Green Spot AND BBA

Booswalia

Booswalia

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Apr 16, 2003
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Prince Edward Island
www.sonnys.ca
I'm about ready to give up on this hobby if I can't find a solution.

This tank has been running for over 2 years and I can't say that I've ever really found a balance yet for nutrients. I solved the staghorn problem about a year ago and since then every week I get green spot and not a lot of growth. Now I've got BBA too.

Does anyone have any idea where I'm going wrong.

4 weeks ago I did a 1:19 bleach of everything and replanted the tank, AGAIN.
25 tall with 110 CF lighting and flourite substrate.
50% water change weekly
pressurized CO2 pH 6.6 to 6.8, kH 10 (took the wood out 5 weeks ago)
1/4 tsp No-Salt for potassium
NO3 reads 7 (according to LaMotte's) out of the tap.
I don't add NO3 until mid week when I bring it up to about 10ppm using Flourish Nitrate.
PO4 - I use enough Flourish Phosophorus to bring it up to .1 (about 12ml)
I stopped adding Flourish because it seems to make the BBA worse. Now I add 10ml Flourish Trace per week and 1ml Flourish Iron every second day. I also have a Fert Tab with Iron under the vals and a red plant that I don't know the name of.

3 days after a water change the spot algae is back and now I have bba all over the lower leaves of all the plants.

I stopped running the CO2 into the canister filter because it was starting to make noises and I think an air lock is building up. Now I have it in one of the little hagen ladder gizmos, but I'm getting the same pH readings so it seems to be working.

Please if anyone can help out.....
 
Boos, EVERYONE has green spot to some extent. It's one of life's wonderful treasures that we all have come to love.
If you are getting true readings on the CO2, you are pushing between 48 and 75ppm.
Too high. Are your fish OK? 25 - 30ppm is plenty and really will become over-kill once the tank gets back to normal.
The BBA is spore borne as I'm sure you've read elsewhere. Do you have access to
an SAE? If, after you'd cleaned up the tank you'd added one, you would have no BBA at this time.
Is your tank still heavily planted......or moderately planted?
I would clean it up again, add an SAE, and push the nitrates up to 15 and then up to 20ppm. That ppm will not hurt the fish, and will help the plants cope with what's left of the BBA.
Start dosing the Flourish daily. Dose the same total amount that you were using weekly, but dose it in daily increments. Get a dosing dropper at the pharmacy that reads 0 - 5 or 6 ml. increments.
Stop dosing Fe. It's a big contributor to the green spot if the plants are not using it all, and with dosing Flourish daily you won't need it anyway.
Substrate tabs are unnecessary, especially with Flourite. If they were in the substrate when you pulled your plants to clean them, this could also be part of the problem.
I regularly pull and give away tons of Val. without ever using a plant tab.
I hope that you won't chuck it all, and give it one more good cleaning. Use a 25:1 dip. It is gentler on the plants and just as affective on BBA. You know the drill.
Pull everything except fish and substrate for dipping.
But don't do any cleaning until you have an SAE to put in within a day or two.

Len
 
Hi Dj, how are ya.
My tank is moderately planted now. I got rid of the jungle.

I used to have an SAE, but he jumped out of the tank one day last summer and committed suicide. They're impossible to find around here. All I have now is 3 ottos and they were hard enough to come by.

I'm not sure what's going on with the kH. I don't think the reading is accurate. I used to have some wood in there and the kH was hitting 18 then. The fish have never shown any signs of stress. (3 Ottos, 2 mollies, 2 corries, 1 rosy barb and 2 dwarf rams.) Most of them have been in there for 2 years or more.

Funny thing about the vals is that they're the only plant in there that doesn't have any bba to speak of. They didn't like the bleach bath much and I didn't think they were going to survive it, but they're doing fine now. (Corkskrew vals)

Given that I can't get another SAE, do you think another clean up and re-start is worth trying?
 
This is going to be easy.
Co2.

You need 25-30ppm all day long.
BBA=> CO2
GS=> Either CO2 and/or PO4

So what to do.

Work real hard on getting as good reading for CO2 early when the lights come on, then when they are about to go off, this should never be below 20ppm.

Check the the pH and compare against the pH/KH chart every so often if things are not pearling etc.

This will solve 90% or more of the issues you are having and the rest is easy.

Herbivores are helpful but they are only the icing on the cake, not the main issues here.

Do this when trimming planting etc: do all the trim/pruning, cleaning etc first, then do 10-15gal worth of water changes with tap water.
Fluff the plants good, remove any waste/dead leaves etc.

Routine for ferts:
50% or larger weekly water change
After add: 1/4 teaspoon of KNO3, 1/16" or so of KH2PO4(or something to get it to 1ppm or so)
Next day add 5-6mls of Flourish
Day after this, add the KNO3/PO4(about .5ppm worth)
keep doing this every other day routine for the traces and the macros while keeping the CO2 sky high.

