BGA or BBA?

[waterline]

2013-08-13 17.09.48.jpg

Hello fellow forumers, got into this hobby quite awhile back and my tank has been running for close to 3 months now. May I ask what algae is that? After looking at some pictures from Google it seems to me like either BGA or BBA.

[Shadow]

confirm not BBA and maybe not be BGA as well. BGA have smell, does it smell? fungus? any wood?

[felix_fx2]

look like mould or fungus type.

[AQMS]

picture not clear.... any close up shot?
what happen in there????

[Urban Aquaria]

Comparing with photos online, seems alot like BGA, got the characteristic slimy goo look.

Just wondering, how fast did it grow and end up covering all the plants?

I've never encountered BGA in my tanks before so quite interested to know how they can grow until cover so much of the aquarium before being noticed.

[David]

That is most likely BGA. it has been left to grow for quite sometime. A good way to remove it is to syphon it out.

[David]

The cause is either accumulated muck or poor water circulation or both.

[AQMS]

Just curious, how long did you leave like that? for it to become like that?

[David]

To be fair, it starts at the base of the plant and it can go unnoticed for quite sometime. When the muck accumulates and there is a sudden spike in Nitrate levels, it just gets a growth explosion and it can just bloom overnight.

A common issue when there is a thick growth at the foreground like E Tennelus, Ferns and moss. This is because the water circulation at the base is almost none existence and the muck just accumulates.

[BlessChwee]

Previously I had BGA and they are patches of green slimy soft algae on the plants as well as on the soil. I didnt really do much actually and they are gone after my plants start to grow and I also added a power head for water circulation

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ght=blesschwee

[waterline]

Thanks for the insights. Well it does have a funky smell to it so I'm pretty sure now it's BGA. At first it wasn't noticeable until it formed long strands on my moss. To be honest I didn't really cared and if fact I was rather happy as I thought it meant that my yamato shrimps and ottos had more food to eat so it kind of got neglected for about 1 month? But I realised that the BGA isn't getting any lesser therefore I did a quick check on Google..

I've read that one of the ways to combat BGA is to employ the blackout method but I'm afraid my plants cannot survive the blackout. So I'm wondering if anyone has experience using enythromycin as recommended by some websites?

[David]

I like to correct you there Waterline.....BGA is not a true algae but a cyanobacteria. Yamotoes or ottos do not eat them.

[waterline]

Yea..it was only after googling did I found out. If only I had done my homework earlier..

[David]

Just siphon it out along with the muck accumulated there. Improve water circulation. Do not let it go unchecked. It can quickly overpower your tank.

[waterline]

Sorry for the late reply but thanks for the advice! I tried to siphon it out but it is well attached to the mosses...which meant manual removal with tweezers. I got to say it was backbreaking...

[AQMS]

Sorry for the late reply but thanks for the advice! I tried to siphon it out but it is well attached to the mosses...which meant manual removal with tweezers. I got to say it was backbreaking...

it look like a small tank,why dont you re-scape start fresh.

[Berny]

I think solving the root of the problem is more important than starting afresh. even if ts starts a new scape but didn't solve the problem, same thing will happen again eventually

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 4

[David]

All you need is to rub the algae with your fingers and they come right off

[Patrick76]

Sorry to tag along your thread..

I am into DSM now and also found BGA on my aquasoil. I am not sure what can I do to remove it????

[lekial]

I used to have problems with BGA in my tank. It was growing and spreading on the gravels and I would siphon it out as much as I could and at first I thought it was all gone. However, they always came back about a week later and I had to routinely siphon the gravel and get them out every 2 weeks with water change and they only came back even more and even faster.

Then I finally tried the blackout option and had my tank covered totally in black cloth for 48 hours. I read that BGA would not survive the 2 days blackout but healthy plants should not be seriously affected by it. True enough on the third day when I "unveiled" the tank, it was like a magician performing a magic trick! Tada! and all the BGA was gone. Only thing left the moment you pull off the cloth was a whiff of the pungent BGA smell that clears away after a while. The BGA never came back since.