Fighting BGA with Erythromycin

[Aeon]

http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com...thromycin.html

I found the above preety informative. Erythromycin is an antibiotic, not so much of a commercial algacide and my research on the net shows that this drug is harmless to both plants and fish and is very effective against cyanobacteria / BGA.

Some scientific info on BGA
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/bluegralgae.htm

I hope this will be useful for some here.

[cheeboonyong]

Yes, I suppose erythomycin can be effective against BGA. But as with all anti-biotics, please use it with care, lest you create a resistant strain. That would mean that erythomycin would become ineffective in future. Maybe "normal" people cannot appreciate this but coming from someone who is allergic to a whole class of anti-biotics, I really hope people don't abuse it. Already, my options of anti-biotics is already so limited, I can't imagine new resistant strains becoming immune to the limited options that I have. Just sharing my thoughts (not that I'm going to be infected by BGA or what )

Just a fyi, erythomycin is used widely in humans to treat various problems, including skin infections and sexually transmitted diseases. Wonder why it works against BGA though...

[Aeon]

Very true, if you don't kill all the bga completely, the BGA strain might develope immunity and when you pass plants with immune BGA around, nightmare begins.

[budak]

Antibiotics have some effect on BGA because blue-green algae are actually bacteria with photosynthetic cells, not algae. I recall reading posters who noted that antibiotic treatment only works for a while, after which the BGA become resistant.

Total black-outs work much better. Change 50% of the water while sucking out whatever BGA you can, dose 10ppm of NO3, cover the tank with a blanket/picnic cloth/whatever, switch off the CO2 and lights. After three days, do another 50% water change and dose in full spectrum of nutrients and keep the light/CO2 at full blast. The BGA will have starved away and the plants will be all "closed up" but fine.

A side note to Tom: remember the gray slime (looks a bit like BGA but without the small and blue-green tinge) problem someone posted on APD? I had the same thing a while ago: plants thrived while I kept up CO2 and full fert dosing, but the slime disappeared only after a 4 day blackout (no water change).

[deff]

Used to have them BGA on my floating riccia. I sprinkle aquarium salt directly on the BGA and voila! they disappear.

[crandf]

Death by osmosis?