Cyanobacteria and continuing education

W

wespastor

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Feb 28, 2010
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Reading an article here: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/algae/cyano.shtml

Near the end of the article reads this:
"Be prepared for the massive cyanobacterial die-off. Dying cyanobacteria can release toxins that will stress your fish and all the other organisms in the tank and could be deadly. Cyanobacterial toxins affect the neural system and damage the liver. Liver damage will not be evident perhaps, until a victim suffers symptoms of "dropsy" long afterwards. Rinse out the filter media each day. Manually collect as much of the cyanobacterial sheets as you can in a brine-shrimp net. After 48 hours, do a 40% water change and repeat the erythromycin dosage. On the fourth day, siphon again carefully and do another 40% water change."

The question I have is this:

If one were to use Excel or Glutaraldehyde to help with this problem and the die off were slow. would the effects be less harmful or would it be better to remove fishes from the tank to eliminate victims?

Thanks for lookin'

Best wishes,
Wes
 
I've never seen any evidence in a planted tank where BGA caused any of the speculatory claims listed there. We really only have 1 species of BGA in the genus Oscillitoria, there are others but they really do not form blooms, and most folks export and do water changes when they have BGA issues, so there's little build up, bacteria and plants also likely mitigate the toxic effects.

So water changes would be better and then look at the root of the issue for BGA, not using a pill/herbicide/algicide to resolve the problem long term.

You can search many threads here on BGA and solving the root issue, mostly poor growth of plants + lack of NO3.


Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Does Excel even work on BGA??? It is great on other algae (but kills vals).
 
I don't know, but I will say that I'm not a fan of any treatment that suggests "overdosing" anything. I'm with Tom.. fix the root of the problem, and you won't have to treat the problem.
 
tanker said:
Does Excel even work on BGA??? It is great on other algae (but kills vals).
Click to expand...

It works on a few, mostly BBA, greens? Not much, I've not heard nor noticed it does much to BGA.

I do think it's fear mongering using research from lakes and ponds to suggets that our one genus is somehow leaching lethal toxic chemicals into the system. This is pure speculation and the observations really do not offer any support for it.

BGA is annoying for manym but I've never heard of it being toxic in aquariums to livestock nor seen evidence of this.

I know there are many species and genera in natural open water lakes/ponds etc, where they do produce a large array of toxins, but that does not mean this one does.

Crows might be eating your corn, but you do not shoot every bird that flies by.



Regards,
Tom Barr
 
BGA has plagued 1 of my tanks, I just noticed round 3 starting in 5 years. Nitrate drop off, dead surface spots & higher than normal temp seem to keys along with less water changes (broken Python=smaller WCs) I haven't dosed antibiotics or truly done a black-out for this tank. Lots of WCs, plant trimming & a bit of KNO3 to get back on track seems to work...until I let things go, quit testing occaisionally or let my canister filter slow way down.
 
fishorama said:
BGA has plagued 1 of my tanks, I just noticed round 3 starting in 5 years. Nitrate drop off, dead surface spots & higher than normal temp seem to keys along with less water changes (broken Python=smaller WCs) I haven't dosed antibiotics or truly done a black-out for this tank. Lots of WCs, plant trimming & a bit of KNO3 to get back on track seems to work...until I let things go, quit testing occaisionally or let my canister filter slow way down.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is a typical scenario and rational for this BGA that we have.
And solution as well :iagree:

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
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