cyanobacteria

[toshinobu]

Hello I am somewhat really baffled by this...

Ok as I stated in another thread that all my fishes died over night about 2 weeks ago. I have the GEX 600 slim tank, 26L. I think the culprit maybe some stupid kid messing around with my aquarium, spilling some water out and dont know whats on the dirty hand and get into my water.

Anyway, I was doing major water changes 1x/day for the first few 4-5 days. Now I just running an empty tank but I do throw in maybe 3-4 tiny wenny amount of fish food just to have some ammonia going to feed my beneficial bacteria and I leave the lights on maybe 8 hr/ day.

When I was doing frequent water changes, there isnt any cyanobaceria growing on my sand, and everything looks clean. But these few days, I begin to notice cyanobacteria growing on my sand again.... Hmmmm.....

There is no fish in the tank, a few baby horn snails. Micro amount of fish food few days ago. I do used daily Excel and weekly Flourish, but very small amount like 1ml.

Do you think its safe to introduce new stock now?

Thanks in advance

[hann]

Are you going to do anything with the Cyanobacteria? They are persistent and spread very fast which come with an earthy smell. I used to have them in my tank and I tried to manually removed them every week till I gave out. I was in the verge of resetting the tank when I got API Erythromycin from C328. Cost $25 for 10 sachets. After 3 weeks of treatment and emptying the 10 sachets, they are gone now.
If eventually you want to dose any medication to remove the Cyanobacteria, will it be safe for the new stock? That is the things you might face I thought

[ronald_t80]

Bro Hann.....the staff at Seaview also recommend me the API but seems like it's a kind of medication for fishes right?....end up I bought Easy Life Bluexit and now using it for the 4th day....seems like no effect on the Cyanobacteria leh.....damn sianz now

BTW bro will the API do any harm to other plants?

[toshinobu]

I actually have a lot of erythromycin antibiotics for human lying around. I know that if I dump them in, it sure will kill off the cyanobacteria but I dont want to kill all the beneficial bacteria that I raised up......

Or maybe I can take the HOB filters off and just have erythromycin in stagnant water for a day or 2..... Hmmmm that might gives me an idea....

I used to manually suck out the bacteria laced sand once every 2 weeks when I do water change.... washed the sand before dumping them back in. I sometimes might do spot hydrogen peroxide treatment maybe 1/week. (very light 1ml of hydrogen peroxide, forgot what %, and mix with 4 ml water). I would turn the filter off, shot the thing directly onto the bacteria laced sand, let them bubble for like 15 min then turn the filters back on again.

I thought the bacteria mainly come from over feeding the fishes. I was over stocking my tank so I thought thats what causing me to have the problem. But now I have 0 fish, only a few baby snails, hardly any food at all, and the cyanobacteria is still coming back???

[Urban Aquaria]

Manually removing and treating parts of the tank will not get rid of all the cyanobacteria, you have to use tank-wide treatment which kills it wherever it resides (that means everything in the tank, equipment, hard scape etc has to be treated)... otherwise trace populations of the cyanobacteria will still be lurking in your tank and they will keep popping up again when the conditions are right for them.

[hann]

Bro Hann.....the staff at Seaview also recommend me the API but seems like it's a kind of medication for fishes right?....end up I bought Easy Life Bluexit and now using it for the 4th day....seems like no effect on the Cyanobacteria leh.....damn sianz now

BTW bro will the API do any harm to other plants?

I tried bluexit and it didn't help much after I follow the instruction on the bottle.
Yes API is for fish which surprisingly works on Cyanobacteria. You do a search in AQ and I think there is someone who used it and got success which he has a journal in AQ thread, too. I tried api and it did not harm any of my livestock.

[ronald_t80]

So bro Hann....can advise how you dose it? The photo and feeding period still remain the same or gonna decrease it during the treatment ?

Lastly just curious will total blackout for 4-5 days alone then a massive water change help getting rid the Cyanobacteria?

[hann]

I dose it according to what was recommended in the packaging for a continous of a few days.
I tried blackout before for a week. It helps to reduce but it comes back in full force again. You can try though.

[barmby]

4 weeks timeline might be good to introduce fish. Use Seachem Prime to removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia

[Ingen]

Use API, it works faster and well compared to Easylife BlueExit. I did water test daily when using API and all the parameters seem unchanged, however the sachet only last me 5 days but it took about 14 days for mine to totally clear and they have never appear in my tank again.

[ronald_t80]

Hi bro Ingen....so how many sachet you used each day?....i'm aware there's 10 sachets in a box right?
During the treatment.....the duration of the light and Co2 remains or i need to decrease it? Thanks!

