[thefishmanlives]

I accidently left the AC off in my apartment over night (which I never do) and up in NJ we are having a heat wave, it was 98 today. the tank went up to 87 degress and it appears that the little bit of BBA that I had exploded with growth. is this normal when a tank gets to hot? I quickly cranked up my ac so the temps are down now but Im trying to figure out my enx tcourse of action. I turned off one of hte 2 fixtures I have on the tnk, and am thinking I will drain the tank down to about only 20% left exposing most of hte plants with BBa and spot dosing flourish excel right on them. I upped my co2 a bit (even though I run 30ppm + with a drop checker). Is there anything I can put in the tank to eliminate some of the BBA and little bit of hair algae. (its not that much but just enough to be annoying) I am going to trim off as much of the leaves and stems I have thats affected). Even if its temporary. Do cherry chrimp eat BBa? I know flag fish eat some hair algae. I was thiking of adding a a few flags and maybe an army of shrimp. Its a species tank with Tiger barbs (they are still small though only about an inch) and a couple ottos. I dont care if I lost some of the shrimp to the barbs, so long as they had a few days to do there jobs( the plants are the top priority in my tank). Is it worth it? any other thoughts??

 

[ngb2322]

use erythromicin to get rid of the BGA, it will kill it in only a few days....i'm not aware of anything that eats BGA

 

[bgzbgz]

He said bba not bga lol. Excel is the best way to kill bba you just have to use enouph and give it time. I think the tiger barbs can take it, I dont know about shrimp though.

 

[mikenas102]

I have Amano and Cherry Shrimp and have never seen either of them touch BBA.

 

[Tex Gal]

My amanos eat it when it's dead. So do mollies and ottos. Just use a syringe or medicine dropper (you can get big ones up to 5ml at drug store for baby dosing). Spot treat with the normal beginning dose each day, choosing a different area. It will KILL the aread you dose in 1 application. If you have fast current turn it off for about 15 mins. I did my entire 125g tank that I just changed substrate in. Worked like magic!

 

[Red_Rose]

I had BBA in my tank but it wasn't the long, bushy type. I did a search on it and this is what mine looked like. My Zebra nerites were very quick to eat it up. Below are two pictures of a cave decoration in my betta's tank. The first one is before and the second, after. Just click on the images to enlarge them. Please excuse the moss. I trimmed it up after I took the pictures.

 

[thefishmanlives]

maybe ill try a few nerites. I have a 2.5" clown loach, do you think he will take them out before they can do the job? Ill try spot dosing with a syringe and medical needle. I have a couple body builder bodies who should have some of those laying around :heh:

 

[MatPat]

In my experience, fish, shrimp, or snails do very little to eliminate algae once it has gotten a foothold in a tank. With the exception of Amano shrimp, I have seen very little algae eating by the shrimp in my tanks. It seems most shrimp pick at the algae in search of the microorganisms that live on the algae and not the algae itself.

I have had CAEs in the past. They will do a good job in the beginning until they get a taste for fish food then seem to stop eating the algae. I have even had them pick at various thin leaved plants like mosses or Rotala sp. 'Vietnam', instead of the algae. I assume this is the case for other "algae eating" fish as well. I suppose if you keep the fish or shrimp very hungry they will go in search of algae.

As a result of my experiences, I decided to focus on eliminating the cause of algae (low nutrients, including CO2) versus trying to correct the situation with some type of "algae eater".

 

[Red_Rose]

maybe ill try a few nerites. I have a 2.5" clown loach, do you think he will take them out before they can do the job? Ill try spot dosing with a syringe and medical needle. I have a couple body builder bodies who should have some of those laying around :heh:

You might want to stick with shrimp or try eliminating the cause of the algae like MatPat suggested. Clown loaches will end up eating the snails and most people don't want to pay for what can be a fairly pricy snail just so it can be eaten especially since most people have to buy these types of snails online.

In my experience, fish, shrimp, or snails do very little to eliminate algae once it has gotten a foothold in a tank.

I'm sorry that you haven't had a good experience with getting rid of algae with the algae eaters that you mentioned above.

I had green spot algae, BBA, diatoms and fuzz algae and my nerites were able to clean it right up. My tank is now algae free and I certainly wouldn't mind if some started to form again for them because it would be a good food source for them.

 

[Tex Gal]

Not to beat a dead horse here:deadhorse. but I just had my ENTIRE tank cleaned with spot treating with excell. You need to use big medicine dropper you can get at drug store for dosing babies. It comes in 5 ml size. You need that much and it comes out in large enough quantity to surround the algae. They may cost $2. The algae died and the ottos, amano shrimp and mollies ATE IT ALL, once it was dead! I watched them all eat it. I can't believe I have different amanos that everyone else. I will say that I DID NOT FEED ANYONE for a week. I made them eat the algae. Since I didn't have other fish in there it worked great.

.... and the clowns will get the snails!! "We don't eat family members!" :mrgreen:[smilie=b: