the Staghorn algae but not the one showing on the picture.
They are in a 12 G Fluvial Edge heavily planted communal tank with about 50+ RCS's, 6 Amanos, 5 Otos, 4 Mollies, 3 Guppies, 2 Corys and a few snails. 
1 ml Excel /day
1 ml Florish Comprehensive 1 to 2 times/week
1 ml Iron/week
1 ml Nitrogen /week
1 ml Potassium/week
1 ml phosphate/week
The last 3 macros I only started a month ago.
I changed the 8 W stock lighting to 18 W from Ultrabrite and added a Finnex 11.9 Planted Led light which are on from 8-12 and from 4-9.
Result of latest water test reads NO2 and NO3 at 0, PH at 6.6.














Any advise would be much appreciated.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

That looks like a combination of slime algae (possibly blue green algae) and green spot algae. Your water test should indicate to you that you don't have enough NO3 in your tank. If you are bottoming out on nitrates this might be the reason for your algae problem. I would triple your NO3 dose relative to PO4. Otherwise, it is also possible that you have too much light in your tank. I would try backing off on the lighting and see if the algae recedes. Unfortunately, GSA is hard to remove, you really need to just wait for the plant to put out newer healthier leaves and trim off the uglier older leaves.


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## Baburelli (Jan 1, 2017)

Thanks for your reply. In the meantime I found out that the nitrate test bottles are useless so I need to get some new ones. I used a test strip and the Nitrate level is at 40. Should I dose more PO4?


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

you need to shake the 2nd nitrate bottle tester A LOT. Hm, I would try reducing lighting then.


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## Baburelli (Jan 1, 2017)

You're the second person to tell me that and I did shake the crap out of it with the same 0 result. So, now I will reduce the amount of hours the lights are on to see if that helps. Thanks Reckon!


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