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Ultra life Blue green slime remover

Ash J

Member
Joined
22 Nov 2021
Messages
65
Location
Nottinghamshire
Morning all,

Has anyone used the above to get rid of BGA? If so did it have any ill effect on plants/tank inhabitants.
The BGA on my hardscape is just so recurrent, I'm not sure if this is down to the river wood still breaking down and leeching a tonne of organics but the wood is quite soft on the surface. I'm removing as much as I can and have even tried dosing easycarbo on to it but it still comes back after a few days.

Cheerss

Ash
 
I've used it, and it did make an impression on the blue green menace, but it has always come back :bawling::bawling::bawling::bawling: @Hanuman has recomended Chemiclean, but I've checked and it's no longer available in the UK :bawling::bawling::bawling::bawling::bawling:. I looked around a few other fora, and BlueLife Red Cyano RX has been strongly recommended in REEF aquaria.with people saying it works. Another bunch of searching and I found that they have a product for freshwater aquaria (Blue Life Green Cyano RX), so I decided to put an order in for it, just waiting for delivery ... In the meantime, more frequent water changes manually removing as much as I can, making sure nutrient levels don't fall too low. I'm also going to spot treat the substrate with 3% hydrogen peroxide, and then give it a good clean / stir, as part of the WC's
 
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None, absolutely none of the product you will put in your tank to remove BGA will ever eradicate BGA permanently. BGA is a bacteria, contrary to what the acronym implies. Even under laboratory conditions these products couldn't remove 100% of the bacteria, so you can imagine that in a tank that will never happen. Even if you did contamination is just so easy. BGA is basically in any tools you used in the tank. It comes in the water, in the hardscape, in the plants.
 
Hi @Hanuman & Everyone,

Yes, Cyanobacteria (aka BGA) is not easy to eliminate from our tanks but it can be done. And I have a tank sitting alongside me right now in which I have no visible Cyano. Ever since I started investigating this Blue-Green Menace two years ago, I have continued to explore what makes Cyano seemingly bulletproof. I will put together a summary of my findings. But, that could take a few weeks. I did make a start on this back in January of this year - so, please don't hold your breath!

JPC
 
Yes, Cyanobacteria (aka BGA) is not easy to eliminate from our tanks but it can be done. And I have a tank sitting alongside me right now in which I have no visible Cyano. Ever since I started investigating this Blue-Green Menace two years ago, I have continued to explore what makes Cyano seemingly bulletproof. I will put together a summary of my findings. But, that could take a few weeks. I did make a start on this back in January of this year - so, please don't hold your breath!
Most BGA treatments are antibiotics. We know that bacteria usually become resistant to antibiotic with time. Cyano is no exception.
Having no visible cyano bacteria doesn't mean it is not present. I would bet you still have it, but it has not expressed itself due to unfavorable conditions to its proliferation.

Here is a study that was done on the <Toxic Effects of ALGEXIT and BLUE EXIT agents on aquatic organisms>.
Results show that the "Percentage cell inhibition of Anabaena sp. in 96 hours with ALGEXIT in concentration 0.1ml.l-1 was 43.53% and with BLUE EXIT in concentration 0.125 ml.l-1 was 90.64%.". This means bacteria has not been fully eradicated. This was done in lab condition in Erlenmayers flasks etc etc.

My tanks are usually free of BGA, but when the hot season arrives I can see it creeping between the glass and the substrate on some spots. It will rarely go beyond that due to all conditions not being favorable for its development, but temperature alone can give a kick start. Once the hot season is gone, BGA disappears.
 
Yes i used it with great success a few years ago, no ill effects that i could see, after some research indicated low Nitrate might be a potentail cause of BGA i then started to add 10% tapwater to my rain water, the problem hasn't returned since.
 
Try Flucanazole. I’ve never used it in that application but I used it in a reef tank to kill bryopsis (which is the devil).
I never got any form of algae again after that (coincidence maybe).

It shouldn’t harm anything in your tank (shouldn’t).

Might be worth a shot.
 
after some research indicated low Nitrate might be a potentail cause of BGA
Clive would also agree with this - Cyanobacteria

My experiences with it also corroborates this. I've only had small patches/sheets of cyano show up on the glass occasionally in my main tank, and I remember being sure that it wasn't a nitrate issue because my nitrates would frequently test at 40+ ppm via the API test kit. I then read a post by Clive basically saying the test kits are trash and that the presence of cyano nearly always indicates a nitrate deficiency, and to go ahead and just dose more KNO3 despite what the test kit says. I did this, and low and behold, the cyano went away.

Not saying this is the case every time, just that this is my experience with it personally.
 
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Most BGA treatments are antibiotics. We know that bacteria usually become resistant to antibiotic with time. Cyano is no exception.
Hi @Hanuman

In the UK, sale of antibiotics is illegal without a veterinarian's prescription.

Here is a study that was done on the <Toxic Effects of ALGEXIT and BLUE EXIT agents on aquatic organisms>.
Results show that the "Percentage cell inhibition of Anabaena sp. in 96 hours with ALGEXIT in concentration 0.1ml.l-1 was 43.53% and with BLUE EXIT in concentration 0.125 ml.l-1 was 90.64%.". This means bacteria has not been fully eradicated. This was done in lab condition in Erlenmayers flasks etc etc

In my tank (and Tom Barr's customers' tanks), we are not seeing Anabaena. Instead, it's a different Genus of Cyano known as Oscillatoria.
...after some research indicated low Nitrate might be a potentail cause of BGA...

Hi @tigertim

It's not so much the nitrate itself but the ratio of nitrate to phosphate that may contribute to growth of Cyano.

JPC
 
It's not so much the nitrate itself but the ratio of nitrate to phosphate that may contribute to growth of Cyano.
Hi @jaypeecee - Could you please explain this a little further? I'm interested in understanding this more. How does an out of whack ratio of nitrate to phosphate lead to cyano growth?
 
Hi @jaypeecee - Could you please explain this a little further? I'm interested in understanding this more. How does an out of whack ratio of nitrate to phosphate lead to cyano growth?
Hi @Zaiox

The following document will provide some information on this topic. It's not ideal because it deals with Microcystis Aeruginosa but it will get you started:


All the best,

JPC
 
Thanks for this, very interesting read! I wonder if this implies that certain cases of cyano in a planted tank could be fixed by reducing the phosphate levels, rather than boosting the nitrate (such as in cases of high levels of phosphate from tap water). I guess additional complications are that there are a lot of different things going on in a planted tank, it seems quite easy to mess up the balance :lol:
 
In my tank (and Tom Barr's customers' tanks), we are not seeing Anabaena. Instead, it's a different Genus of Cyano known as Oscillatoria.
Erythromycin is what most of these products are composed of and we know for a fact that many bacteria are already resistant to it. Chemiclean is actually made of erythromycine sulfate and I would speculate that most BGA treatments have similar composition. APT Fix is something different but they do claim it to treat cyanobacteria as well.

There is a multitude of cyanobacteria strains. Even if that study focused on Anabaena and not Oscillatoria, the only way to know if a bacteria is completely eradicated is by testing the substrate with a lab test. Even after an antibiotic treatment, bacteria can survive as spores, which are dormant structures which allows the bacteria to survive the most adverse conditions but I would highly doubt that an antibiotic treatment in a tank would be able to even kill 100% of metabolically active cyanobacteria considering all the crannies, the substrate, the wood etc etc.

Regardless of the above, what matters at the end of the day is that you don't see the bacteria anymore. Whether it is not visible to the naked eye or totally eradicated is in fact irrelevant because as long as you don't see it all is good. 🤝👍
 
Another aspect which I think is often overlooked is that different colonies of bacteria often inhibit each other so going for diversity can be an effective long term controlas all medication does is reset the environment and bacteria will come back.

I've tried introducing bacteria from taking rocks and water from rivers and streams outside, other people's tanks etc.

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk
 
I'm learning to live with the odd Cyano outbreak now as it's never in my planted tanks but the temperate ones with ironically lots of flow and does coincide with the rise in ambient temperatures.
One thing I have noticed is that it is significantly worse in the tank which has JBL Sansibar dark substrate and I will be changing that out as it's truly awful sand anyway.
 
I'm learning to live with the odd Cyano outbreak now as it's never in my planted tanks but the temperate ones with ironically lots of flow and does coincide with the rise in ambient temperatures.
One thing I have noticed is that it is significantly worse in the tank which has JBL Sansibar dark substrate and I will be changing that out as it's truly awful sand anyway.
Same here. It's the temperature that usually kickstarts them. I used to add some hydrogen peroxyde between the glass and the substrate for those small patches but don't do it anymore as hydrogen peroxyde is so strong that is decomposed the substrate into dust.
 
Regardless of the above, what matters at the end of the day is that you don't see the bacteria anymore. Whether it is not visible to the naked eye or totally eradicated is in fact irrelevant because as long as you don't see it all is good.
Hi @Hanuman

I think we'd all agree with that - out of sight, out of mind.

JPC
 
Thanks all for your contributions. It's really appreciated.

I was away from home over the weekend, prior to leaving I did a 50% wc before I left and siphoned alot of the BGA up, I also reduced the lighting intensity down by about 10%. BGA is worse on return than it was before I did the w/c.
Reading the comments re phosphates/nitrates. I don't use RO water, my tap water contains about 5ppm of nitrates. I dose standard micro/ macro EI mixture at 30 ml per day. Tank reads at roughly 15ppm of nitrates. I'm concerned this is possibly too low? Should I increase my EI macro dosing or add more KNO3 to the mixture?

Cheers
Ash
 
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