Rotala Algae Identification

So my tank is about 2 months old now. After about 3 weeks I started getting this algae on my Rotala. It starts at the bottom and climbs its way up the plant. It is now on all of my Rotala, as well as my Ludwigia.

10 gallon tank

simple Marineland hanging external filter

3 watts per gallon (7hrs/day). Time split in 3 and 4 hour intervals.

Excel dosing daily (1.25mL), spot treatment does nothing to it.

pH 7.4-7.6

Relatively high planted. I have 4-5 jungle val, 6-7 dwarf sag, a pretty good sized sword, 5 stems of ludwigia, another small sword, ~10 stems of rotala (varying sizes) and a lot of floating plants (not sure what they are called).

Feed fish every other day

Air stone when lights are off at night

And I have been keeping nitrates under control with water changes every 2-3 weeks.

Phosphates are around 1.0 - 0.5ppm, however this is recent. I did have phosphates at 10ppm or higher and thought I might be feeding whatever this algae is, so I put Phosguard in my filter for my water treatment bucket (pre-treating). My level is a bit low now but I want to see if the algae is affected by the low levels.

I think that's about it, let me know if anyone can identify this algae from the picture and if you know how to get rid of it. It can be somewhat rubbed off with my fingers but its back by morning.

Thanks!

Landon L

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Permalink Reply by Landon L on November 22, 2013 at 10:58pm

Here is the picture.

Let me know what you think.

Landon L

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Permalink Reply by Peter on November 22, 2013 at 11:03pm

Looks like bba to me. A bad case of it. Not sure how to get rid of it but good luck

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Permalink Reply by Landon L on November 22, 2013 at 11:07pm

Ya I'm not convinced its bba. I have had bba and it doesn't brush off like this stuff. This is kinda fluffy. There may be some hair algae of some type in there as well, but that's not my main issue for the time being.

Thanks for the reply.

Landon L

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Permalink Reply by George Barrett on December 31, 2013 at 9:05pm

kinda agree on the hair algae. I have been fighting the same issue. what I have done is stop dosing ferts and left my lights off for 3 days. then start out at 3hrs after that until I saw a significant improvement. 7 hrs depending on the quality of light is above avg. try to slim that down see if that works. also big water changes are recommend as long as you have a good bacteria colony working for you