# Green dust algae



## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

I am curious, since i have heard several people complaining of this algae recently. Unfortunately i have it too, and have had it for the past 2 months. Now usually i would not post for algae issues since 95% are easy to get rid of, but this one is proving to be a tough algae to kill. 

The algae is single celled and seems to coat surfaces, plants, equipment, wood, glass etc... If left unscraped it forms a jelly-like layer over its surface and continues to grow. The growth rates of this stuff are phenomenal, it clogs diatom filters within a day with spores. I have, as far as i can tell, a perfect fertilizing regimen with automated dosers and light timers etc... i recently raised NO3 to 25ppm and po4 to 3ppm and added a powerful pump to circulate the water and reduce the algae's ability to stick to things.

If anyone has a straightforward EXPLANATION for why this stuff isnt dying in my tanks, or several other people's please do tell. It seems to grow in the same exact range as our plants do making it frustratingly difficult to kill off.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

I found when I increased my N03 levels that the green dust algae started to grow at a rapid rate. Then once I decreased the N03 levels it starting disappearing, took about 2 weeks.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

I would agree 100% with Trena on this. I added NO3 to 20ppm (by a cheap test kit) and had a horrible bout of green dust. I finally checked with Lamotte and actually had NO3 >80 ppm. Two or three WC's later NO3 was ~20 ppm and the green dust went away almost overnight.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Odd, tried that a while back. Didnt work though... My nitrates are in the 20's though so shouldnt that be fine? Also Barr mentioned upping the nitrates a while back, something about it having a narrow living range or something.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Are you sure it's in the 20's? How do you know?


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

I am having the same problem with one of the tanks and have to say that I don't have high nitrates either. I'm in the 15-25 range using a calibrated Hach kit. I splurged and bought a UV and have it installed, but I think I have to turn down my flow much slower than I currently have to get proper exposure. So far, I can't say I see much of a difference after 4 days of UV. Before the UV, it took 4-5 days to get thick on the glass, seems to be doing the same thing now with the UV.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

I have been having the same issue for months it seems now. I have ran the UV constantly for weeks and no change. I doubled water flow through the unit with now change. I let my No3/Po4 levels fall down way low and also had them very high. I am not sure about this one either. Next thing I am going to try is less iron fertilizing. One note is that when doing the excel overdoses a while back it seemed much better, but it came back after the overdoses stopped. I would like some good answers for this one also.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Yes, my 13w UV didn’t help either. And in my friend's tank his 18w UV didn’t do anything. The diatom filter definitely helps a little with the spores but it gets clogged extremely fast so its not so helpful overall. Slow current seems to allow it to attach to things more easily...

chiahead - i also tried excel ODing, i did x3, x4 and x5 overdosing and didn’t really notice much of a difference  this stuff doesn’t seem to respond as easily as other algae.

guaiac_boy - nitrates are in 20's, i know by titration test kits, and looking at visual plant responses. The tests are pretty good with accuracy, they respond correctly with known amounts in test samples.

Hopefully the more people post about this the quicker we can gain a thorough and detailed understanding of this algae, and find way to get rid of it.


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Recently I had 4 tanks going with GDA, I simply stop dosing and let them sit and did not clean the algae off.

The GDA went away in about 10-14 days.

The other way that seemed to work, add a bunch of floating plants similar to a black out.

There's the 3rd option, scrun, then quickly do the large water change, then repeat for 3-4 days. Or scrun one day good,w ater change, then wait a few hours for the film to form, then do another water change that same day. Run the UV if you have one.
Most of these methods work well.

The leave it alone for 14 days seems to work the best, worked on 5 tanks and GDA has not come back since and adding more ferts.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Please bear with me, lots of questions.

Interesting observations, what do you think causes it to come in the first place? What is the trigger?

What do you think about adding a strong current while letting the tank sit? To prevent spores from attaching and growing.

Also do you think doing several water changes all on the same day and not fertilizing for the next few days & then letting the tank sit will hasten the effects of just letting it sit for 14 days? I do not want to starve the plants or have to scrub off the algae film after it forms. Also this tank is on display in the admissions office so having it look nasty is not something i would do unless absolutely necessary.

One last thing, after letting the tank sit for 14 days, does the algae die off? Or do you have to scrape it off?


