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Greenfly like creatures on Amazon sword ???

joncairns

Member
Joined
21 Jul 2009
Messages
27
Location
Kent
Hi,

I have loads of black insect looking things growing on my Amazon sword plant.I have never seen anything like it,in all the years I have been keeping fish. Anyone have any idea's as to what it might be. Looks like greenfly,but black. It is not actually insects,just looks like them.

I can only guess it is some sort of algae ? It is really puzzling me......

Jon :!: :?: :!:
 
Got photos? Very difficult to analyze with such limited data. What does it feel like? Is it furry, soft, hard, slimy? Does it come off easily? Are the leaves otherwise affected by other anomalies? Other plants or areas in the tank affected? Are you treating your tank in a manner that induces algae such as as no CO2, bright lights or poor dosing techniques, poor flow? Do fish ignore the particles? The possibilities are infinite with such broad descriptions. Try to narrow the field of possibilities a bit with better descriptions.

Cheers,
 
Thank you for your reply,I will try and get a photo but I am not very good at that sort of thing.
Another plant had it, I took it out of the tank and tried scraping it off the leaves.It felt hard a bit like limestone.It was black or very dark brown.It did not come off easily and I threw the plant out,which is why I was surprised to see it on the Amazon plant.

I do not have Co2 and I leave ordinary aquarium lights on for about 8hours per day.

Will post another reply if I can get a photo.

Jon :(
 
amazonn.jpg


Hi again,

I am told the above link will take you to a phot of the affected Amazon plant.

Thank you,

Jon :oops:

I've edited the post to show the image inline: ceg4048
 
A picture speaks a thousand words :D

It is BBA algae on the plant.

I find in my tank, also with no added CO2, that water changes will encourage BBA to grow and spread throughout the tank. (it was the stuff you saw all over my wood and algae when you visited before)

Many people report that spot dosing with a liquid carbon product (excel, easy carbo, AE sell one that I forget the name of) helps to remove it. If you search this forum for spot dosing you can get some info on the ways to do this.

IMO those are the two main bits of info that algae.

You can read about it here: http://theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm
There is also lots of info on BBA on this forum. But, you will not have much luck searching for BBA here, as the search will not let you search for this few characters. So instead you can search the forum by typing this into a google search:

site:ukaps.org/forum bba

If you want to read up on the no water change planted tank method then this is a good place to start: http://www.barrreport.com/articles/433- ... thods.html

Hope that helps!

...and yep that plant is not an aquatic plant, so is best removed from the tank. I think it is a dracaena. I would try putting it in a pot and see how it does!
 
Hi Matt,

Thanks very much for all the detailed info on BBA,never heard from it before. Have pm'd you.

Thank you also to everyone who has contacted me re this problem.

Jon :D
 
Vivarium said:
Uhmm....that is not an amazon as far as I can see. This plant only grows (in the long run) emerged. And it is algea on there.

I agree with "Vivarium" this is not 'echinodorus bleheri' (Amazon Sword). In my opinion this is a plant that should be grown emersed and not submersed in an aquarium. There are many LFS's that unwhittingly sell this plant as aquatic (not usually describing it as amazon sword), however, it will just deteriorate over a matter of weeks and start to polute your water.

From the picture provided, I'm not convinced!

Unless you're sure it's Amazon Sword 'echinodorus bleheri', get it out and bin it! I've been there, done that, got the T-shirt etc...

Hope this helps
 
its obvious, its a dracena species and will do better on your windowsil. not an aquatic plant, it will just rot, so take it out and get rid of the algae in one go!
 
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