BBA problem on anubias ....

owl

owl

\m/ \m/
Jul 8, 2008
704
0
0
Hi all ..
i have a 55g with some driftwoods and bunch of anubiases in there ( with 3 angels , 6 zebras , 10 corys and 1 small albino plec )
i had bba problem few month ago , i used the water/bleach method to remove them , it didn t remove the bba completely but they didn t grow .
till bout 1 month ago i started notice the bba again , and now it s all over the leavz and driftwoods and also some kinda bba but more like hair is in some areas on substrate too .
i do regular 20 to 30 percent of WC every week .
normally i got around 10 on nitrate test and sometimes around 20 . ( sorry don have the phosphate test , it s hard to find one here )
anyway i have 2 questions :
1-can i use RO from now on for regular WC & replacing evaporated water to prevent introducing more nitrate to the tank ?
2-gonna use phosvec for removing phosphate and siprox for removing nitrate and some other media for silicate ( any media i can find here ) and may add a FBF too , my questions is will this stop and remove the BBA and any algaes or i should first remove the BBA with bleach/water method again and then start the treatment ?

oh and i forgot to say i have 2*35w 6500 lamps over the tank and i don have access to excel here ;) .

any other suggestion will be more than welcome .
thnx
 
Last edited:
how long is your photo period every day? and, does your tank have access to sunlight??

you do not need all those phosphate nitrate etc removers because phosphate and nitrate are essential to plant growth. they are also like putting a bandaid on a severed arm, it just wont fix the problem. Also, why get a phosphate removing filter media when you dont know if you have a phosphate problem? see the link in my signature below.

i am confused because you just said that you are finding some 'kinda bba but more like hair' that is not bba (sounds like hair algae), once again...see link in my signature below.

are your plants growing about .25 inch long hairs around them that look like a beard? or are they getting a flat brown algae on them? do you have a picture?
 
Last edited:
I've never found BBA to be a nutrient problem as much as fluctuating CO2 levels, along with too much light.

If it is in fact a nutrient problem, which again I do not think it is, adding more plants as well as doing larger water changes and cutting back on feeding would be a much simpler solution. As coach said, removing the nutrients only hurts your existing plants.

But an exact ID would be nice.
 
sorry guys my bad , should explain it better , i m sure i have bba on plants but there some kinda black hairy algae on substrate ... and i keep the lights on 10 to 11 hours a day and don have any co2 source .
i have 10 to 12 anubias plants and nothing else in there and they grown well in last month and each have 10 or more leavz average .
here s some photos , i tried to shoot the worst plants and show how it s gone mad on drift woods too , and the last two ones are the algaes on substrate as u see :

algaez.jpg
 
sorry forgot to answer these two :
does your tank have access to sunlight??
Click to expand...
no , no direct sun light , it s near the window and i got some kinda brown flat algae that can be remove easily by hand long time ago , but since then i covered the window near it and that s gone .
are your plants growing about .25 inch long hairs around them that look like a beard? or are they getting a flat brown algae on them?
Click to expand...
i m sure that it s the bba on plants cuz i had it before it s not more than 4 to 5 mm but the hair like thing on substrate is more than 1/2 inch .

i would try to cut back your photo to 8hrs a day
Click to expand...
thnx , that s what i m doin right now .
 
hmm...that doesnt look fun!
i would definitely cut back to maybe even 6 hours for right now until your problem begins to go away.

until then i would go for the direct injection of h202(hydrogen peroxide).
Things you need:
household h202 (hydrogen peroxide)
syringe (local pharmacy or drug store)

Procedure:
turn off filtration, and wait for water movement to stop.
fill syringe with about 60ml of 3% H2O2 (30ml of 6%, 15ml of 9%) (Source for dosing a 50 gallon tank)
then directly dose the h202 onto your plants. you should see it bubble/fizz a bit, that is okay.
Wait a few minutes and turn your filtration on.

you will see everythign starting to turn grey, red etc. the enxt day, that is fine. pick off what you can.

Repeat in 48 hours.

after that we need to find the source of your bba problem, and i am going to guess it has to do with the lack of co2?
 
thnx a lot for reply .
was busy dealing with my SW , gonna buy some h2o2 tomorrow and do the job :) , hope it help me ... as i look at the tank today , seems it get worse day by day , i notice some of the anubias roots that attached to the drift woods completely filled with bba .
and lotsa that hairy stuff on substrate too , by the way what r those hairy algaes , are those bba too ?
 
ANUBIAS FLOWER

look what i got in this situation :) , it grows on one of the worse anubiases , it s BBA all over the roots and even on the flower :
never had one before

DSC04598.JPG
 
sorry guyz it took so long ,
i found h2o2 atlast , and it says 35% on it ! i couldn t find anything lower here ,
so is it ok ? or can i lower the percent simply by adding water to it ?
and onething else i have a 5g free tank ain t it better if i move all the plants into that 5g and threat them there or i can do it the main tank anyway ?
thnanks a bunch guys
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom