BBA is flourishing - please help

[Morgan01]

Hi all. 3 month old tank and slowly but surely BBA is overtaking my plants and wood and everything soon.


Here are the specs:
4x1.5x2 ft
2 canister filters
CO2 - est 5 bubbles per sec
Lighting T5 6x54w 1000K (8hrs daily) + UV sterilizer
WC - 1/4 weekly
fertilisation - stop completely for now...used to be alternate days seachem trace, potassium and iron.

I know I am overstock with variety of small fish mostly different kind of tetra, small pleco & cory cats. total 105 excluding shrimps.
Buying fish is fun almost impulsive mostly...so lately BBA has been flourishing growing mostly at edges of my plants. injected excel into roots or spray around the infected areas but still no results.

so please advise me what should I do? Reduced phosphate? http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_algae.htm thanks!

[Aquaculture]

Try H2O2 bro. It worked for me.

[moss_guy]

Can try seachem flourish excel & charge up your co2. That work for me.

[blue33]

WC - 1/4 weekly is too little with your HEAVY bioload.

[aquarius]

First of all i would like to say that your scape looks very nice. You should continue with your regular dosing otherwise your densely planted plants will suffer from the lack of "food"/nutrients. I know alot of us including myself will be tempted to reduce our fertilizers when algae comes but doing so will only worsen the situation. Try increasing your CO2 and things should improve after a week or two - this is what the gurus here advocate. Use H2O2 if you must and avoid Excel as it's a safer way to kill the BBA.

For me i've battled very bad infestation of BBA for the past couple of years and tried everything until i've given up and gone low tech.

[PeterGwee]

Trim and remove the infected plants and make sure you have good mixing in your tank. You need to make sure the CO2 is getting to the plants. No point adding 10bps in a large tank with no water movement.

Regards,
Peter Gwee

[torque6]

Im actually surprise to see a tank this densely planted gets BBA ? until of course you mentioned the 105 fauna .

Just take care of the water flow and you will do fine. If possible, reduce bioload. Tanks this size, i usually stick with a school of maybe 20 tetras .. tops.

[Morgan01]

thanks guys! i will try your inputs. torque6 bro...yes n your pencils are still smiling amongst the 105! haha!

[Halfmoon]

How does BBA look like?

[juggler]

Add a small Siamese Algae Eater (SAE) to eat the BBA too. One will do.

[Loopy]

I took a syringe and shot this directly onto the BBA: http://www.juenpetmarket.com/UPLOAD/...PM006041_L.jpg

Almost all the BBA has fallen off.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: I did it 3 days running using 2ML at a time, I think it is ok to use 5ML.

[Morgan01]

think it's also got to do with a new setup vulnerable to BBA! Much better now and yet spraying them with excel...more effective if plant emersed.

[andrew73]

I dosed H2O2 and got rid of some but the normal growing moss became casualty and browned! Think I need a syringe that can target the BBA more specifically as the one I bought from Watson's has a nozzle that seems too big! Crap! I'm not sure if my Yamato's are still alive as I haven't seen them OR any remains either! Think perhaps I need to dose more regularly and more precise!

[newtank]

I dosed H2O2 and got rid of some but the normal growing moss became casualty and browned! Think I need a syringe that can target the BBA more specifically as the one I bought from Watson's has a nozzle that seems too big! Crap! I'm not sure if my Yamato's are still alive as I haven't seen them OR any remains either! Think perhaps I need to dose more regularly and more precise!

as algae is generally plants, anything that kill them might kill plants also, so need to be very careful

[Loopy]

This could not be more true. I hit some of my Fissiden with algaecide in the past when I was new (and sometimes still do it! ) and brown patches & death occur!

What is a good practice is to dilute it with water first in the syringe. That always minimizes the the "salah" or wrong-aimings. It helps to do that with everything.

Get syringes at your local pharmacy.

as algae is generally plants, anything that kill them might kill plants also, so need to be very careful

[illumnae]

another method that some people have had success with is overdosing Seachem Flourish Excel into the tank. Dose 2-3x the recommended dosage daily (normal dosage, not starting dosage) and after a few days the BBA should start turning red, then white.

However, do take note that your mileage may vary. There are some who have reported fauna deaths after such treatment.

[barmby]

First to go is your shrimps if you overdose your Excel

[blue33]

By doing 2-3x dosage of Excel everyday, your bb suffer also, take note. H2O2 will just work fine, otherwise just trim off the affected plant, they will grow back very fast. All this does not solve the roots, you still need to find out the real cause that lead to algae grow.

[StanChung]

Even hardy nana petites can go if you overdose SF Excel-even before HC! HC loves SF Excel.

[andrew73]

I've resorted to just plucking the browned bits out. A bit sad seeing as the flame moss was actually 'flaming' quite nicely! So coming back to a questions-what DOES cause BBA to 'blossom'!