jschall

First off, let me describe my algae so that we can establish that it is in fact BBA:
Dark green, 1/4" tufts of fine fuzz growing on leaf edges and driftwood. Definitely BBA, right?

Alright, so I turned off my lights and filters, took a syringe of hydrogen peroxide, applied it directly to a patch of BBA. Very few, if any, bubbles. Applied more to some on the driftwood. The driftwood fizzed like nuts, but the algae itself didn't.
So, I went out and bought new hydrogen peroxide, expiration 11/13. Same thing, more but not a lot of bubbling.
I took a container, filled it with slightly warm water, dumped most of the new bottle of h2o2 in (this is a 32oz bottle, I probably dumped 20oz of h2o2 in there), put in my bba-infested bolbitis and left it for 2 minutes.

It's been a couple days since I did that. I've continued to turn off the filters and lights and apply h2o2 with a syringe every night. The BBA has a tiny bit of a whitish sickly look to it now, but it's still VERY strong and will not come off.

What's up? What do I need to do to kill this ****?


By the way, as far as preventing more from growing, so far I've dosed some KNO3 and switched to a siesta photoperiod (5on 2off 5on 12off). This tank has 64w of T8. Normally I don't put anything but seachem flourish in this tank. I had previously noticed one of my anubias put out a tiny yellow leaf, which I looked up and found it was a symptom of nitrogen deficiency. So, I dosed the KNO3, and hopefully it'll get the plants uptaking more phosphate.

jschall

Oh, and no excel unless things get really out of hand. I have vals in this tank that I want to keep.

ecotanker

I read somewhere either on this forum or another that the lights need to be on to activate the H202 reaction. Hope this helps.

niko

BBA comes in lots of different flavors or if you prefer to call them that way - states of mind.

Some BBA is easily killed with Excel or H202. Some (although looking the same) is very tough to kill. To get an idea how hard get this - I've taken pebbles with BBA on them out of the tank, placed them in a cup, treated them as described and returned back to the tank to see what happens. First I poured boiling water over them. Nothing. Next experiment - poured saturated table salt solution. Nothing. Filled the cup with about 10% by volume Excel. Nothing.

So from that strange experiment you can conclude that you don't how how hard it will be to kill your BBA. It maybe just a question of spot treating with Excel for 1-2 days. Or using a 1/2 gal. bottle and not seeing much improvement.

Chemical warfare is wrong. If you have let your tank develop BBA then something is wrong with it and it's not the lack of H202, Excel or a weekly nuclear explosion that keeps all algae at bay.

You have somehow let organics accumulate in the water. No way to say how. So don't worry about the reasons, but about how to solve the problem.

Here's a funny thing about your post - you do not mention any extra water changes.

I'd start with that first. Or in your case - along with the H202 treatment. BBA could care less about light so don't play with your light schedule. Feed the fish less. Make sure you see and love to hate any tiny particle that you see floating free in the water - that's an indicator that the water is not almost void of organics. And that BBA has a buffet set-up to eat and grow healthy.

--Nikolay

BJRuttenberg

Im sorry to hear about you problem. BBA is a common problem and though not easily treatable, it *IS* treatable, so don't panic. Amano shrimp or Flourish Excel - not both at the same time - are in my experience the best ways to treat BBA. BE WARNED: The excel will kill the shrimp.

But I would suggest a multi-pronged attack here. First do a big 50% water change. Start spot treating the BBA (to the extent that you can) for a week or so, then do another large H2O change and add some Amano shrimp. The shrimp do a GREAT job of keeping this stuff at bay - they are prodigious algae eaters. Good Luck!

jschall

I really don't want to have to prune my plants, because they're very slow growing (bolbitis), so I really need a way to actually remove it/kill it. If necessary, I'll take the plants off the driftwood and do a chlorine bleach dip.

I'm very well aware that I can't eliminate algae completely with hydrogen peroxide. I need to remove the current algae as well as prevent more.
I'm looking for suggestions as to how to kill what's already there, not to be scolded for letting it grow in the first place. I'm also open to suggestions as far as prevention, although as noted in my first post in the thread, I've already taken some steps.

Organics accumulate in organic systems. I do a 50% WC every week, so they should be fairly minimal.

Again, I do 50% a week and I've been fighting this on and off for a while.

The light schedule I switched to isn't about light, it's about CO2. It gives the tank a break halfway through so that CO2 can build back up.
I feed my fish pretty minimally, but pretty minimally is quite a bit when you're keeping larger fish.

So, I should melt my vallisneria with excel and then feed my bichirs (big carnivorous fish, for the uninitiated) a delicious, expensive shrimp dinner? I somehow don't think that will help much.

I may end up having to dip the affected plants in a chlorine bleach solution, but I hope I don't.

niko

Ah, that's a non-CO2 tank if your bolbitis grows slowly. In a CO2-supplied tank the bolbitis goes crazy.

In a non-CO2 supplied tank fighting algae is a matter of patience. Maybe even months of it.

Don't get confused about the tone of my post. It's not meant to make you feel like you don't know anything or don't do the right thing. It's written in a way to make you think twice about the things you do already.

Like the 50% weekly water change. It should take care of organics but it does not.

Next good question is "What's your filtration like?"

--Nikolay

jschall

Can algae process organics? I thought they only processed inorganic macronutrients.
Filtration is an emperor 400 (400gph) and a cascade 1000 (265gph if I recall correctly, but it's only running at like 150 because my UV sterilizer is restricting it quite a lot).

Interestingly enough, the BBA was only really growing strongly on that one plant. Today, I checked underneath the light above it and there was a paper towel sitting on the lens! Dunno how that got there. So, it wasn't getting nearly as much light as the rest of the tank. The bolbitis on the other end of the tank has zero bba on it.

The bolbitis is now dying because of the H2O2. The BBA is NOT. Large translucent yellow patches are appearing on the leaves where it was treated. Do I need to trim this off or will it repair itself?

I somehow don't think the BBA will go away by itself. Will it actually die off in unfavorable conditions, or do I have to trim or bleach it off?
Will a chlorine bleach dip completely kill the plant? Anyone have experience with bleach dipping bolbitis?

jschall

The other thing about this particular bolbitis is that I moved it and accidentally broke it off its driftwood a while back. Might've stressed it out and weakened it.

Right now, looking at how much damage I did with the H2O2 - I'm considering removing most of the leaves from the rhizome and letting it grow new ones. Thoughts?

jschall

Well, I just went ahead and trimmed about 8 months worth of growth off of the plant.