waging war on bba

[decal]

y'all got any stories/helpful advice on how to deal with bba? i recently upgraded to pressurized co2 and am fertilizing according to the pps pro system. the bba cropped up about the same time. now i'm getting solid growth of both my plants AND bba. i've tried spot treating with h2o2 and excel, it helps a little but the growth is rapid. this is long grey stuff that holds on to leaves like crazy.

i'm leaning towards dropping the photoperiod to 8-10 hours, continued aggressive pruning, and introducing some sort of clean up crew. nerites? mollies from the bayou? ameca splendens?

[Mzungu]

Do you perhaps have a picture? Your description says it's "long grey stuff," and I'm curious as to how long exactly.

What's worked for me with BBA is to take out water until your plants are no longer submerged. Then take a spray bottle filled with H2O2 and spray the affected plants. Wait about a minute at most, and then hose the H2O2 off the plants with fill water. The BBA starts dying almost immediately, but your plants are fine.

I made the mistake of leaving my plants out of water with the H2O2 for too long, once, and my plants (Anubias and Bolbitis) weren't very happy with me for a while. :)

[Totenkampf]

if its long and grey it may be staghorn algae which spikes along with ammonia, mine appeared very quickly and was controlled via amano shrimp and flourish excel until my replacement filter built up a bacterial colony to cycle the ammonia. if its actually green then ameca spendens is old school for that, i had forgotten about them!

[decal]

I don't have a picture of my tank atm, but it looks exactly like this: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y11...k/DSC00182.jpg

It's worth mentioning that I nuked a heavily infested piece of Ludwiga with hydrogen peroxide and the algae turned red. Some evidence that it's rhodophyta?

I like your idea Mzungu, seems more efficient than spot treating plants underwater. I may also try pulling out some plants and doing a bleach dip.

Shrimp won't work for me at the moment, basically every inhabitant of the tank (sunfish, killies, madtom) mercilessly feasts upon them.

[Churty]

What's worked for me with BBA is to take out water until your plants are no longer submerged. Then take a spray bottle filled with H2O2 and spray the affected plants. Wait about a minute at most, and then hose the H2O2 off the plants with fill water. The BBA starts dying almost immediately, but your plants are fine.

Thats a great idea, well played.

[kwc1974]

I have had success with H2O2 in the water column twice a day about 2-4mL per gallons. Start at a low dose and work from there. But the underlying problem is not going to be solved by H2O2. +1 on the A. splendis or you can try florida flag fish.

[Totenkampf]

Complexity also detailed her method of H2O2 dosing recently, do a search for it. Your aquarium seems like it might be semi agressive but if not then bear in mind that both a. splendis and FFF can get pretty honery.

[Complexity]

You have to approach the problem in two steps.

1. Fix the underlying problem. It appears you are already on the right track by adding CO2 and ferts. Don't worry about the lighting as that's not going to make much of a difference with BBA. The thing I have found to keep BBA away is to increase the CO2 to 30ppm. If you have a drop checker, it'll be a yellow green color.

2. Kill the existing BBA. Even after fixing the underlying problem, the existing BBA won't automatically die. You have to take measures to kill it. What I have found to be the best (and, coincidently, also the easiest and least expensive) way is to use the Full-Tank H2O2* method.

Multiply your tank gallon size by 3ml to get the amount of H2O2 to use. So if your tank is 75g, then it would be 75 x 3ml = 225ml (almost 1 cup). That means you will put a total amount of 225ml of H2O2 in the tank all at once! It is perfectly safe and highly effective.

• Start by turning off your filters.
• Using all 225ml, spot treat the worst areas.
• When you've used all 225ml, turn off the lights.
• Wait 15 minutes, then turn on the filters (but keep the lights off).
• Wait 15 minutes longer, and turn on the lights.
• No water change needed (H2O2 breaks down into H2O and O, water and oxygen).

You can repeat this up to twice a day as long as the previously treated areas have stopped bubbling. Don't worry if your shrimp jump onto a treated area. It has never hurt any of my fish, inverts, snails, or plants** (see exceptions below). I have used as much as 4ml per gallon with no problem, but the generally accepted dosage is 3ml per gallon.

What makes this treatment work so well is that it truly does treat the entire tank, filters and all. This is important because you want to kill out the spores or whatever the heck BBA sends out into the water column to reproduce. If you just spot treat one area, then another, and then another, it's hard to kill it all because there's always some still living inside the tank. But when you treat the entire tank, you get it ALL.

* For the H2O2, just use the regular drug store 3% hydrogen peroxide. No need for anything stronger.

** Plant exceptions: Do not use H2O2 on vals, hornwort, or anacharis. If you have any of these plants, remove them during treatment and replace once the bubbling has stopped.

[Totenkampf]

vicki dont screw around, ya hurd me?

[Complexity]

vicki dont screw around, ya hurd me?

I love killing algae! It gives such a wonderful feeling of satisfaction to see it die and melt away.

[LooksLater]

Hardcore, Vicky...! Stone cold killa!!

Great info, thank you. I'll remember that if/WHEN I ever have to deal with it!

[Totenkampf]

it seems that if i have anubias, i have to deal with it at some point.

[decal]

Well I upped the CO2 a bit, not sure if that helped... but holy mackerel, the whole tank treatment nuked the carp out of it. I did it before bed, again the next morning, and came back to a ton of red algae. I plucked a lot out, think I'm gonna add in some female mollies from around here and see if they'll help clean up the remaining algae. Curiously my vals are mostly unharmed. Thanks a lot for the tip!

I may have to start doing a brief H2O2 treatment on all new plants now. It seems much gentler than a bleach dip.

[Complexity]

Red BBA is an excellent sign! If it turned red, that means it's dead (although dead BBA can also be plain old gray). If the fish don't eat it, it'll melt away. Give it about a week. Amanos love eating dead BBA, too, so if you want a clean up crew, consider adding some of them.

I agree that H2O2 is gentler on the plants than bleach, and I think it's more effective because you can treat the whole tank like that.

If you left your vals in the tank, they may not show damage now, but they'll probably start showing damage in the next day or so. If that happens, you can trim off the dead leaves, but leave the roots. I've heard people report that they sprout back up.

Let us know how things look after another week passes. The dead BBA will bug you for awhile, and then one day, you'll suddenly notice it's gone. It just disappeared as if by magic. And then your tank will look fantastic!