FUNGUS/Algae- plant gurus, help!

[mistahoo]

Lol! Tear that sucker down and bleach the hell outta it!

[aquabee]

Lol! Tear that sucker down and bleach the hell outta it!

This!!!


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[Adam C]

I can't understand why you seemingly want to struggle. A very easy way to understand: Stop fighting algae (or fungus) and start growing plants. You're so worried about this or that, you still haven't taken the time to grow plants.

Healthy plants will out-compete most algae. I have mentioned this before in this thread, but plants need certain things provided and throughout all the changes, I bet the numbers have been up and down, left and right, but you haven't stopped and allowed those numbers to all be there, and for the plants to rebound. Make sure your plants are getting ALL of the fertilizer they need.

Every time you move a plant, you're shocking in. You slow its growth pattern down. That means that if you disrupt your substrate at the same time, your plants may not consume the ammonia fast enough and boom....algae....

So you added in more fish and increased the nitrate. Did you also increase your po4 and micros? Plant growth is driven by the LEAST plentiful resource. They act like a bucket with a hole on the side. You cannot fill past that hole on the side. For example, a plant can use 10 N for every 1 P, BUT when you only have .75 P, you can only use 7.5 N. Does that make sense?

You can increase N all you want, but if they're short of P, K, Mg, Ca, Bo, Mb, Zn, C, S etc etc then you will only be able to use as much of all other resources as the most limited one permits.

I'd love to see your tank back on track with healthy plants, but I definitely don't want to see someone bleach it.

Grow plants and stop fighting algae.

~ Adam

[suicune]

I can't understand why you seemingly want to struggle. A very easy way to understand: Stop fighting algae (or fungus) and start growing plants. You're so worried about this or that, you still haven't taken the time to grow plants.

Healthy plants will out-compete most algae. I have mentioned this before in this thread, but plants need certain things provided and throughout all the changes, I bet the numbers have been up and down, left and right, but you haven't stopped and allowed those numbers to all be there, and for the plants to rebound. Make sure your plants are getting ALL of the fertilizer they need.

Every time you move a plant, you're shocking in. You slow its growth pattern down. That means that if you disrupt your substrate at the same time, your plants may not consume the ammonia fast enough and boom....algae....

So you added in more fish and increased the nitrate. Did you also increase your po4 and micros? Plant growth is driven by the LEAST plentiful resource. They act like a bucket with a hole on the side. You cannot fill past that hole on the side. For example, a plant can use 10 N for every 1 P, BUT when you only have .75 P, you can only use 7.5 N. Does that make sense?

You can increase N all you want, but if they're short of P, K, Mg, Ca, Bo, Mb, Zn, C, S etc etc then you will only be able to use as much of all other resources as the most limited one permits.

I'd love to see your tank back on track with healthy plants, but I definitely don't want to see someone bleach it.

Grow plants and stop fighting algae.

~ Adam

Well, I've seen that tank and I can tell you.. the plants grow thick and healthy. It's creepy that way because that tank is full of plants.

[LooksLater]

I can't understand why you seemingly want to struggle. A very easy way to understand: Stop fighting algae (or fungus) and start growing plants. You're so worried about this or that, you still haven't taken the time to grow plants.

Healthy plants will out-compete most algae. I have mentioned this before in this thread, but plants need certain things provided and throughout all the changes, I bet the numbers have been up and down, left and right, but you haven't stopped and allowed those numbers to all be there, and for the plants to rebound. Make sure your plants are getting ALL of the fertilizer they need.

Every time you move a plant, you're shocking in. You slow its growth pattern down. That means that if you disrupt your substrate at the same time, your plants may not consume the ammonia fast enough and boom....algae....

So you added in more fish and increased the nitrate. Did you also increase your po4 and micros? Plant growth is driven by the LEAST plentiful resource. They act like a bucket with a hole on the side. You cannot fill past that hole on the side. For example, a plant can use 10 N for every 1 P, BUT when you only have .75 P, you can only use 7.5 N. Does that make sense?

You can increase N all you want, but if they're short of P, K, Mg, Ca, Bo, Mb, Zn, C, S etc etc then you will only be able to use as much of all other resources as the most limited one permits.

I'd love to see your tank back on track with healthy plants, but I definitely don't want to see someone bleach it.

Grow plants and stop fighting algae.

~ Adam

Hi Adam! You keep coming back, so I'm going to assume you really want to help and I genuinely thank you for that. But I feel like we're not connecting over a couple things, so let me answer some questions and then if you'd be so kind- let me pick your brain!

