I'm going to nuke the BBA (kinda non planted)

Detritus Mulm

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Jun 12, 2005
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The GF tank has always had some BBA on the stones and driftwood, but it never really bothered the plants so I did not care. A while back I pulled everything out and nuked it with PP in the bathtub. After I returned the swords they got a serious case of BBA and have practically died; the driftwood is covered again. I have a few floating Swords in there that the algae does not seem to bother. I never did put the stones back. The bubblewall might have made the BBA worse, but the GF love the extra flow. I've tried Excel with no impact, so it's war!!!

I bought some Copper, a test kit and some Copper remover. I'm going to remove the surviving pond snail and kill the evil algae. I've read that .25 ppm of Cupramine for about a month will do the BBA some damage without bothering the filter or inhabitants too much.

The tank has 128W of light on a 75 gallon; although the lights are over a year, so probably less. I add Excel and Traces every week with a 50% water change. Nitrates probably run around 40, but I don't test. I'll likely reduce the light period after I nuke the Algae. Any other thouughts besides CO2. The Excel has had zero impact BTW.
 

Philosophos

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Could you give some details about the light? I'd look into reducing not only photoperiod, but also quantity. Personally I like to keep my non compressed co2 tanks at 1.25wpg or less because I don't particularly like doing DIY CO2; algae is not a problem for me. If the tank is sparsely planted with easy plants, you can probably afford some intensity reduction.

A little more flow probably wouldn't hurt either. What's the filter specs?

-Philosophos
 

Detritus Mulm

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Jun 12, 2005
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Philosophos;42166 said:
Could you give some details about the light? I'd look into reducing not only photoperiod, but also quantity. Personally I like to keep my non compressed co2 tanks at 1.25wpg or less because I don't particularly like doing DIY CO2; algae is not a problem for me. If the tank is sparsely planted with easy plants, you can probably afford some intensity reduction.

A little more flow probably wouldn't hurt either. What's the filter specs?

-Philosophos

I actually wanted to try a Lotus in here, so I need to solve the Algae issues first.

The only plants in the past were Swords, very big very beautiful at one time, now just stubs with the BBA problem. I imagine the Swords were starving the Algae at one time, before the BBA took over. Filter flow is about 350+ gph from two cannisters and the bubble wall is rated at 65 litres per minute of air. Return flow from the filter is via two spraybars at the top of the tank. The light is just 4x32W shop lights.
 

Philosophos

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Nymphea (lotus) are easy plants too; big leaves that don't really block each other like most stems.

Filtration looks decent enough for a sparser tank. I'd say double it if it were something packed out.

Try dropping to 3x32 with 8-10 hours of light and a 2 hour break, then see what happens.

-Philosophos