BGA

[xter]

fellow aquarists, heard that erythromycin is able to kill off BGA.
anyone knows where can i obtain this antibiotic?

http://www.myfishtank.net/articles/bga.php

or anyone knows the permanent cure for BGA.
also heard that there's another brand xxx-90 that are able to remove this...

any ideas?

[Vican]

Erythromycin is a common anti-biotic that you can get from your Doctor.
Not too sure about the dosing though

[juggler]

There's some discussion on BGA in this thread and the dosing.

Search the forum for more on "Erythromycin".

[Allen_1971]

Be careful with the use of antibiotics though, as too much Erytromycin will also wipe out your bacteria colony.

[Allen_1971]

Just to add, that I had an outbreak of BGA during the time when my tank was severely neglected... My filter flow was slow, and my plants basically had only the substrate to draw on as I wasn't adding liquid ferts.

When I started to clean up my tank, I basically snipped off the plants which were affected, did water changes, cleared my filter, and started my normal fert regime. Interestingly, the problem went away, and I have not seen any BGA in my tank since... thats been about 3 months ago.

[xter]

i had tried to get it from pharmacist but was told that need doc prescription.
saw the tread mentioning "Wong Loy Kee", where is that?

thanks for the advice in advance.

[juggler]

----------------
On 12/17/2002 9:41:15 AM

Be careful with the use of antibiotics though, as too much Erytromycin will also wipe out your bacteria colony.
----------------

Previous discussion thread tries to clear the above mis-conception.
Read this too http://www.myfishtank.net/articles/bga.php

[Allen_1971]

KF,

I'm aware of the controversy surrounding the use of erythromycin and our filter bacteria. But as the above link mentioned, even BGA is gram (-). So how can we say for certain that our bacteria colony which is also gram (-) is 100% unaffected (Short of some scientific monitoring)? Even the article you quoted says

"Fortunately, the bacteria important for the nitrogen cycle (your biofilter) are of the G(-) type and are much less sensitive to erythromycin than the blue-green bacteria. So your biological filter is "fairly" safe." (bolding mine)

I would guage that the use of erytromycin to be fairly safe, but as I mentioned earlier, "too much" could be detrimental... So until I see conclusive scientific data (which there may be... I just haven't seen it []), I'll stick to the "play it safe" stand. i.e. Use it if you need, but use in moderation.

[juggler]

Allen: OK, I'll buy that.