I don't want to struggle. But I am, and honestly, I'm exhausted with this struggle, that's why I'm considering tearing the tank down...this is why I was asking for help.
Like I said in the OP, this tank was running fine for a year, thickly planted. It was gorgeous. I was proud.
I rescaped a few plants, and switched to distilled, cycled again for a month, for the addition of OEBT's. I said it was fine "for awhile", meaning...oh, about 1-2 months after the addition of the shrimp (and fissidens tree). During that time, same "usual dosing"- trace with Flourish, root tabs for the heavy feeders, iron for the reds. Wouldn't this indicate that it was balanced -it was growing plants and not algae/fungus!- after the re-scape, at least for a time? Why do you think this imbalance would have occurred then?
I thought it might be lack of nitrogen. Oops, new lower bioload. Fixed that...granted, it took about a month. Dosing nitrogen, plus increasing the bioload.
Old bulb? Fixed that about a week before I started the thread.

And yes, when I increased nitrate, I continued my 1 ml a week Flourish and added potassium, and excel. As far as I can see, they had all nutrients needed...they were on a 8 hr photoperiod...and for about 2 weeks, I got the actual algae under control. Then this grey slimy stuff came exploding back, slimed the tank within a couple of days, with nothing being changed as far as dosing or photoperiod- talk about frustrating! ...then the algae came roaring back the next week. And I keep going through that cycle. I hadn't moved a plant for over 6 months. What am I missing? If you have an insight here, please help me.

I saw no recourse but to try a fungus med. It hasn't helped, but neither is anything else I've done. If you look through the timeline of this last 6 months, you'll see that I have pretty steady breaks between "worrying about this or that", as you say. During that time, I'm continuing my dosing, and leaving everything else alone, waiting to see change. And just not getting it. But honestly, what I did or didn't do wrong then is perhaps helpful in hindsight, but a moot point now.

What would be your advice moving forward?
Do you see something specific I should try or do now?

I would love to grow plants and stop fighting algae.

[mnemenoi]

We have numerous planted tanks and have never had this particular issue before, which is why we thought it would be a good source of information should anyone else have something similar. The tank is stable, with a solid fert schedule and has been for years. It was the addition od a certain piece of wood that started this and I agree it is likely we will end up just tossing the tank and stock to avoid any contamination. We have had numerous planted tanks for many years without any issues like these. This issue is not due to wandering parameters or a lack of ferts, it is a strange looking algae like growth that acts unlike anything we have ever encountered before. I realize many planted tank folks advocate CO2 injection, but we have chosen to avoid its use in our tanks. Eventually we might set up a tank for it, but until then we are content and quite successful with our low tech planted tanks.

[Adam C]

You mentioned you switched to distilled water. Are you reconstituting it with tap water, plus some magnesium sulfate (epsom salt)? Have you checked GH and Kh. Keep in mind that things like Potassium can register. Old test kits or faulty test mechanisms can lead to skewed results.

Balanced is not as important as non-limiting. Plants can grow even in unbalanced and underfertilized tanks. Plus, once plants use up all of the available (least abundant) resource, they can't utilize anything else. Hence Liebigs Law of Minimums.

I noticed in the first pictures you posted that there is green spot algae all over the back glass. GSA tends to appear when there isn't enough Phosphate. Keep in mind, you can get this result when other resources are limited because they plants can't use any P. If you're not dosing Phosphorus, I definitely would pick some up and start dosing.

I think the easiest course of action is to reset the tank nonchemically. Do a big water change. Plant all your plants (healthy cuttings). Dose appropriately and follow a routine on dosing. If you are not covering ALL nutrients, make sure you are.

Can you describe, or show a picture from google that shows what your fungus looks like in a macro scale.

[LooksLater]

You mentioned you switched to distilled water. Are you reconstituting it with tap water, plus some magnesium sulfate (epsom salt)? Have you checked GH and Kh. Keep in mind that things like Potassium can register. Old test kits or faulty test mechanisms can lead to skewed results.

Balanced is not as important as non-limiting. Plants can grow even in unbalanced and underfertilized tanks. Plus, once plants use up all of the available (least abundant) resource, they can't utilize anything else. Hence Liebigs Law of Minimums.

I noticed in the first pictures you posted that there is green spot algae all over the back glass. GSA tends to appear when there isn't enough Phosphate. Keep in mind, you can get this result when other resources are limited because they plants can't use any P. If you're not dosing Phosphorus, I definitely would pick some up and start dosing.

I think the easiest course of action is to reset the tank nonchemically. Do a big water change. Plant all your plants (healthy cuttings). Dose appropriately and follow a routine on dosing. If you are not covering ALL nutrients, make sure you are.

Can you describe, or show a picture from google that shows what your fungus looks like in a macro scale.

Distilled water, no added tap or salts. I had a rock in there to help with mineral content-as seen in first post, second picture.
In OP: "KH:3 GH: 5"...looks good to me? And I wasn't dosing potassium until about 2/10?

