Bba?

[Protint]

After a search I think I have narrowed it down to BBA. It shows up as little black tuffs of hair all over my Swords.

I haven't been able to find any info on how to get rid of it.

I did a three day black out with great success to get rid of a really bad case of BGA. There were small amounts of BBA in the tank during and after the three day blackout.

I think I read that raising the C02 will help. Right now my C02 is maxed out.

 

[Wö£fëñxXx]

Re: Bba?

Increasing the C02 content in the water will help, along with consistant nutrient's, and more NFO...
What is the tank size?
Type of C02? DIY or Pressurized?
lighting? nutrients? filter type? (HOB, canister) reactor? diffuser? etc etc etc.

 

[Protint]

Re: Bba?

DOH Im sorry I guess that would help.

Tank 200G
Pressurized C02 10lb.
Reactor 200/milwakee PH controller (large enough reactor?)
Hamilton 3-175w MH
2-96w PC
Ocean Clear Canister with Little Giant 1200 GPH pump
Substrate- flourite topped with play sand.

Every Saturday I do a 50% water change

I dose KNO3, KH2P04 Sat, Mon, Wed along with 1/4 tsp K2S04 (dry)
On Sun, Tues, Thurs I dose 1 oz. of CSM-B (liquid) I mix 1tbls with 250ml of water and keep it in an old black seachem bottle in the fridge.

I am at work now so I will have to post water parameters later.


Thanks for your help Craig

Duane

 

[Ian H]

Re: Bba?

I had a problem with BBA a few weeks back. It grew mainly on the edges of my sword plant, and was well covering my bogwood, there were small outcrops on some of the in-tank equipment also.

I pulled off the bits from the edges of the sword, the leaves that were too badly affected I pruned off. The equipment was either scrubbed clean or removed and bleached. The bogwood was removed together with the badly infested anubias nana and treated to a 2 1/2 minute immersion in a 20% bleach solution, being thoroughly cleared of any bleach residue.

The anubias has never looked better, after removing the fur coat it leapt into vigorous growth. No negative after effects from the bleaching at all. The bogwood has remained algae free after about a month. I was worried initially as the dead BBA turned quite white but all traces of this were gone in 36 hours.

Ian

 

[Wö£fëñxXx]

Re: Bba?

How much KN03, KH2P04, Trace are you dosing these three days a week?
I have not had the pleasure of working with an 200gal tank, but I would suspect at least 1 to 2Tsp of KN03 3x a week...depending on how much you feed, plant mass etc..
I'm curious as to hear what you're parameters are..
As with any algae I have found its growth to be inspired by a lack of nutrients for the plants, in the water column, along with insufficent C02 content for amount of light being used.

What do you mean by you're C02 being maxed out?

 

[Tom Barr]

Re: Bba?

Tank 200G
Pressurized C02 10lb.
Reactor 200/milwakee PH controller (large enough reactor?)
Hamilton 3-175w MH
2-96w PC
Ocean Clear Canister with Little Giant 1200 GPH pump
Substrate- flourite topped with play sand.

Every Saturday I do a 50% water change

I dose KNO3, KH2P04 Sat, Mon, Wed along with 1/4 tsp K2S04 (dry)
On Sun, Tues, Thurs I dose 1 oz. of CSM-B (liquid) I mix 1tbls with 250ml of water and keep it in an old black seachem bottle in the fridge.

I am at work now so I will have to post water parameters later.


Thanks for your help Craig

Duane

CO2.

Try turning the CO2 on about 1/2 before the lights come on and off 1/2 hour before the lights go off.

You likely need a better reactor and good mixing.
Some surface movement will help the fish and allow you more CO2 addition.

BBA is directly related to CO2 variation.
You cannot induce it with PO4/NO3 etc(high or low).

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[defdac]

Re: Bba?

Try turning the CO2 on about 1/2 before the lights come on

This I understand..

and off 1/2 hour before the lights go off.

But this is harder to understand. Is it to reduce the CO2-levels before lights out so there will be no CO2-leftovers for less light requring algae?

 

[DavidR]

Re: Bba?

defdac,

I think it's so the rest of the CO2 will run out of the lines...as well as allowing the fish to breath a little easier at night.

*****

I just won a battle with BBA in one of my tanks. It was pretty hairy for a while, then I started to get it under control. Went out of town & CO2 bottle ran out and resulted in a massive explosion of BBA. Got it refilled, well sort of. They didn't fill it up all the way. Ran out of CO2 1 week later (grrr) and got some more BBA. Finally got it back up and going steady, and BBA stopped spreading. You can prune away all the BBA infected leaves all you want, but if it's still in the tank, it's very difficult to get it to totally disappear. I also enlisted some hungry SAE's to work on it as well (they did a fantastic job on my hairgrass, but not much of anything else).

Yesterday, I pulled all of my plants out, pruned off all old leaves, vacuumed the substrate (Flourite) really well, removed some, & capped the rest with 4 bags of Onyx, and replanted. Currently, there's still some BBA on the equipment, but I'll get that today. Other than that, everything is pristine...for now.

In summary, Tom is right--having enough CO2 and keeping it rock steady is the key to prevent and beat BBA.

 

[Protint]

Re: Bba?

Craig what I meant about C02 maxed out is that no matter how much many bpm out of the regulator I can't seem to get my C02 over 30ppm. I suspect that the reactor isn't big enough and was going to put in a larger inline reactor instead of the one I have.

I dose 1tsp each of KNO3 and KH2P04 three times a week.

Try turning the CO2 on about 1/2 before the lights come on and off 1/2 hour before the lights go off.

Tom my C02 is on 24/7.

I haven't had a chance between my two full time jobs to do a water test. Hopefully I can get it done tonight when I get home.

 

[Protint]

Re: Bba?

Ok I have got my stuff together and have my water parameters.

KH 12-14 dh (color is kinda hard to read)
GH 3 dh
Co2 30ppm
PH 7.5

I can't seem to get my Co2 over 30 ppm. I am thinking it is because the my reactor isn't big enough. It is a reactor 200 that I bought from floridadrifwood. I clean the sponge out once a week and have the C02 coming out at over 120bpm. No matter how much C02 I pump I can never get over 30ppm.
I think that I need a bigger (inline) reactor? Can I run two reactors T'd off the regulator? Would that make a difference?

Thanks for the Help everyone.


Duane

 

[Wö£fëñxXx]

Re: Bba?

Hello Duane

Build a better reactor, such as something simular to this...
Or reduce the lighting a bit, or both for awhile.
http://www.aquaticscape.com/articles/co2reactor.htm

 

[Protint]

Re: Bba?

Thanks Craig. Thats the one I was looking at.

 

[Protint]

Re: Bba?

Haven't upgraded the reactor yet. I turned off my PC lights (now 2.5 W/gal) and kept up the doseing and C02 and all the BBA is almost gone.

 

[Tom Barr]

Re: Bba?

Well, now you know it's the CO2........

Regards,
Tom Barr