BBA - has anyone ever successfully eradicated it?

[Dangerdoll]

I saw that post, Dun and was pretty impressed. Lots of great information!

thanks jeep, hopefully next time I talk about this, it will be about how awesome my tank looks

nice idea, Scotto.... I contemplated adding them but am having a hard time finding them around here.

 

[Que]

I've never had more than a touch of it my tanks but I think the abundance of shrimp and mucho plants in one tank and an SAE and mucho plants in the other pretty much took care of the little I had until it disappeared.

Q

 

[dundadundun]

awe shucks, DD, thanks. just glad i could help.

 

[Vince G.]

some of your post has to sound about as crazy as can be, but you do bring up a fantastic point i've bolded above. seems to me that terrestrial/hydroponic/hygroponic/riparian/marginal/whatever you want to call it... growth... plays a tremendous role in the stabilization of an aquatic system. i've got so much pothos currently growing out of the top of my 30 at this point, i don't think i could kill anything in that tank unless i A) let it evaporate and dry out ... or... B) let it grow until no light could get in. just this past week i've added another plant i've suspected would do well, but seems (at last i checked) noone else has even considered... philodendron 'silver streak'. seems to be transitioning well and i'm excited to see how it turns out growing with "wet feet" of an aquarium setting. my thinking is it will do just fine.

I'm sure it does sound crazy, and my family thought I was crazier when I broke out the power tools and started sanding wet pieces of wood (By the way BBA STINKS when it is disturbed), but removing the existing growth was important, and I had a LOT of wood in the tank that was covered. The Peroxide trick works great. Of course, getting the nutrient balance in the tank was key, and although I am not overly scientific in my approach to my tanks (I just do basic testing with a liquid kit, and as long as the paramaters are stable I leave everything else alone) The one thing that I'm sure of is that planting has helped tremendously. At one point I TRIED to grow some algae in the tank to help feed some otos that i acquired, but even an extended light cycle and sunlight coming in through a window didn't do the trick....Had to just go with the zucchini. The semi-hydroponic approach does account for something...I've since put a pothos in every tank that I have and, I don't have a spot of any type of algae in any of them.

 

[Que]

I don't use any ferts or co2 in my tanks and rely on digested fish food and water changes for plant nutrients in my tanks. I got tired of trying to support so many different kinds of plants and battling algae of all kinds. So over the years I just let the tanks be and what lives under my conditions and what dies is the way I went with it. Do I have algae? Yes. I have a small amount of red on the filter inlet, some green spot that I have to clean off every month or more off the glass, some hair and some other sort of green short stuff but it's all under control with regular tank maintenance and with the help of my inhabitants.

I remember going into a pet store many years ago and seeing BBA all over the plastic plants inside a tank of fish. It was really kinda cool looking because it was so out of control that the stuff waved around with the flow of water.

Q