Yes, GSA all over once the algae convention came to town. I also never clean the back glass.

Don't have a box handy, but is there Phosphorous in Seachem root tabs? The heavy feeders have those. There is phosphate (P2O5) in flourish, I column dose that weekly- actually a little heavy, since I dose 1ml, or for 10g, when it is an 7.9g tank (minus substrate/ decor displacement)- do you think they need more than that? I was thinking of getting some, actually- but I don't want to dose too much, if they don't need it- I know that can cause problems as well. And I've seen no signs of deficiency in the plants, as suicune was kind enough to verify. How do you know if they are deficient in something/ to ramp up dosing?

As far as what it looks like, I've been unable to find anything on google like it...hence my thinking this is a WEIRD, oddball problem, it's not like any algae I've ever seen. That's what got me so confused at first- the fungus was tangled up in everything else, making ID hard for me. I'm really not that used to algae, because the rest of our low-tech tanks look pretty good and run fairly problem free!
The fungus is grey, slimy, and forms a long kind of trail when caught in something elevated/in the water flow...it collects in little "nests" at the base of rosette plants, floats around if you disturb it like snot- similar hand feel, as well. Soft, slimy. If undisturbed as it was on the fissidens tree, it kept creeping over it slowly, ending up hanging off in long snotty trails.

[Adam C]

Okay well first and foremost, if you're using something like distilled, deionized, or r/o water, you will need to reconstitute the water with nutrients that are not present. Namely, Ca and Mg, but there is quite a bit in tap. I would suggest adding tap water back in. Its cheaper than buying a bottle. Mg is another inexpensive nutrient. A couple bucks will get you over a years worth lol.

Remember, part of GH and Kh represent stuff in our water that plants consume. Unless you have current figures, those numbers are likely to be incorrect. I know that personally, I have to mix 9:1 ratio of r/o to tap or my Ca is gone after a few days. K can and will contribute to readings. Home test kits are not going to really figure out specifics like that.

Flourish contains very little phosphorus. Very little. In fact, if I added a full 250ml bottle to one of my 40b, I would still be only 1/3 of what I dose every other day. At the same time I'd have over 10ppm Fe, which wouldn't be good at all (nice yellow water). I personally add over 1.5ppm Phosphorus 3x a week in my high techs. Obviously you wouldn't need that much. When I punched your dose rate for Flourish into a nutrient calculator, it gave me an Fe dose under .1ppm and an even smaller one for P. Again, in my high techs I'm dosing just under 1ppm Fe 3x per week.

Phosphate DOES NOT cause algae. This has been debunked but it still floats around the internet.

Aquatic plants usually show deficiencies differently than terrestrial plants. I know those charts are still online, but they aren't very accurate for our purposes. Its much easier to dose a lot, and remove excess at the end of the week with a nice big water change. Instead of allowing your plants to be deficient, just dose enough of everything so they never hit a time period where they can't grow and algae has a chance to set in.

Any time you change something that causes the plants NOT to grow and utilize what you've made available, algae is likely to grab hold. In lower tech tanks this change is slower than in a high tech. It also means the rebound will be slower. Just give your plants everything they need, remove any excess at the end of the week, and don't worry about what you're lacking (nothing if you dose enough of everything).

IMO, I think you need to start a full NPK, Micros and Tap water dosing. Continue your excel, but remember you can usually OD it without any issues. Nutrients you can OD without issue. Its when you don't have enough that you get issues.

So are you talking more string like? Dose it branch? Is it all greyish? Dose it attach or does it simply rest? Does it have a smell? Does anything eat it? Whats its growth rate like? What HAS caused its growth to slow? Anything caused a little bit of death?

[LooksLater]

Okay well first and foremost, if you're using something like distilled, deionized, or r/o water, you will need to reconstitute the water with nutrients that are not present. Namely, Ca and Mg, but there is quite a bit in tap. I would suggest adding tap water back in. Its cheaper than buying a bottle. Mg is another inexpensive nutrient. A couple bucks will get you over a years worth lol.

Remember, part of GH and Kh represent stuff in our water that plants consume. Unless you have current figures, those numbers are likely to be incorrect. I know that personally, I have to mix 9:1 ratio of r/o to tap or my Ca is gone after a few days. K can and will contribute to readings. Home test kits are not going to really figure out specifics like that.

Flourish contains very little phosphorus. Very little. In fact, if I added a full 250ml bottle to one of my 40b, I would still be only 1/3 of what I dose every other day. At the same time I'd have over 10ppm Fe, which wouldn't be good at all (nice yellow water). I personally add over 1.5ppm Phosphorus 3x a week in my high techs. Obviously you wouldn't need that much. When I punched your dose rate for Flourish into a nutrient calculator, it gave me an Fe dose under .1ppm and an even smaller one for P. Again, in my high techs I'm dosing just under 1ppm Fe 3x per week.