[Ingen]

Hi bro Ingen....so how many sachet you used each day?....i'm aware there's 10 sachets in a box right?
During the treatment.....the duration of the light and Co2 remains or i need to decrease it? Thanks!

I can't recall how many packets inside, I know I gave up after using all the sachets on day 5 and didn't really bothered about the tank, I can't recall if I continue to dose fertilzers. A week later, I gave it another look and all the BGA was gone.

You can refer to this thread, nothing fanciful just a simple record of the treatment: http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ighlight=ingen

[Urban Aquaria]

Just to chime in on Blue Exit, a while back my colleague tried it on his BGA infested desktop shrimp tank (which was literally covered in a carpet of bluish-green slime)... it took more than 3 weeks of constant daily dosing treatment before all of the BGA was cleared.

So far, its been a few months after treatment and the BGA has not returned since.

So i guess depending on severity of the issue, have to extend the treatment and give it more time to work (much longer than the recommended 5 day treatment time as listed on the bottle).

[Filet-O-Fish]

Just to chime in on Blue Exit, a while back my colleague tried it on his BGA infested desktop shrimp tank (which was literally covered in a carpet of bluish-green slime)... it took more than 3 weeks of constant daily dosing treatment before all of the BGA was cleared.

So far, its been a few months after treatment and the BGA has not returned since.

So i guess depending on severity of the issue, have to extend the treatment and give it more time to work (much longer than the recommended 5 day treatment time as listed on the bottle).

Hi UA,
How about the weekly water changes when using Blue Exit or API's product and one is doing fertilizers?
Thanks

[Urban Aquaria]

Hi UA,
How about the weekly water changes when using Blue Exit or API's product and one is doing fertilizers?
Thanks

Not sure about the API product, but for Blue Exit, i remember seeing my colleague doing his regular weekly water changes as per normal during the treatment period (the tank still had fishes and shrimps living in it, but they didn't seem to be affected by the treatment)... basically just do the water change and then add a fresh daily dosage of the Blue Exit (since its dosed everyday anyways, i guess each dosage is only active for 24 hours).

As for fertilizer dosing, its probably better to stop dosing them temporarily during such treatments... when the BGA gradually die off, they will decompose and release nutrients back into the water column, so have to watch for ammonia spikes too.

Another important thing, remove any active carbon or adsorbant resins during the treatment, otherwise it'll be rendered ineffective.

[toshinobu]

All these blue exit and API products, would they kill off all the beneficial bacteria as well??? Need to recycle the tank again after treatment???

[Filet-O-Fish]

As for fertilizer dosing, its probably better to stop dosing them temporarily during such treatments... when the BGA gradually die off, they will decompose and release nutrients back into the water column, so have to watch for ammonia spikes too

You mean stop fertilizing for 3 weeks when using Blue Exit? Is this correct?

As for Ammonia spikes, can this kept under control by having some 100+- gr of Seachem Purigen in the filter?

[toshinobu]

By the way, I am using Algae Remover from Ista from Tzong Yang, a Taiwanese company. It says if used daily for 15 days should remove blue green algae. I was using this product before when all the fishes died. The day before I was putting in this Algae remover and flourish. I dont know if some chemical reaction happened and killed all the fishes so I stopped everything.

[Urban Aquaria]

You mean stop fertilizing for 3 weeks when using Blue Exit? Is this correct?

As for Ammonia spikes, can this kept under control by having some 100+- gr of Seachem Purigen in the filter?

Well, if it takes 3 weeks to clear the BGA from your tank, then you probably have a really terrible infestation, which probably indicates something already super imbalanced in the tank... i think it'll be more important to clear the BGA first and reduce the variables, rather than still try to do multiple other things.

I guess you could still do EI dosing during such treatments, just have to observe and see the effects.

Purigen could help to reduce the build up of organic compounds from decomposing matter, it really depends on the extend of the BGA infestation.

[Urban Aquaria]

By the way, I am using Algae Remover from Ista from Tzong Yang, a Taiwanese company. It says if used daily for 15 days should remove blue green algae. I was using this product before when all the fishes died. The day before I was putting in this Algae remover and flourish. I dont know if some chemical reaction happened and killed all the fishes so I stopped everything.

Yeah, thats the thing about dosing different chemical treatments, additives and fertilizers together... we don't know how they could react when mixed, so its usually better to only add the treatment on its own during the treatment process. At least if anything happens we know its due to the treatment only, not due to an unknown mix reaction.