so my big tank has had a small bit of BBA algae in for a while now. mainly due to the fact i never stooped fiddling. it only seems to be on plants that have been in since it started and on the gravel. so now ive stooped fiddling i want to get rid of it for good. part of the method i want to use is the liquid carbon over dose root. so for it too work effectively how much do i need to use. its a 705l tank so don't want to use to little for a week and waste it. should i start at 2x the dose or should i go 3x there are fish in the tank. i know this has been answered before but i cant seem to find it. and once the algae is gone how ever long that might take, can i just stop using liquid carbon or do i need to wean the tank of it. thanks guys.
-
You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up
BBA and liquid carbon
- Thread starter danmil3s
- Start date
Bobtastic
Member
Dont forget to turn off you filters/power heads whilest OD'ing. This way you can ensure maximum contact of LC and algae.
Also be mindful that some plants, especially some mosses don't like heavy doses of LC.
Also be mindful that some plants, especially some mosses don't like heavy doses of LC.
bigmatt
Member
you can see the bba die off almost immediately - it turns pink! M
bigmatt
Member
That sounds like a good plan. Or can you just skim off the surface layer of substrate and replace it with some new stuff?
M
M
Westyggx
Member
Im having a nightmare with BBA, i put the CO2 up to a higher level as i read this would kill it and it hasnt. I cut all the covered plants up and its now come back stronger than ever, covering my substrate rocks, inlet filter and crypts. Any tips people? Cheers
Hi Wesyyggx
BBA is usually caused by fluctuating CO2.
You will have to carry on with manual removal and possibly the spot dosing EC as well. If all else fails, a 3 day blackout as a last resort.
Try reducing the light while you are battling this pesky stuff, to give yourself half a chance.
Increasing your CO2 will not kill BBA. In fact once you've got it, it will thrive on CO2 and your nutrients. The key is not to get it in the first place. Easier said than done, I know.Westyggx said:
BBA is usually caused by fluctuating CO2.
You will have to carry on with manual removal and possibly the spot dosing EC as well. If all else fails, a 3 day blackout as a last resort.
Try reducing the light while you are battling this pesky stuff, to give yourself half a chance.
Westyggx
Member
CeeJay said:
Hi CeeJay,
I will cut everything down tonight, reduce CO2 and Lighting period. I currently have the lights on for 5 hours a day what should i reducde this too? I am not sure how the CO2 became fluctuated as i am on a solenioid and has been running the same since i set it up 3-4 months ago.
Thanks for your help.
i dont seem to be having much luck with the easy carb spot dosing. some BBA seems to be going bright red but not where i spot dosed 
. i've ordered another ltr of E\C. didn't know a black out would have worked or tried that first. a lot cheaper. £20 of E\C only lasts 25 days at these levels 
. i've ordered another ltr of E\C. didn't know a black out would have worked or tried that first. a lot cheaper. £20 of E\C only lasts 25 days at these levels Hi Westyggx
In 3-4 months have your plants not got any bigger? This will increase their uptake of CO2. This coupled with the fact that the plants are bigger, now reduces your flow everywhere. Hence the levels in the tank today are nowhere near what they were 3-4 months ago.
I find as a tank starts to 'grow in' you have to increase the levels of CO2 delivered to the tank and keep on top of the flow too. Trimming where necessary.
This became blatantly obvious to me on one occassion when I had been tweaking the CO2 upwards on one of my set ups and the plants were booming. So I thought, time for a trim. At the time I had this huge Nesaea Pedicellata and gave it a severe trim. Within hours, my drop checker had turned bright yellow and my fish were gasping at the surface. All because I'd trimmed my plants How mad is that?
5 hours a day should be OK for your lightingWestyggx said:
This may well be your problem :idea:Westyggx said:
In 3-4 months have your plants not got any bigger? This will increase their uptake of CO2. This coupled with the fact that the plants are bigger, now reduces your flow everywhere. Hence the levels in the tank today are nowhere near what they were 3-4 months ago.
I find as a tank starts to 'grow in' you have to increase the levels of CO2 delivered to the tank and keep on top of the flow too. Trimming where necessary.
This became blatantly obvious to me on one occassion when I had been tweaking the CO2 upwards on one of my set ups and the plants were booming. So I thought, time for a trim. At the time I had this huge Nesaea Pedicellata and gave it a severe trim. Within hours, my drop checker had turned bright yellow and my fish were gasping at the surface. All because I'd trimmed my plants
How mad is that?
Westyggx
Member
Ah makes sense when someone else points it out! Thanks I will give it a try, although I am not home for a month now my mother is looking after my tank.
God help me. Haha. I think I will come back to a BBA Nightmare, anyway I have turned the lights to 5 hours, co2 down, dosing cut in half.
