DIY CO2 questions & black brush algae ?

[Jayhawk]

My largest tank, for my curviceps pair, is only a 20 gallon high. It's fairly heavily planted with jungle vals, moneywort, bolbitis, java fern & 1 anubis.

My first question is about black brush aglae. I bought an anubis a few weeks back when I had my 3.5 year old with me...unfortunately, being constantly pestered, I didn't monitor which plant came out of the tank and I got one with BBA :x ! Stupidly, or perhaps because it cost a bit, I left it in the tank since I'd never had BBA and thought maybe it would go away in my tank. Instead, it has spread to the moneywort and vals. Since that time I've started my DIY CO2 (reasoning that increased CO2 would improve plant growth and put the BBA in retreat), but things have not changed much.

What should I do? Should I cut out all plant leaves w/the BBA?

Now on to my DIY CO2. I used a 2 l. bottle with 2 cups sugar, pinch of baking soda & 1/4 teaspoon champaigne yeast (home brewer with spare supplies...) and I diffused it through my internal cannister filter. Well, first I noted a .4 drop in pH overnight (my KH is 2-3 thanks to my water company), but everything was doing well and the plants were growing great. However, 4 days later my CO2 production is up to 1 bubble per second and my CO2 was down to 6.4 this morning (near the danger zone for my fish). I've moved my airstone so it no longer goes through the filter and aimed the filters flow so it agitates the water & will see what that does later today, but...

Any other advice on decreasing the water's intake of the CO2? Should I take 1/2 of the solution out of my bottle and replace with water? Should I take a piece of coral I have, smash it to bits, and add it to my filter medium to hopefully add a little KH?

Thanks!

 

[aspen]

your co2 production is a little high. the way to vary the production is: the more yeast you add, the quicker it runs. why not just make another bottle with 1/2 the yeast or less. i wouldn't add kh, that would be very counterproductive. yours is REALLY NICE!

the bba problem is one i'd love to see an answer for. i tore down a tank in frustration because of it. my fav dwarf bushynose died from eating it i suspect. try removing it manually, and increasing plant growth and see how it goes.

rick

 

[farm41]

I like to run my co2 through a reactor(your filter) and adjust the co2 level so that it is optimum with a good amount of surface movement. That way at night there is still plenty of o2 exchange. It's easy to adjust the co2 this way too, especially with diy co2, just use your spraybar or powerhead output to get the desired Ph. It's hard to get the mix just perfect with diy, when I was using it I would run a couple of bottles and stagger the batches so the output would be consistant. Then just adjust with the surface movement.

I wish I had some tips on bba, I have it in 1 tank, it doesn't get any bigger and it doesn't go away. It's just a small patch on some driftwood about 1/4". SAE's nibble on it sometimes, I don't know if that is why it doesn't get any bigger or not.

 

[Graham]

For DIY CO2, I keep my 2-liter bottle immersed in a bucket of water with a small 25W heater in it. I can vary the temperature and thus, vary the rate of CO2 production. This works pretty well. From the bottle, it goes through a check valve and into a reactor in the tank. pH stays around 6.8-7.2

As for CO2 levels at night, why not just hook an airpump up to a timer and have it turn on when the lights turn off? This has always worked for me. You don't have to worry about "wasting" daytime CO2 either. Photosynthesis should be able to keep your daytime pH well within "acceptable" parameters.

As for the beard algae, I have never found a way to remove it, save manually. This is the main reason I use only RO water in my tanks now. Have never had a nuisance algae problem since. Even the few threads of beard left on a piece of wood paled up and went away within days of being put in the tank filled with recon'ed RO. HTH!

 

[Jayhawk]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'm leaning toward doing some heavy pruning and seeing if a couple of stems of anacharis can help outcompete the darn BBA. I hear from a friend that amato types of shrimp will eat BBA, but my LFSs don't carry the shrimp. I'd try a SAE, but I think my tank is too small and already fully populated.

With regard to the CO2, the pH seems to have stabilized at 6.4 overnight and 6.6 during the day - both numbers I can live with. As an added plus, my curviceps have colored up more at the lower pH levels!

 

[farm41]

I have a 20g right now with 4 SAE'S and 5 amano shrimp, quite a few guppies too. The SAE'S are about 1.5-2" and are only there until the rest of the thread algae is gone. Then I will move them to a larger tank, in the larger tank there is some larger SAE's(4") that I would like to get rid of, I just don't like them at that size. I keep moving the SAE's in my tanks, rotate them around and keep trading big ones for small ones. The small ones seem to be more active algae eaters.

If you could find some small ones and only have them for as long as you need them, it would help alot.

The other thing that will help is a steady supply of co2, diy is hard to keep it going steady with just one bottle. Use 2 bottles connected with a tee fitting, run each for 3 or 4 weeks, but alternate the bottles making a new batch every 10 to 14 days. Keep an eye on your Ph.

 

[Woodsy]

For the BBA, I use Flying Fox- the smaller the better. Last year though, being a poor Uni student and on a buget I resorted to going for a trip out onto one of my mates farms to see if he had anything in his dams that could possibly help me out. I found that small yabbies had quite an appetite for BBA, as do river shrimp. The downside: once the buggers get big enough, they start eating your fish. The shrimp should be fine if you don't use bulls with big claws though.

 

[aspen]

woodsy i like your vernacular, but would you mind de-ciphering for us what a 'yabbie' is?

bba is a pita, i have never been able to get rid of it short of ripping everything out. i have heard that mollies will pick at it, but ime, american flag fish won't.

also ime, shrimps don't have much of an appetite for anything really (glass shrimps or amano shrimps), you need a bunch to put a dent in any algae problems you are having.

rick

 

[2la]

The ultimate weapon against established BBA? A pack of hungry rosy barbs. They'll work several times faster than a comparable group of SAEs, but may nibble on more delicate plants.

 

[Woodsy]

A yabbie is a freshwater crayfish- it's just what we call them over here. But don't worry, I've met plenty of Australians who have never heard of a yabbie in their life. Quite sad really.