Hi,
Couple of months ago I got hit by BBA after running a great planted tank for almost a year. No idea what caused it and after months of unsuccessful battles I decided to go unplanted since I had had enough.
Since I had always wanted a white sand to reflect with my disucs, I also decided to take off all the substrate which I had in the tank and replace this with nice white sand. I removed reflectors, cut down on the light period, removed co2 the works. It's just the discus, a couple of pieces of wood the white sand and some vals which I have planted at the back. I used to dose PPM and reduced this to only one dose once a week for the vals.
It seems that the problem was gone.... I recently had a discussion with one of our local LFS and he said that the BBA could have been caused by the very iron rich substrate which I had used and this together with co2, t5 lights, daily ppm dosing etc could have triggered the outbreak.
To tell you the truth, I really prefer a planted tank so full of hope I went home and decided to start an experiment which consists of slowly reintroducing the setup as it was...... without the substrate!
For the past two weeks I have cranked up the lights again. No co2, ferts still only once a week. To date no BBA... I am planning to go another week as is and then the next step would be to add co2 and run another test perido of three weeks following which the reintroduction of PPM would resume.
My question is this: could it be that the substrate, which is supposedly one of the best on the market, did indeed trigger the BBA due to the high iron content or is it only a matter of time before the BBA returns?
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply.
Michael
Couple of months ago I got hit by BBA after running a great planted tank for almost a year. No idea what caused it and after months of unsuccessful battles I decided to go unplanted since I had had enough.
Since I had always wanted a white sand to reflect with my disucs, I also decided to take off all the substrate which I had in the tank and replace this with nice white sand. I removed reflectors, cut down on the light period, removed co2 the works. It's just the discus, a couple of pieces of wood the white sand and some vals which I have planted at the back. I used to dose PPM and reduced this to only one dose once a week for the vals.
It seems that the problem was gone.... I recently had a discussion with one of our local LFS and he said that the BBA could have been caused by the very iron rich substrate which I had used and this together with co2, t5 lights, daily ppm dosing etc could have triggered the outbreak.
To tell you the truth, I really prefer a planted tank so full of hope I went home and decided to start an experiment which consists of slowly reintroducing the setup as it was...... without the substrate!
For the past two weeks I have cranked up the lights again. No co2, ferts still only once a week. To date no BBA... I am planning to go another week as is and then the next step would be to add co2 and run another test perido of three weeks following which the reintroduction of PPM would resume.
My question is this: could it be that the substrate, which is supposedly one of the best on the market, did indeed trigger the BBA due to the high iron content or is it only a matter of time before the BBA returns?
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply.
Michael