It will have to do until I'm back but thanks for the assistance much appreciated .
God help me. Haha. I think I will come back to a BBA Nightmare, anyway I have turned the lights to 5 hours, co2 down, dosing cut in half.
It will have to do until I'm back but thanks for the assistance much appreciated .
Westyggx
Member
Westyggx said:
I was right lol, came back to a disaster BBA everywhere. Gave it a good clean and a trim and changed the Co2 levels a bit so lets see how this goes!
Westyggx
Member
I'm having an absolute nightmare with BBA some extra advice would be appreciated its taking over all my plants and substrate its so annoying. Im now dosing 5ml of easy carbo daily and no change. Drop checker is a lime green colour.
AverageWhiteBloke
Member
M8 I am having the same problem as you its a PITA. I am starting to get a little of the upper hand but never quite totally rid. A few things that I have noticed about your post are turning the co2 up and dosing EC then not. The BBA loves fluctuating co2, keeping things as steady as possible and you need to do this long term. Another problem is improving growth for plants always improves growth of algae which in turn kids us that were doing something wrong when in actual fact we have improved plant growing conditions.
Rather than massive doses to kill everything off which may in turn make co2 levels fluctuate I have tried a different approach of dosing the recommended amount with my co2 to buffer the co2 a bit. I do dose directly on affected areas at the base of plants. The gravel is a big problem I found because it grows onto the base and then carries on up the leave so even new growth is affected right away. What I did to try and combat it was thin out your plants a bit enough to get a narrow gravel cleaner in and around them and pull up the gravel from underneath and layer it over the top. Then pick out any remaining stones just with the plastic grabber things you get from algarde.
This has two advantages, firstly the gravel at the top which is clean covers the stuff with bba on blocking it from the light so eventually the gravel underneath rids itself of the hairy monster. I might also add here that it's best to do this with a syphon type cleaner rather than the battery hoover. When you pull up the gravel it also sucks up nasties from under the substrate which is better of syphoned out and new water added rather than pulled into the tank and left there.
The other advantage is that if you keep just a few each of the same specimen plant to edge your bets of keeping one alive you can concentrate your spot dosing of EC onto each and try and grow the plants as individual items trimming them and dosing them in affected areas. IMO its easier to fight BBA when it's in certain areas rather than every things got a bit on.
Try and pick well rooted specimens that stand the best chance of survival and if you have multiple tubes maybe a good idea to turn one off for now and slow the whole system down making co2 and dosing errors have less of an impact on the tank.
Thirdly you need massive patience, I have had problems for a long time after same situation as you I was working away and came back to a nightmare. Clip plants out little and often, what I tend to do is Saturday change my water and get the fresh gravel to the top. Then as the week goes just pick out any stones with the tweasers and clip the odd couple of leaves off each plant as and when I see new growth on them to replace the affected leaf I'm about to chop off rather than a whole out blitz on all plants which affects co2 levels dramatically as mentioned. Just clip off a few affected leaves every couple of days.
Adding EC at the right dose seems to prevent new growth in my tank so gradually trimming old leaves and spot dosing others eventually has the plants with new growth which the EC holds back the BBA.
And let me know if you come up with any good solutions that might help my particular battle. We're in this war together
Rather than massive doses to kill everything off which may in turn make co2 levels fluctuate I have tried a different approach of dosing the recommended amount with my co2 to buffer the co2 a bit. I do dose directly on affected areas at the base of plants. The gravel is a big problem I found because it grows onto the base and then carries on up the leave so even new growth is affected right away. What I did to try and combat it was thin out your plants a bit enough to get a narrow gravel cleaner in and around them and pull up the gravel from underneath and layer it over the top. Then pick out any remaining stones just with the plastic grabber things you get from algarde.
This has two advantages, firstly the gravel at the top which is clean covers the stuff with bba on blocking it from the light so eventually the gravel underneath rids itself of the hairy monster. I might also add here that it's best to do this with a syphon type cleaner rather than the battery hoover. When you pull up the gravel it also sucks up nasties from under the substrate which is better of syphoned out and new water added rather than pulled into the tank and left there.
The other advantage is that if you keep just a few each of the same specimen plant to edge your bets of keeping one alive you can concentrate your spot dosing of EC onto each and try and grow the plants as individual items trimming them and dosing them in affected areas. IMO its easier to fight BBA when it's in certain areas rather than every things got a bit on.
Try and pick well rooted specimens that stand the best chance of survival and if you have multiple tubes maybe a good idea to turn one off for now and slow the whole system down making co2 and dosing errors have less of an impact on the tank.
