[floatingaway]

all

I'll admit it, I let my tank maintenance wane. I got lazy. Pure and simple. And now I am back into it and want to clean things up. These are all fake plants for now but.

What is the bacteria/algae here? It's very dark green/black but not hairy at all. Very hard to scrape off via fingernails. I plan to get my water back to perfect but I know that will take a bit of time.

What is this stuff? Just cynobacteria? If so how do I kill it besides keeping the tank cleaner

Tank specs per forum asks:

Tank: 66
Filter: Eheim 2215 canister
Lights: Marineland 36" basic LED (to be changed soon!)
Substrate: larger Cichlid friendly smooth gravel
Plants: fake ones for now
little bit of wood.

Fish:
Synodontis cat about 7" long and 10 or so years old. Paolo is a tough old bugger!
Silver striped Angel about 4" tall and 5 or so years old (2 left of an original 6)
Yellow/Black and White Angel 3" about 3 years old (1 of 4 left)
Green corys 2 about 2" and 4 years old.

 

[Rogo]

I think you're going to need to remove all the fake plants and scrub them clean, use a gravel vac on your substrate, and maintain your filters. If it was me, I wouldn't add anything to kill the bacteria because, considering the amount you have, it may cause an ammonia spike from the die-off.

 

[outsider]

black brush algae?

Since it is fake plants, you can just remove the plant from the tank and spray it with h2o2 to kill the algae.

 

[Carpenter]

Take out and scrub . Also a few ottos and a siamese algae eater for natural cleaning crew.

 

[Dou]

It actually looks like a huge buildup of green spot algae. That's how it looks on one of the leaves in my tank that I let fester.

 

[Morainy]

This is probably normal for a tank that has been neglected. It is a great opportunity for a new aquascaping, if you want.

I'd recommend draining a lot of the water into buckets, scraping the glass down with a razor and a scrubber, pulling all the plastic plants out and washing them with running water and possibly bleach if they are not fabric. I would rinse the filter media in the tank water but not replace the media, except for charcoal if you use that. Replacing the media might cause a crash.

After the glass looked better, I would return some of the water to the tank and replace about a third to half of it with new water. Put the plastic plants back in if they have washed up nicely. Then, I'd throw a blanket over the tank for three days and leave it dark. After that, the tank would probably be looking pretty good, but I would be careful not to overfeed or to leave the lights on too long.

All of this shouldn't take too long, really. But if you are willing to give realplants a try, I would recommend putting in some fast growing,easy plants like wisteria and leaving the plastic plants out of the tank. The fast growing plants will use up some of the nutrients that are causing your algae bloom. I wouldn't recommend slow growing plants like Anubias because the algae will stick to them and you won't be able to pick off the coated leaves without losing the plants. I think you might really like the look of real plants.

 

[Morainy]

It actually looks like a huge buildup of green spot algae. That's how it looks on one of the leaves in my tank that I let fester.

Dou, my screen is tiny but it looks like green spot algae and maybe other real algae to me, too. Cyanobacteria wouldn't be hard to remove.

 

[Dou]

What Morainy suggested is what I did with my tank. I wasn't as thorough but I basically let the algae grow to a certain point, scraped it all off with a credit card and I think it funnelled down to the resevoir on the bottom (I have a Brio35). I read online that it's because there's too much light (apparently phosphorous deficiency...). It disappeared for a few weeks but when the sun started coming back out it came back... and now I'm still thinking about the best way to get rid of it haha or what I should do now.

 

[floatingaway]

Well I've yanked out all the plants and scrubbed them with hot water and hydrogen peroxide. Did squat to remove. I mean that stuff is permanent! So I replaced and kept out but there is one rock I want to put back in. It's been dry for over a week and that stuff is still green!

since it is sandstone I'm a little leary of bleaching for fear of not being able to rinse completely enough. I've scrubbed at it with a brush and no dice on removal. Time for a new rock?

 

[tyna]

I think it is a black algae. I too had a similar problem with my swimming pool and I went online for help. The worst thing about these algaes is that they have built-in survival instincts which makes them harder to kill. You cannot pour chlorine into the tank to kill them because these algaes have a multi-layered structure that makes it impossible for the chlorine to get rid of. The top layer might be vulnerable depending upon the amount or the concentration of chlorine that you pour. Black algaes form more slowly than the other algaes but once in place they are very hard to get rid of. The only way that you can tackle these algaes is to scrub them thoroughly with a steel bristle brush. This will break the algae down and expose its unprotected under layers. Then you shock the tank with granular chlorine. You would also have to include a quart of liquid copper metallic algaecide. This metallic algaecide is specially formulated to destroy algaes of all types including black algae. This chlorine and algaecide together will get rid of the black algae lurking in your tank. Try increasing the chlorine levels to 15 ppm for at least a day. This will give the chemicals plenty of time to attack the algae. If the algae is not gone within a day, wait for a few more days and re-shock the tank once again. Once the water is clean take a bottle of black algaecide for further preventive maintenance purpose. If you would like to know more in detail just check out this article that I got online(How To Remove Black Algae In A Pool | Solda Pools).