BBA - has anyone ever successfully eradicated it?

Dangerdoll

Dangerdoll

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Aug 27, 2002
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I have been in a struggle with BBA for a couple of years since my first trio of SAE's met their demise due to a power outage. Since then, BBA has been a thorn in my side. I have tried dips, physically removing what I see, shoots of hydrogen peroxide, everything.... basically everything short of breaking the entire system down and starting over.

Has anyone ever been affected by BBA and successfully gotten rid of it for good in their tank while the tank was stable and running?
 
Hey DD. I was able to succesfully eradicate it in one of my tanks using a combo of peroxide dips and flourish excel overdosing, but apparently that doesn't work every time since I am now in a battle with it in 2 of my other tanks and have NOT been able to get rid of it so easily. Good luck to you. I will be keeping an eye on this thread to see if anyone has a fool proof way lol. I think one of my problems with the tanks I am stuck on now is that I can't mega dose the excel because I have shrimp in them. So, maybe if you can liberally OD your tank on Excel it will work? Anway....like I said, good luck. =)
 
Thanks Ash... I didn't try to the OD on Excel.... I did up the dosing but maybe I need to a little more. So far all the fish are fine, it's more just me being irritated with it. What would you think is a mega dose?
 
I battled with BBA for about 9 months. I tried hydrogen peroxide, which never worked for me. I also doubled my dosing of Excel, which slowed it, but did not eliminate it completely. I eventually obliterated it with the introduction of 2 juvenile SAE's. I had adults in the tank beforehand and they ignored the BBA for the most part, but with the youngin's they ate it up like candy. I later talked with a friend who breeds SAE's and he said that is a common occurrence for the younger ones to be the better algae eaters.
 
Dangerdoll said:
Thanks Ash... I didn't try to the OD on Excel.... I did up the dosing but maybe I need to a little more. So far all the fish are fine, it's more just me being irritated with it. What would you think is a mega dose?
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I THINK if I remember correctly, what someone on here told me to do was to double the first initial big dose of Excel and then after that do double the daily dose for a few day s using your regular water change schedule, but it has been a WHILE since that happened...almost 2 years now, so don't quote me on it. I will wait for someone else to weigh in on the "Mega OD amounts" so I don't tell you the wrong thing. lol
 
It can help to remove decor that has it and hand scrub it, as well as moving some plants with it to a, in effect, QT tank and dose/treat them there. A bit of a hassle, but for extreme situations it may be worth the work.
 
Would taking out the fish and bacteria source (leaving the filter in though) and peroxide-ing the whole system kill the algae? will it also kill the plants?
 
with excel you have to be careful. too much excel can lower the o2 levels in the tank. it can also kill off inverts in the tank. with that being said double dose or spot treating with excel can work. using h2o2 can work as well if you turn off all your filters and use a syringe to spot treat the effected areas. if you can its always best to remove the plant wipe as much of it off and then treat.

something different as well i have seemed to have killed some bba before with prime. i happened to pour the dose when refilling the tank on some anubias and it turn red and died.
 
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