Thirdly you need massive patience, I have had problems for a long time after same situation as you I was working away and came back to a nightmare. Clip plants out little and often, what I tend to do is Saturday change my water and get the fresh gravel to the top. Then as the week goes just pick out any stones with the tweasers and clip the odd couple of leaves off each plant as and when I see new growth on them to replace the affected leaf I'm about to chop off rather than a whole out blitz on all plants which affects co2 levels dramatically as mentioned. Just clip off a few affected leaves every couple of days.
Adding EC at the right dose seems to prevent new growth in my tank so gradually trimming old leaves and spot dosing others eventually has the plants with new growth which the EC holds back the BBA.
And let me know if you come up with any good solutions that might help my particular battle. We're in this war together
Westyggx
Member
AverageWhiteBloke said:M8 I am having the same problem as you its a PITA. I am starting to get a little of the upper hand but never quite totally rid. A few things that I have noticed about your post are turning the co2 up and dosing EC then not. The BBA loves fluctuating co2, keeping things as steady as possible and you need to do this long term. Another problem is improving growth for plants always improves growth of algae which in turn kids us that were doing something wrong when in actual fact we have improved plant growing conditions.
Rather than massive doses to kill everything off which may in turn make co2 levels fluctuate I have tried a different approach of dosing the recommended amount with my co2 to buffer the co2 a bit. I do dose directly on affected areas at the base of plants. The gravel is a big problem I found because it grows onto the base and then carries on up the leave so even new growth is affected right away. What I did to try and combat it was thin out your plants a bit enough to get a narrow gravel cleaner in and around them and pull up the gravel from underneath and layer it over the top. Then pick out any remaining stones just with the plastic grabber things you get from algarde.
This has two advantages, firstly the gravel at the top which is clean covers the stuff with bba on blocking it from the light so eventually the gravel underneath rids itself of the hairy monster. I might also add here that it's best to do this with a syphon type cleaner rather than the battery hoover. When you pull up the gravel it also sucks up nasties from under the substrate which is better of syphoned out and new water added rather than pulled into the tank and left there.
The other advantage is that if you keep just a few each of the same specimen plant to edge your bets of keeping one alive you can concentrate your spot dosing of EC onto each and try and grow the plants as individual items trimming them and dosing them in affected areas. IMO its easier to fight BBA when it's in certain areas rather than every things got a bit on.
Try and pick well rooted specimens that stand the best chance of survival and if you have multiple tubes maybe a good idea to turn one off for now and slow the whole system down making co2 and dosing errors have less of an impact on the tank.
Thirdly you need massive patience, I have had problems for a long time after same situation as you I was working away and came back to a nightmare. Clip plants out little and often, what I tend to do is Saturday change my water and get the fresh gravel to the top. Then as the week goes just pick out any stones with the tweasers and clip the odd couple of leaves off each plant as and when I see new growth on them to replace the affected leaf I'm about to chop off rather than a whole out blitz on all plants which affects co2 levels dramatically as mentioned. Just clip off a few affected leaves every couple of days.
Adding EC at the right dose seems to prevent new growth in my tank so gradually trimming old leaves and spot dosing others eventually has the plants with new growth which the EC holds back the BBA.
And let me know if you come up with any good solutions that might help my particular battle. We're in this war together
Thank you for the decent post mate, i have just done a 60% water change this afty, and removed all BBA infected areas. I have re added my bubble counter (i removed it for some time and just judged the colour of my drop checker) and have set it to around 3BPS. However not sure if its working right now as cannot see any Co2 in the tank, think my stop valve is creating a barrier?
Anyway, going to keep an eye on it and hopefully keep my CO2 at a steady rate and up it as plants increase in size. Will keep you informed.
Cheers
ghostsword
Member
I had bba all over the show! On rocks, wood, filter intakes, etc.
What fixed it? Lots of co2 helps, but most importantly is stable co2. This means the same level of co2 for a month at least. Also shorter light duration and flow, lots of flow around the tank.
Keep the co2 stable, cut any leaves that have algae, dose enough ferts and it will go away.
Until you get the co2 stable you will not beat it.
Patience is the key, it can take up to two weeks for the things to get better, plants (at least mine) take a while to adapt to changing conditions.
Also get plants well established for a new tank.
Just before you forget, stable co2!
.
What fixed it? Lots of co2 helps, but most importantly is stable co2. This means the same level of co2 for a month at least. Also shorter light duration and flow, lots of flow around the tank.
Keep the co2 stable, cut any leaves that have algae, dose enough ferts and it will go away.
Until you get the co2 stable you will not beat it.
Patience is the key, it can take up to two weeks for the things to get better, plants (at least mine) take a while to adapt to changing conditions.
Also get plants well established for a new tank.
Just before you forget, stable co2!
.
Westyggx
Member
Luis, does this include measurements of Easy Carbo? Many have said overdose on Easy Carbo, but doesnt this go against the stable CO2 issue?
