Algea bba help

[mrmike]

I have a 72g, had plants in it a year ago, got rid of them. Now just decorations and artificial. Had some BBA with the plants. now about a year later the BBA has overtaken everything horribly. Where should i start? It is like carpet on everything, thick as heck........

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
When you got rid of your plants, you could have turned the light off or alternatively got a very dim light. The fish don't mind, and without light no "plants" can grow. I put "plant" in "" because BBA is a Red algae (Rhodophyta) and would be better described as a "photosynthetic organism".

Your BBA is actually doing a job for you, it is still taking ammonia and nitrites from the water column and converting them into plant tissue. Personally I would always have plants because of their beneficial effects on water quality.

My suggestion would be to clean off the BBA from the decorations etc, and throw away the fake plants, I'd then add some more structure (leaves, wood, caves etc.). You have enough light for plant growth, and I would recommend a floating layer of Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium), Salvinia or Water Lettuce (Pistia). These will shade the BBA out, and are easy to harvest.

Have a look at Ruki's great "Pistia and BBA" black water tank. <http://forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?t=9416&page=3>

cheers Darrel

 

[mrmike]

how do you feed through the plants floating?? And do i need to add ferts with the floaters of just a little?? My tank is really coated badly right now. It just seems like a HUGE task...... How do you clean it all off, bleach? scrubbing?

 

[ed seeley]

Liquid CO2s such as Seachem's Excel or EasyCarbo are very effective against Black Brush Algae. They are designed to be dosed each day and the best way to kill off the BBA is to take each day's dose in a syringe and squirt it onto the worst affected parts. The algae will bleach and die over the course of a few days.

However you will need to do something to permanently solve this and adding more plants is a very good first step. IME the only way I stopped BBA growing in my planted tanks was to dose CO2 to 30ppm which stopped it permanently for me. Your plants will grow much better with the additional CO2. Or you can keep dosing the liquid CO2 but this can get costly over time too.

As well as floating plants you could tie java fern onto the decor so that you have the convenience of being able to move everything around but still have real plants.

 

[mrmike]

So add some floating plants huh? So they will be spinning around all over the top like a merry go round ? from the filter of course.....

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

So add some floating plants huh? So they will be spinning around all over the top like a merry go round ? from the filter of course.....

I wouldn't worry about the flow, it doesn't bother Limnobium or Salvinia, although Pistia is less good when its small.

I've got an Eheim aquaball, Maxijet 900 and an Eheim 2211 on a 2' at the moment and the floaters are doing fine.

cheers Darrel

 

[mrmike]

Ok so i guess i'll search for some floating plants..... How much to get? Should it cover entire surface?? That would be a lot...

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

How much to get? Should it cover entire surface??

No, you just need a handful to start off with, they will grow fairly quickly. Are you in the UK? if you are PM me your address and I'll send you a starter pack.

cheers Darrel

 

[Ttw]

I had a problem with bba after changing my aquarium lights. I changed to the 8000K All Glass Aquarium flourescent lights because I liked the color and they are readily available. Gradually all my tanks developed bba. Since the only thing that I had changed were the lights, I went back to the old Aquarilux lights. Gradually, over about 6 weeks or so the bba definitely started going away and now about 3 months later it is gone. I have 10 - 15 gal aquariums with a single 15 watt linear bulb over each tank. Water is about ph5.5 and TDS about 70 - 80 ppm. Planted with java moss, java fern water sprite and some floating duckweed.

 

[slimbolen99]

The tube fluorescent bulbs, over a period of 6 months, lose something like 50% of their light output. I recommend switching to compact spiral fluorescents, as they seem, to me, to not lose the output that the tubes do. I've had a rack of six 20s setup for the last few months...using older tubes over four of the tanks, and a single 19watt CFL over the two 20s on the right side. The four 20s with the tube fluorescents are covered in bba and stringy algae, the two that have the cfls are clear as a whistle. Something to look into.

 

[ed seeley]

Compact flourescents lose intensity just like linear flourescents and in fact they are less efficient than linear bulbs as you get re-strike with their folded over designs. The most efficient flourescent tube at the moment seems to be linear T5 tubes with electronic ballasts. However LEDs have those beat by miles but are very expensive to set up.

A lack of light or the wrong type of light won't cause algae. By switching bulbs you have probably increased the light intensity and the algae is using this to grow. Algae as a more simple organism is much better at exploiting changeable conditions than higher plants who prefer stable CO2, fertiliser and light levels. Adding floating plants means you can establish plants that don't rely on CO2 in the water as well as reducing the light levels in the tank and will kill two birds with one stone.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I'd agree with Ed.

They are less efficient than linear bulbs as you get re-strike with their folded over designs. & The most efficient fluorescent tube at the moment seems to be linear T5 tubes with electronic ballasts.

Small diameter linear tubes and electronic control gear is the best combination for lights. The straight tubes are most efficient (for the reason given) and the electronic control gear means that lamps have a very low "lamp lumen depreciation" (LLD) factor. This means that they run at almost exactly the same light intensity and wavelength until they fail.

<http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightingAnswers/lat5/pc9.asp>

cheers Darrel