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Cyanobacteria on Wabi kusa

Halley

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6 May 2015
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385
Does anyone know how to get rid of Cyanobacteria on wabi kusas? It is killing my moss.


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Why NO3 - that’s nitrate is it?


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Why NO3 - that’s nitrate is it?
Yes. Cyanobacteria is often bought on by low nitrates. Adding nitrate directly to the affected areas is very effective at killing it without harmful side effects to plants and fish.

Best method is manually remove as much as possible (tooth brush is useful) and cover tank with blankets, no lights, no feeding fish for 3-4 days. Plants and fish will survive fine, but algae (and cyanobacteria) won't.

Troublesome spots can be treated directly using a pipette with Excel (liquid carbon) or hydrogen peroxide. Be careful with hydrogen peroxide and moss.

Then treat the cause, namely low nitrates and high light tank.
 
It’s for a wabi kusa


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@Halley did you have any success? Got same problem...
 
Cyanobacteria

Is a biofilm that thrives on dead and moist organic material.. Remove it, or if you leave it, it just will be back no matter the treatment. Treatment might kill it, but as long the dead stuff remains it'll be a future nutritious substrate for it to reappear. Replace the dead material with living tissue.
:thumbup:

Maybe you just keep it too wet.. Depending on the plant sp. in it, slowly addapt the wabi kusa to lower humidity definitively helps. If it is in a hooded setup, air moisture still can be over 90% without soaking wet substrate.. So rethink your watering scheme.. :)
 
Thanks @zozo i have thought maybe I'm keeping it too wet. All other plants are thriving, just the cyano is too!

I'll try slowing uncovering it, main concern is java fern drying out. I'll probably have to raise the light too to prevent heat damage (plants currently protected by clear acrylic tank cover).

k
 
Java fern really doesn't do well in low humidity, what about putting a few vent holes in the cover? the java fern just won't deal with the humidity % of your house.
 
Is a biofilm that thrives on dead and moist organic material.. Remove it, or if you leave it, it just will be back no matter the treatment.

You know, that's what I used to think as well until I had an outbreak in a brand new tank that had almost no substrate, no build up of any organic matter at all besides what was in the cycled filter. I had dosed with ridiculous amounts of ferts upon set up to get the plants going before the cyano. There was just snails and shrimp inside...Part of the ferts was large amount of KNO3. So what triggered it for me is unknown. In an aquarium setup ramshorn snails absolutely love cyano! They grew massive and eventually every bit of cyano was gone either by the snails or the changing water conditions.
 
java fern drying out

What was your base material on this? Meaning, did the initial cutting you used for it developed submersed or emersed?..
You know, that's what I used to think as well until I had an outbreak in a brand new tank that had almost no substrate, no build up of any organic matter at all besides what was in the cycled filter. I had dosed with ridiculous amounts of ferts upon set up to get the plants going before the cyano. There was just snails and shrimp inside...Part of the ferts was large amount of KNO3. So what triggered it for me is unknown. In an aquarium setup ramshorn snails absolutely love cyano! They grew massive and eventually every bit of cyano was gone either by the snails or the changing water conditions.

It must live of off something.. And about everything that contains water will develop a biofilm and it doesn't take very long. Not even with clean tapwater only to start with.
I remember this from my early cycling days and my semi transparant drinking bottle on the bike. Having the idea i only put in clean tap water and close it, so why should it it get dirty. Than after days unscrewing the bottle i feel the inside is slippery and covered with a coat of slime.. That was rather a chilly experience discovering i was breeding a rather nice bacterial biofilm in a drinking bottle. Finaly clear to me why i used so little nutribars during my bike trips.. :lol: Na just kidding.. Anyway from that day on i cleaned my water bottle daily, never tried to wait what the biofilm would turn into if you don't clean it out, probably green at one point and maybe blue after that.

If iit grows at the water surface of an aqarium to the glass or other surfaces it usualy begins with a rather transparent bacterial slime coat that can be a substrate of all forms of algae and other bacteria populations working symbiotic with it.. I have actualy no clue what cyanobactaria eat for diner, it might be other bacteria poop or other dying bacteria. I realy don't know. I do read that water with a lot of organic bioload is prone to thrive cyano.. The only place i see it appear in one of my setups growing emersed is in my lit and planted sump. On top of the first acrylic baffle that overflows water.. It grows all kinds of algae also cyano.. Sometimes i spray peroxide on it and it dies, but if i do not remove the slimy gue it's be blue again within a week. I guess killing it and leaving it is just creating a new nutritious substrate to regrow.. :) If i remove it, it takes a bit longer but it always reappears, probably after all it's in a dirt collecting sump filter. And a slime coat helps it to collect dirt..
 
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The java fern was grown emersed, straight from the tropica blister pack. So maybe it will cope ok with less humid conditions.

Difficultly, i've tried for years without succes, even very small baby java in a bed of moist moss. They all just vanished. I remember one Wabi kusa at UKAPS (from dear member Roy aka Greenfinger2 he was our resident wabi kusa master, unfortunately he stopped with this hobby) with a Java fern in it and as far as i know he kept it in a hooded propagator tank, only took it out for taking pictures. So don't be fooled by looking at pics only without it's background info. After he broke this wabi down he did send this java fern to me.. And i killed it.. :rolleyes: With trying to acclimatize it and finaly placing it above an open top tank.

There is one open top Amano scape growing a large Bolbitis fern on top. Reportedly it took many years for this fern to acclimatize to this condition. Till now i've never seen this succesfully with a java fern. But that doesn't mean it's impossible or doesn't excist i don't know i haven't seen it all ofcourse.

But have my doubts, gave up on it and stopped trying myself to make it addapt to livingroom climate.
 
I run very low nitrate tanks - no cyanobacteria ;)
Algae is seldom that simple

Not sure I'd want to stress (dry) the other plants for moss - why not try lifting the (contaminated) moss & replace with moss on stones etc ie something that raises the moss above the damper substrate
Doesn't take much moss to restart

That looks to be a very nice Wabi :)
 
I have actualy no clue what cyanobactaria eat for diner, it might be other bacteria poop or other dying bacteria.

No flow and lots of inorganic ferts in a glass bowl of plants and light. You need to dose as much as to discolor the water to "tannin"/greenish dark hue. I guarantee you'll grow cyano if you leave it long enough without water changes. So yes, in a way "organic matter" will grow cyano but it does not need to be from fish or any critters. It can be from plants and lots of ferts. That's the way I dosed that tank. The water got dark and I didn't do water changes. Thinking back, I did the exact same thing in a glass bowl and the plants got cyano, hence I am suggesting one can reproduce it that way.

Having said that, cyano for me never lasted,..And as I mentioned earlier, ramshorn snails absolutely mop that stuff for breakfast. The only downside is they breed like rabbits on cyano but the strange part is that its the only way they ever bred for me to such extent only in algae ridden tanks. Although they do go for fish food, they seem to be too slow at it and I only ever have a few of them in normal non-algae set ups.
 
Missing water changes or mulmy substrate caused cyano every time i have had it, i would agree about ramshorns, and also physa in my opinion with regards to algae heavy tanks, however my MTS have always been really aggressive on algae wafers unlike the other snail species.
 
Hi all,
I run very low nitrate tanks - no cyanobacteria
Same with me, low nitrates (in fact low everything) but very little cyanobacteria. I originally wrote "no cyanobacteria", but there will always be some.

Have a look at the Lenntech article <"General effects of eutrophication">, it lists a whole range of "algae" that are favoured by differing levels of nutrients. It is originally linked in to <"Does excess P....">.

cheers Darrel
 
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