Phosphate DOES NOT cause algae. This has been debunked but it still floats around the internet.

Aquatic plants usually show deficiencies differently than terrestrial plants. I know those charts are still online, but they aren't very accurate for our purposes. Its much easier to dose a lot, and remove excess at the end of the week with a nice big water change. Instead of allowing your plants to be deficient, just dose enough of everything so they never hit a time period where they can't grow and algae has a chance to set in.

Any time you change something that causes the plants NOT to grow and utilize what you've made available, algae is likely to grab hold. In lower tech tanks this change is slower than in a high tech. It also means the rebound will be slower. Just give your plants everything they need, remove any excess at the end of the week, and don't worry about what you're lacking (nothing if you dose enough of everything).

IMO, I think you need to start a full NPK, Micros and Tap water dosing. Continue your excel, but remember you can usually OD it without any issues. Nutrients you can OD without issue. Its when you don't have enough that you get issues.

So are you talking more string like? Dose it branch? Is it all greyish? Dose it attach or does it simply rest? Does it have a smell? Does anything eat it? Whats its growth rate like? What HAS caused its growth to slow? Anything caused a little bit of death?

Thanks Adam! I'll do some experimentation with adding tap, that's a good point but so far I've been doing pretty good keeping GH and KH where I need it with just some rock. It might very well be that adding a 1:10 of tap would be easier, I'll try that out and see...

Good to know on the phosphate, I'll get some.

Hmm. While I understand, especially in a co2 system where the plants are the priority, it may be more convenient to over-dose and remove excess, it's not really the way I want to go. For one, even if phosphate doesn't cause algae, some other excess ferts will, and I've seen talk that excess of some nutrients (like iron) can actually hurt plants. Also, I like keeping a more economical tank (ferts can get expensive, esp in big tanks like my 150g), and I keep puffers and shrimp- things that may not enjoy excessive ferts and lots of W/C. Especially with this ebi, being distilled water that we truck home from the store, and that it has such a light bio-load, I really shouldn't have to W/C every week... unless I'm making a reason to. Does that make sense? I prefer to dose for what i think they'll need, watch for deficiency, and adjust. it may not be perfect, but it's the best system for my situation, I think.
Again, I get that works for other systems and other circumstances, but it's just not what I prefer to do.

It looked graceful, and well...runny-snot-like underwater. Less stringy than ribbon-like, does that make sense? All of a piece. Kind of like how cyanobacteria acts- it looks like one solid, thin and graceful sheet until you pull it out, then it kind of collapses in your hand into a nasty slime pile. Like that, but- ribbon like, not sheeting. Did not branch but would pile or "nest" in the right spot. All greyish to...taupe? No color? Simply rests, but after tearing it out of the fissidens 100 times, it would always start re-forming there...can't really say if that's due to settling, or being IN there, you know... Growth was silly fast. Slowing it/killing it?...tearing it out by hand. and the anti-fugus meds, for the time it was in the tank.

Like i said, it's all kind of a moot point now. This thread had been running for 6 months, I've been dealing with it for a little longer than that, and I'm done fighting this stuff- I threw in the towel and restarted last night.

New substrate/wood, clean tank and sponge filter, fresh water, established filter from another tank and Stability, etc. Tried to dip the plants, so we'll see how many make it.
Now the trick is keeping it in balance, and hopefully this won't come back. I'll post some pics of the new 'scape once it clears up a little more.
Wish me luck, everyone!

[Carse Thompson]

You said that it was a new piece of drift wood. Sounds like it was a case of it being uncured. Try putting it in the oven at about 250(the lowest most ovens go) for about an hour. That should kill the fungus that is munching on your DW.

[LooksLater]

You said that it was a new piece of drift wood. Sounds like it was a case of it being uncured. Try putting it in the oven at about 250(the lowest most ovens go) for about an hour. That should kill the fungus that is munching on your DW.

I did boil the wood that was suspect in this thread for a few hours...who knows, I think I just got really unlucky and ended up with one of the fungi that are tough as nails.
Haven't tried dry heat curing yet, but I'll keep that in mind for bigger pieces in the future. Thanks!

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[Carse Thompson]

What is your ph at? Fungis has a hard time surviving in a high ph system. Despite your bad experience with the first chunk of drift wood, adding more will bring your ph up up.

[mistahoo]

I could've sworn driftwood lowers the pH. Does it really raise the pH?

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[Carse Thompson]

Drift wood makes water more alkeline. Lime stone makes the water more acidic.