Cyanobacteria and Phosphate Levels

golfproinlexky

golfproinlexky

Know just enough to be dangerous...
Dec 31, 2007
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Kentucky
I've been fighting Cyanobacteria (Blue/Green Slime Algae) for a few weeks now and I'm losing the battle. My tank is medium to heavily planted and I fertilize with Excel products regularly. I do a minimum 30% weekly water changes, specifically vacuuming the areas with Cyano. My water consistently tests great, but since the Cyano breakout I've started testing Phosphate as well. Nitrates come out at zero everytime, but the phosphate are between 1.0 and 2.0 each time I test.

My questions...

What is the proper phosphate level?

How do I bring down the phosphate level when it is high?
 
Have you checked the phosphate level in your tap water? Some local tap water is very high in phosphates which only make the problem worse during a water change.

Marinemom
 
I would dose some nitrates in the tank (Flourish nitrogen). But as marinemom said check your tap water phosphate levels since that could be one thing thats bringing excess nutrients into the tank.
Have you tried doing a black out?? blue/green dies fast when theres no light. I have also heard people taking a syringe full of H2O2 or excel and spraying it directly on the algae to kill it. If all else fails you can try erythromycin (Maracyn) and it would destroy it for sure.

Whats your filtration on the 55g? maybe add a powerhead to one corner to improve water movement.
 
BGA is a PIA.

most of my tanks do not have any issues with it..one does and I have battled it for about a year+

I did a combination of balckout with EM and it took care of it for a long time..but with BGA if any of it survived the treatment it tends to comback .

I am going to do another blackout as this seemed to be quite effective as well as cleaning the filter elements(as it may reside in the filter) in my case a sump.

remember it can fix nitrogen from the air. planted tanks should have some level of phosphates as the plants need it. check the nitrate and phosphate levels in the tank..one of these may be off.
If i remember correctly I seemd to have noticed that in my tanks.
 
Your list of plants are somewhat NO3 pigs and if you never add any that could be a potential problem. I think that is what is happening now. Having 1-2ppm of phosphates is okay but the plants are starved for nitrogen. You need NO3 to help the plants compete for other nutrients that the algae needs.

Try to remove as much BGA as possible by hand, do a 25% water change, then do a black-out for three days. Do another 10% water change then add some NO3. Try to keep your NO3 around 10-20ppm so that the plants can out compete the algae for nutrients and starve them out. This is a weird concept to grasp but it does work.

Good luck...
 
star_rider said:
I did a combination of balckout with EM and it took care of it for a long time..but with BGA if any of it survived the treatment it tends to comback .
Click to expand...

Yes, it must all be killed or it will come back. In the past, I used EM to kill it off. You need your Nitrates to be around 15-20 ppm to prevent it. Once you have killed it off, get some stump remover at a home improvement store (If you want the name brand send me a pm as I have it at home and I am at work right now). The stump remover is pure KNO3.
 
golfproinlexky said:
I've been fighting Cyanobacteria (Blue/Green Slime Algae) for a few weeks now and I'm losing the battle. My tank is medium to heavily planted and I fertilize with Excel products regularly. I do a minimum 30% weekly water changes, specifically vacuuming the areas with Cyano. My water consistently tests great, but since the Cyano breakout I've started testing Phosphate as well. Nitrates come out at zero everytime, but the phosphate are between 1.0 and 2.0 each time I test.

My questions...

What is the proper phosphate level?

How do I bring down the phosphate level when it is high?
Click to expand...

And low NO3 or absent, are classic methods to induce BGA.

That, not PO4, is your issue and root cause, something EM tablets will never solve.

You got into this hobby to grow plants, without N, they are not going to grow, so focus on that, growing the plants and giving them what they need.

Also search "3 day blackout" with KNO3 dosing for killing BGA.
It's easy to kill, and easy to prevent from ever coming back.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
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