# White Algae?



## Skipto

I am getting a white cotton like growth in my plants that after time becomes long and thread like similar to blue-green algae.

I have no idea what it is or how to get rid of it. I use CO2 Fert to maintain a pH of 6.7 (However, it is going up and is at 6.9 now - this is new). I change 20-25% of the water weekly with aged tap water that has been treated with CO2 and maintained at the same pH and temp as the tank water. The 75 gal tank is heavily planted - Anubias, hornwort, Wisteria, java Fern, Java Moss, 3 species of Crypts, and Giant Val. and receives 5 hours of light (4-54W T-5 Florescent) a 3 hour Siesta and another 5 hours of light.

Can anyone tell me what it is and how to combat it? Since it's white I don't think removing light will help.

I forgot to mention the tank houses about 50 Neons, 8 Corys, 2 SAE's and 8 Ottos along with 40 Ghost Shrimp.


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## trenac

Welcome to APC 

_Can you get a picture?..._ Sounds more like a fungus then algae.


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## Skipto

My camera is broken. However, after a few days of growth, I can see that the white stuff is taking on a light green color and is thin and stringy like very fine silk. So to recap- it starts out cottony and then begins to string out. It appears white but is a very pale green. I wish i could get a picture!


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## trenac

Take a look at these algea ID sites to see if any resembles what is in your tank...

Aquarium Algae ID (updated May6th '10 Surface Skum)

http://www.plantgeek.net/


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## Skipto

I think it may be blue-green slime algae or Staghorn algae. Thanks for the links.


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## Skipto

Here are some pictures. Finally got my camera repaired.


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## cs_gardener

I'm afraid I don't know what it is. I just wanted to wish you good luck since you've been fighting it for so long. I know many people would have given up instead of continuing the fight for over 5 months and I'm rooting for you to beat this.


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## joshbye

I'm starting to get the same stuff in my tank. No one has any clue what this might be?


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## fishaquatics

To fight this algae I would go to locial petstore and buy anti algae liquid and try that out. I would also break it put by hand and take it out. The last thing to do is do water changes every day and take out 25% of the water.
-Ian


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## rhodophyta

It does look like a fungus, especially the growth pattern, since can't get a closeup of it. If you can get a hydrogen peroxide doser, try it and see if the white stuff stops growing.


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## kmeade17

I may be wrong here, but to me it looks like the same white "stuff" I had growing on my Mopani wood when I first set up the tank. It never seemed to bother any of the fish, and I swear my ghost shrimp loved eating it. I did a lot of research on the actual wood and found a lot of threads with people who had the same stuff- but never really found an answer as to what it was. My Pleco LOVED it though. Some posts claimed it was a fungus ( though fungicides did nothing for it) others claimed it was a bacteria. I'd include a picture if I had one but i dont :/... but I would maybe looks up "Mopani wood White Fur" in a search engine and review the pictures.... Granted the only way i ended up getting rid of it was boiling the wood for about 6 hours.... Atleast if that's what it is you'll know that it isn't harmful to your fish! Hope this helps even a little... if not... i tried... lol


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## xXXx-G-xXXx

Hi Everyone,

Im new here (hello all  ) and unfortunately my first post here is about a problem im having. Ive documented the "thing" which grows in my aquarium with some high def pics (https://picasaweb.google.com/112365277420798640841/October132011?authuser=0&feat=directlink) on my picasa account. Please have a look. Can you guys identify what this is and how do i get rid of it? Looks exactly like the cotton like stuff described in this post.

Thanks


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## rhodophyta

You could think of fungus as as sort of plant that long ago got too lazy to do its own photosynthesis and sponged off the dying and the dead. 

There are even non-photosynthetic vascular plants such as Monotropa uniflora, a ghostly member of the blueberry family that parasitize the parasite, stealing their energy from fungus.

There are no parasitic non-photosynthetic algae that I know of, but even though none have been reported I suspect no one is looking for them. Until then you might as well call it fungus which it probably is anyway.


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## HeyPK

It might be a fungus growing on something in the water. Whatever it is, it looks like a new tank symptom that won't last. Pond snails and ramshorns would eat it. So would grazing live bearers, such as guppies. Get more plants in there and make sure that you are dosing iron along with the other mineral nutrients.


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## xXXx-G-xXXx

Thanks for the hints guys. Ill try to apply some anti-fungus-chemicals. Currently the idea is to get the eleocharis to cover the whole bottom of the aquarium so id like to avoid adding plants(its extremly hard to buy eleocharis around here). Also id like to populate it with shrimps only (Got a bigger tank with normal fish) . So ill try to add the shrimps and if they can eat it, its solved, and if they cant, the chemical should help  am i right?


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## HeyPK

Anti-fungus chemicals are almost sure to be harmful to your plants and maybe fish. Get a few guppies and/ or a few snails, and I bet they will clean it up.


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## smiller8

Wow, that looks like a Pythium sp., but I'm not positive. Anti-fungal medication can kill some fish species and most of the time malachite green will kill invertebrates and shrimp. You could try some salt and after a day do a water change and maybe try some salt again.


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## singolz

I have this same problem. a definite answer on what this could be would be awesome as my tank just started showing signs of this. couple of pics below...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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