So this comes out to 4x for macros and 3x for the traces per week.

Clean and prune well, the plants should grow like mad if you do this.
You biggest issue will be CO2.

I have the same tank size and lighting FYI and have had that tank for years.
See here:

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=2904032&uid=1473668

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Thanks Tom. I'll give another try then.

I'm not sure what you mean by
1/16" or so of KH2PO4
Click to expand...
but I'll just get the PO4 to 1pmm and hope for the best.

Is there a CO2 test kit that's worth getting?

Love your flying finger,by the way.
 
Yeah, or you could do what Tom says. :p
Seems like I saw a finger similar to that on the highway this morning. :rant:

BTW, I have tried the 'jack up the CO2' method for BBA without success. Let us know how it works out for you.

Len
 
Dj, my fish are going to be giving me one of those fingers if I keep playing with CO2.

I talked to the owners of a new pet shop today and she said she would try to order in some "real" SAEs for me. They tend to only sell the flying fox fakes around here. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Looks like I'll be doing the bleach thing again this weekend.

I'll keep you updated.
 
Dj,
You still have BBA?
:thud:

Good CO2 will stop it from growing, not remove the adult BBA that is there.
If you crank the CO2 and then remove the algae, it will not come back.
Once it stops growing, you have any algae licked.

Boo, yes, a 1ppm range of PO4 is fine, the Flourish PO4 is nothing more than a mix of water and KH2PO4.

I sent that finger to a certain individual that tried to sue me some years ago in the pet industry. I speak with the tank.

I ride a bike to work, so I count wild turkeys(4 today), wabbits(1), deer(0, but they are hooved locust) etc and how many I pass. Much better than stressing to get through traffic, plus I've had my work out when I get home 25 miles later and it's not dark yet.

So counting those fingers is not really meaningful for me:)
I have a far more offensive gesture when driving, I give them the friendly wave of acknowledgement. Drives them nuts. "Oh gee, sorry about that, thanks,... hehe". They are all pissed because they are now going to be 10 second late to where they are going. I'm a happy person, they aren't, so therein lies the real finger, but it's their own.

I saw one guy telling his buddy, "See he knows he's an crappy driver and screw me and made me slow down!!"
I thought he was going to froth like a rabid dog. I had a hoot watching him.

He needs a nice serene planted tank to come home to.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Tom -
No, I haven't had a trace of the crap for a couple of years, but when I did the CO2 method in and of itself did not work.....for me. My tanks are 'jungle like' in mass and with pushing it well beyond 30ppm I still couldn't get rid of it until I used SAEs.
I don't argue with you. You're the man when it comes to this stuff :dance , so if you say it works, I don't question that. I just give suggestions that have worked for me. :(
:OT: BTW, I was looking forward to seeing you in Washington next month, but once again, the **** work schedule interferes with the convention.......maybe next year.
I ride myself, and rarely see anything but squirrels(vermin with furry tails, IMO), one of which I ran over the other day.....scared the hell out of me, and I'm sure he's still walking with a limp.
Fortunately, people are nicer to bike riders than other motorists or I'd have been dead long ago.

Boos -
I'm reasonably sure that your kH reading or something is amiss, because at those levels, you'd be seeing some unhappy fish, so I would not worry about that. But do check your pH/kH kits for accuracy so you know approx. what you're dealing with.
When you use Tom's design for ridding the tank of the stuff and if it works, let us know how it was done for educational purposes. I hope it works out for you. I know it's tenacious and a pain in the you-know-what, but I'd hate to see it cause you to give up on the hobby. I know that once a tank matures, it becomes easier to deal with most forms of algae so good luck.
If, down the road you decide to get an SAE and the LFS still hasn't gotten them in, let me know. I have access to as many as you want for a few bucks apiece at my home away from home, LFS. I talked him into always keeping a tank of them on hand, and he sells a ton of them.

Len
 
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Thanks Dj. I agree that my kH is amiss (or a mess), both test kits are new and they give me accurate readings on my tap water.

Question: If wood in the tank causes the kH to hit the roof, is it actually THAT high, or is it giving a false reading? (I guess what I mean is, if your test works could the reading still be false?)

I cleaned it up really good last night and put in Tom's suggested nutrients. I'm getting some pearling today, so that's a good sign.

Don't worry, Dj, I'll get my heart back into this hobby. I always do.... It was just a little frustrating to see all that algae building up again after I just did the BIG bleaching a couple of months ago.

Thanks for the offer to get me some SAEs too. If my LFS can't get them in, I just may take you up on that.

I'll keep you updated.....
 
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