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Tom,

Should one not dose macros, micros or both? It "seems" that NO3 is a loved food source for this algae, not dising NO3 for 2 weeks and allowing theh levels to bottom out would starve the algae of that source, yes?

I would think that no additions of PO4 and traces would lead to issue siwth spot and thread/hair algae....out of the frying pan and into the fire How do you deal with this issue? Also, I to woudl like to knwo the trigger for this algae. Seems liek you have told me before but I can't remember or find it.

To all others: when using your UV, ar you scrubing the glass very frequently? GD is not a free floatign algae, you knock it off its surface and it floats only until it lands on another surface, where is grows and spreads. Once it has landed runnig the UV is somewhat pointless. If I were runnig a UV, I would Magfloat the tank everytime I walked by. A few days of that would probably make a huge improvement.


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## jude_uc (Feb 7, 2006)

I've been running into this problem as well.... I upped the NO3 to make my tank less favorable for thread algae (it's invading my riccia), but soon afterwards, I start getting a film of green dust. It seems lose lose in this case since going to high NO3 favors the green dust and low NO3 favors the thread. 

-Adam


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

My question also deals with the nutrient control. We know we can't starve algae due to its low nutrient requirements. So why does the 'no dosing' work on it?

If I quit dosing for 10-14 days, assuming I wipe out most of the gd, the rest of the tank will look like crap. The Crypts will all melt, as well as a bunch of other plants which will not tolerate low NO3, ie, Hottonia, Alternathera. 

Dennis, you bring up a good point about constant scraping and the UV filter. I can report that after a week, the filter appears to have done nothing for me.  This week I will try to do the daily 'scraping of the glass', so to speak. I turned down the flow on my XP2 way down to increase the exposure time to the UV, thereby increasing the amount of gs sticking to the glass, so I ended up accomplishing nothing! 

The only time I noticed a change for the better (the glass went from being slimy in only 2 days to 4 days) was after I did a filter cleaning. I guess I will go with weekly filter cleanings for a while to see if it helps.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

I am currently battling GDA in my 55g tank. The lights have been reduced to under 2wpg for about a week and it doesn't seem to make much of a difference. The tank is CO2 injected via the mist method and increasing the Co2 doesn't work either. It is currently around 8-10ppm of NO3 and 2+ppm of PO4. 

Dennis' way of cleaning the glass every time you walk by will work with a diatom filter but I don't use a UV sterilizer so I can't comment on that. GDA seems to come and go at will in this tank. If I keep up with the daily glass cleaning and keep the diatom filter on it I seem to be able to erradicate it. However, it usually starts to return within a week or so or whenever I get lazy with this tank. 

The tank is mostly slow growers, A. barteri v. nana, Microsorum pteropus, B. heudelotii 'Small Form', Cryptocoryne species (Lutea and Lucens) and B. japonica v. "Japonica' so maybe this has something to do with it. I think I will try not dosing for a couple of days and see if the lower amounts of NO3 and PO4 have any effect.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

What about lowering the total lighting period-IE cutting it from 10 to 8 and see if that affects it???


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Crap, the algae spread to another of my tanks, except this tank gets no CO2 or ferts...


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## erijnal (Apr 5, 2006)

I had a really bad case of green dust algae. I did a three-day blackout, did not fertilize, and as soon as i ended the blackout, i tried the flourish excel OD technique. Now the dust algae is extremely minimal, with only about a hundred or so particles left in my 20 gallon. I am continuing the flourish excel OD, which might explain why teh algae is staying largely dormant.

I also shortened my light period of 3.18 gpw from 12 hours to 10 hours.


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

It's an issue of allowing the alga to go through it's life cycle which is fairly short, in the zoospore stage, the stage that pesters us, it's very tough.
But this last about 7-14 days. 

You can still add some ferts, but do not wipe it off.

Like a parasite, sometimes you have to just let them do their thing and pass out, off etc rather than trying to attack it.

Every single tank I've done this on worked.
I discuss this more in depth on my site.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Tom, you have not said what the trigger for this algae is.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

> I discuss this more in depth on my site.
> 
> Regards,
> Tom Barr


looks like he wants us to visit his website for the answers


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

.....
Don't know his site address, and not willing to pay money if thats involved


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

Its

http://www.barrreport.com/

and it does cost money


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## Jason Baliban (Feb 21, 2005)

IME, GSA is caused by excess nutrients. I know that goes against the grain, but here is what i found.

