# brown algae? on some plant leaves



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I have a number of plants, mostly the slow growing ones that have a buildup of what seems to be a brown algae, its like there is dirt on the leaves.

Only thing I can think of is a bleach bath which I would prefer to avoid due to the risks

You can see some dead hair algae on the lava rock, I recently dosed the tank with excel and gave the lava rock a bath in excel


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

It could be diatoms, but when I looked at the picture more closely, I thought it might be BBA too. It looks a little "furry" which is indicative of BBA.

For your plants, you can do an Excel spot treatment, and it should help. A hydrogen peroxide spot treatment also works wonders.


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## Modo (Oct 9, 2012)

I had the same problem on my val in one of my tank. I suspected its BBA too. Dosed some liquid co2 and cut off fertilizer, blacked out the tank for a few days. Also got some Siamese Algae Eaters. It's better now, but I still ended up cutting off some leaves. If you leave the algae on the leaf, it'll eventually make the leaf turn brown. I read it may be caused be having too much iron.


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## baozi2089 (May 17, 2009)

Hey!
Is this the new dirted tank?
I would suggest three things:
1. cut back on ferts, if you have been dosing regularly
2. decrease your light (not your lighting time but your light intensity, get rid of a bulb or sth)
3. up your carbon source to boost growth of your plants, like excel or CO2

IMO, you have algae because your plants can not extract all the nutrient from the water column fast enough to compete with algae. 

Cheers


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Its my new nano but the plants were in my 75. I am doing c02 but im using my HOB as a diffuser, no room for a power head or funds for diffusion and the fish in the tank is a betta so dont want more water flow. Right now the light is just a CFL, think 13 watt, need to pick up a good bulb still.

Its really old algae on the leaves which I believe is dead. Maybe I just need to give them a fast bleach bath to clean it up. I have also used some excel while in this tank and alot when in the 75.

Its a work in progress


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## dock (Sep 6, 2011)

I have similar problem on my java fern and anubia on driftwood and want to try the spot treatment mentioned, but dont know how exactly is done. I have excel,peroxide and bleach on hand, which one works best? Do you need to dilute it and by how much? use q-trip to spot treat or just gave it a bath? then rinse with tap water? Thanks.


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## Kooka (Feb 8, 2011)

Those are diatoms. Get some otto catfish and they'll clear it up quick. This is the first stage of algae people tend to get; your next problem algae will be hair algae and/or BBA


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

dont put bleach in the tank first of all, just to be safe in case you didnt know this.

A bleach bath is easy but has some risk. I believe its about 10 percent bleach with water but don't quote me on that.

take the plants out of the tank, put in diluted bleach for 2 to 5 min, 5 min max! Longer will kill the plants, some plants are very sensitive so 2 min for those.

Then rinse well in fresh water

And then, I would recommend putting them in a container with double or triple dose of declorinator for a few min to make sure all the bleach is gone.

I used the bleaching method once and hurt a few of my plants when I left them in too long.

I guess the main thing for how long you put them in bleach depends on the thickness of the leaves.

I recommend trying excel first. A couple ways to do this, one is in a separate container put in some water with excel and put plants in for a few min and then done. I actually did this with a large chunk of lava rock that had some hair algae on it. Another method is doing a double to triple dose of excel in the whole tank, I do double myself, triple can hurt some plants. For spot treatments, what I have tried is mixing what would be a double dose for the tank with a little bit of water and putting it in a siringe (sp) and using that to spot treat. Make sure you turn off anything that moves water while you do this, filters, powerheads so it stays where you want it long enough.

It all depends on what is on the plants, that blue green stuff that you can get is a bacteria so ive read, a great way to remove that is with peroxide, siringe and spot treat, I actually did this a few days ago and you can actually see the bacteria die.

Maybe others can be a little more exact than my explainations

If its algae, Id try the excel method first and decrease light time a bit at least. In more extreme cases, a full blackout for a few days is supposed to work well.

My current case is a little tricky, its only a 5 gallon tank with a betta so I am trying to be careful with excel. I may try the excel bath when I have the time and energy.


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