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BBA, what should I do next

Joined
20 Dec 2019
Messages
610
Location
South Carolina
My tank crashed a while ago due to my own negligence with lack of maintenance and a build up of organics. I was so frustrated with the ugly buildup of driftwood fungus and plants melting that I just kind of gave up. This resulted in lots of die off from plants and buildup. I am using AS Amazonia II with MTS that is capped by SafeTSorb. I know, strange but I didn’t want to buy more AS so I went the cheaper route. Anyway, it seems now the substrate has stopped bleeding ammonia and I no longer have diatoms either. I have very low plant mass, just some remaining Pygmy chain sword, a lone green crypt, and some star repens. My main piece of driftwood has BBA spores through the branch’s sections. They are small and have not turned into the thick tufts you normally see. A few spots that I did notice the thicker version I have almost eradicated with excel/h202. My question now is if I replant my tank very heavily, as in no visible substrate and as many epiphytes as I can afford, will this beat back the remaining BBA I have with good CO2? Any help or experience with this would be great. This tank is becoming more of a chore than a pleasure unfortunately. I do not have any tank parameters to report other than that I have alkaline water and tank has been running since Valentine’s Day.
 
Well, the lack of replies indicates what a tough problem BBA can be!

In answer to the question of planting heavily, I’d say yes: more plant mass is never a bad thing in the fight against algae of any type.
 
My question now is if I replant my tank very heavily, as in no visible substrate and as many epiphytes as I can afford, will this beat back the remaining BBA I have with good CO2?
Yes.
If cost is an issue (isn't it always?) concentrate on fast-growing plants as they will be more helpful. A lot of 'epiphytes' are quite slow-growing. You can add them later to complete the look you want. As for the substrate plants, I would get lots of cheap stems first and get the tank balanced. Then you can gradually add the plants you really want. A cost-effective solution is a big bunch of Elodea, (sold for garden ponds in the UK, don't know about SC) and it's a great help in the short term. You can gradually replace it with other plants later. Floating plants are also good, Indian Fern is my favourite, but others are good, Frogbit is many people's favourite.
hth
 
Don’t forget to scrub the existing BBA off your hard scape first...

There is a huge amount of discussion about BBA here on UKAPS. I suggest you start by skimming through the posts on this thread:

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/what-exactly-causes-bba.36674/

Warning: it's 28 pages long and I seem to recall that there is a Part 2 as well.

I so wish you hand’t directed me to that thread.

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