I was dosing EI.....for a long time. 
Plants were growing well.....no doubts there.

I was still getting crazy gsa!!

Everyone was saying, up the P, up the P. Bla bla bla

So i kept upping it....nothing. Eventually, i started lowering N a bit. I did see some results....but still....gsa.

Then it was....up your co2, up your co2. That had some effect but still gsa.

This went on for 6-8 months. Finally i decided this was enough.

Here is what i did....

Check to see if there is any NPK in your WC source.

Hit the fertilator and find what you will need to add per week to get your levels at N:20-30ppm, P:1-2ppm, K:20-30ppm. **Make sure you factor in your WC source levels.

Then divide that dosing by three and dose that 3x a week.

Keep your micros the same if you were dosing EI method.

Keep you WC schedule the same.

Within two weeks, my plants are growing just as well....perhaps a bit slower and absolutely no GSA.

I should add that i am dosing a bit more mg as well. This seemed to help with some minor stunting. This could have potentially helped with gsa also.

PPS - the definition of sustainability

Hope this helps.

jB


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Well, they ask for $$ here on APC for preminum memberships and support, same with PT, same with AB now defunct forums. They get $$$ through advertizing as well as the from the membership.

They advertize too, so they nail you in the front door and backdoor.

Double dipping. But like many folks in this hobby, they and I do this for the love of the hobby , not to make $$$. If $$$ was the only motivation, I can make much more doing other things I also enjoy(and do). Same with APC and other forums. I refuse to have advertizing. Takes longer than the time it's worth for me. I'm in this not for the business side, but rather, for the hobbyists.

I'm straight about it, no advertizing on my site. One upfront cost. There's still public sided free forums, but the forums are *not the focus* of my site, the articles are which makes the site far different than any other site on aquatic plants.

The content is the key, you also should not nor have to pay for a free forum either nor pay to post an image or larger images, have enough PM space etc, and I also have a public side to the forums. That is the way things are set up on many boards though.........Supporting memberships, sponsers, etc.

If you do not like paying a small amount to help APC, or your local aquarium society, will you also not pay for a subscription to TFH, AFM, PFK, FAMA as well?

Name some decent articles that really brought something new to the table from those mags in the last year on aquatic plants?

That's much more the comparison folks NEED to make when say you will not pay, you are already paying for many things but you do not think twice about that. Folks can peruse books also at Borders, so why even buy a book or a mag at all? You also do not have to go anywhere to get the articles, so if you live in South Africa, Norway or Russia, there's no shipping issues. This saves the environment, makes the business cost much cheaper, allows me more time to spend helping folks and writing good articles than doing the business and hocking my site to the highest bidding business advertiser. I'm not interested in all the rest of it.

My site is not so much a forum as it is a monthly article submission roughly 10-15 pages of meaty info specifically on aquatic plants at a level no one here, nor any board will write in any magazine.

And.....it's not for the newbie, there's plenty of the web and free forums for that.

Think about what it is you are really paying for and what it is you are really getting. If you don't want more than the nice fuzzy general articles, that's fine.

Plenty of folks already write those. I do not think there is much demand for that. The articles I write tend to take some time to absorb and think about.

Whining about the $$$?
I know some folks are very cheap (I've been on both sides of this fence and admittedly was hard headed, okay outright dense about paying for anything), but sell some plants here, on Aqua Bid etc, one sale will pay for it.

Sfbaaps has no membership fees either(we raised enough funds to do away with it for now), we might be one of the largest aquarium hobby clubs in the USA without a fee, we generate funding through plant sales to other clubs, on line etc. I am one of the founding members.

Use the plant sales to pay for services, fertilizers, light bulbs etc if you really are that cheap, and destitute you cannot afford the small amount to help the folks on the web that have so generously helped you when you need the help.
Folks can help you save far more than the cost and make more $$$ than the pitance that you might save in not accessing good information.

That applies to this forum, to magazines, fellow hobbyists.
Instead of putting up barriers, try and think outside the box and coming up with creative simple solutions to pay for the hobby and help other folks out.
Sell the weeds to your fellow hobbyists, you will help them and yourself.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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