• 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 driving me nuts.

The best way to spot dose is to lower the water level beneath the affected areas and add some liquid carbon using a brush. If you can't then turn off the filter/pumps spot dose the affected areas, let it be for 10 minutes and then turn the equipment on.
 
i am using a U401 regulator,it is under warranty so iwill have to sort this out now.my 2 foot tank is also using pressurised co2,i have very few fish in this tank and am running the co2 at a higher level, so far (touch wood) i have not had a problem with BBA just a bit of brown dusty algae which i believe is down to the set up being fairly new 8 weeks old.i now hope i can keep my 175ltr tank plants ok without co2,i will keep adding liquid carbon and remove as much BBA as possible,many thanks again,skankypup.
 
I will perform a water change tonight and whilst I do so I will dose with some liquid carbon on affected areas. See how it affects the BBA.
 
well its a few days on,i have changed back to a swan neck instead of the spraybar to reduce flow abit,i took the reflectors off to reduce lighting.the BBA is disappearing now, i have been spot dosing liquid carbon as well.i thought my regulator was broken but i think the safety valve dumped all the gas as i had the pressure very high,i have now reduced the pressure and things seem ok.thanks for the help and comments everyone. :thumbup:
 
A tank of mine has had 3 BBA outbreaks in 8 years, each time was when the co2 bottle ran out of gas. I've always worked on the premise that it's depletion of co2 that causes BBA, not fluctuation. As a consequence, I leave the lights off when the co2 runs out.
 
I know it's an old thread, but I came to the same conclusion by observing where the BBA grows in my tank. It's like someone has drawn a line through the tank and told the BBA to settle there, and when I thought about it a bit more, it's where my koralia powerhead blows. I only thought of it because I have a very large anubias broadleaf that had never had any algae until I stuck the powerhead near it. BBA appeared soon appeared on the nearby leafs and the same effect can be seen all along in the direction of the flow of the powerhead. On a side note this powerhead is a bit overkill for my tank which could be one of the reasons, but it hasn't blown away any fish or fry for example, just a bit harsh on the fry of course. I used to have it on the other side of the tank, blowing at another anubias by accident, and that's where I first got a BBA outbreak but I never related the two together at the time.

I think I read in Diana Walstad's book "Ecology of the planted aquarium" about plants suffering in too much flow, not being able to utilize the nutritients/CO2 when there's too much flow passing over their leaves as it passes too fast, or something of the sort, I can't remember. Or is it just mechanical damage, leaking nutritients from the leaves and high flow algae species havng a feast in those conditions?
Otherwise you'd thik the higher the flow, the more nutritients and CO2 for the plants in that area but certain algae species seem to love that more than the plants.
Anyway, it does seem that BBA has a lot to do with the flow whether directly or indirectly CO2 related or not, but it does establish itself better in the most turbulent areas of the tank from what I've seen. Maybe the high flow just washes off the CO2 away too fast for the plants but BBA has adapted to thrive in this conditions?
 
I don't know,,
I've seen BBA (look's like it to me), in pond's growing from wood,rock's where there is no flow to speak of .
 
Maybe the high flow just washes off the CO2 away too fast for the plants but BBA has adapted to thrive in this conditions?
Or maybe the extra flow distributes the algae floating in the tank to those areas more than others?
 
Or maybe the extra flow distributes the algae floating in the tank to those areas more than others?

Possible, but unlike the plants, it not only attaches itself there, but it thrives under the high flow conditions, and it suffers when you remove the high flow source. So to me it seems it is just better at catching up extra CO2 and nutritients than the plants are able to in the same position, or it's feeding on leaking stuff from mechanically damaged plants. In my case I am talking about a 2800L/H powerhead blowing directly at them. The affected anubias leaves suffered almost visible mechanical damage and changed colour from darkish healthy green to lighter green and slight curling/twisting at the edges.
 
Back
Top