Help with black crust like algae

[gary62]

Hi,

I'm new to this site and I'm from Kuching, Sarawak. Have been keeping fish on and off for about ten years now. Favourates are Discus and Tetras. Recently decided to start aquascaping starting with a small 2ft. tank after seeing Amano's creations from a friends book. I was totally overwhelmed by the beauty of his aquariums.

My tank has been running for about three weeks now and showing signs of Black algae(?) on 60% of the leaves. I'm using ADA substrate topped with black quartz sand, 3 PL tubes 60W total for 11 hrs a day on timer with two PC fans extracting heat from the tubes(D.I.Y). CO2 cylinder with ADA difuser at 3 bubbles a second.

Tank is decorated with 3 big pieces of rock and planted with dwarf Sagitaria plants. The plants were planted sparsely but now have evolved all over the tank! Fauna consists of 3 S.A.Es and 10 neon tetras.

My problem is that 60% of the leaves have turned black and seem to be coated with some crust-like algae or something. I cannot be removed by hand without damaging the leaves.

I would appreciate if anyone out there could help me out.

Regards,
Gary

[AquaObsession]

Since you are using diffuser, make sure you have good circulation of water in your aquarium.

[gary62]

Thanks for the advice. Should I reduce the lighting time?

[grey_fox]

I think you're having BBA (black brush algae), I had that on my e.tenellus before as well. I also think that one other factor might have been due to the fact that you planted sparsely in the beginning.

In my case, what I did was remove the whole lot and got a fresh batch, next step was to ensure the CO2 distribution is good enough around the tank. Also ensured that I kept my fert regime consistent.

Perhaps a photo of an infected leaf (leaves) will do better justice.