BBA, again!

[awgraham]

Hello again, fellow fish people.

I posted about this topic in February via this post and here I am again....

Some updates and new questions.

During the summer, we had a heat wave just about I was about to leave for a week or so and I was afraid my tank would get too hot, so I added a Chihiros Cooling Fan and have been keeping the tank set around 76-77. If any suggests a different temperature, please let me know. Currently my tank has about 12 cherry barbs, a couple of Otto cats, and about 4 amano shrimp.

I have two main questions:

1) I have tried a couple times to grow valisneria in my tank, which I've read when thriving should grow quite rapidly.  My first plant died within maybe 6-8 weeks. Second plant hasn't died, but hasn't changed much since I first planted it maybe 3 months ago. One of of the staff members at the store I go to here in Northern California suggested that maybe I needed to begin adding Equilibrium to my water because the RO water that I'm giving the tank isn't providing all that the plants need. So, I started doing that on June 26th. After doing that, my PPM went from about 160 to about 250, my GH jumped from 5 to 12, and my KH initially spiked from 1 to 6, but has returned to 1-2. Will post maintenance data below.

2) In the past few weeks, I've started to see black beard algae return. I will clip some of the leaves affected, take out the wood and give it spray and a scrape, which will take care of most of this, but I'm wondering what the root cause is. My current lighting schedule is 8 hours a day from 2-10 pm, but there are definitely days when I turn the light on before 2 pm and probably forget to turn it off.

3) I would like to add cherry shrimp to my tank. I added 10 gold back yellow fire shrimp to my tank right around the time that I started adding the equilibrium.  I know, dumb. A couple disappeared in the first few weeks. Eventually, they all disappeared. I'm guessing it was the fluctuating water conditions, not the cherry barbs going after them.

4) I have avoided injecting CO2 to my tank just to keep things simpler and avoid more equipment, but should I?

Will post relevant data below. Welcome any follow up questions or suggestions. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 31 by awgraham

[CoryWithAKatana]

Hey! Great questions, ill try to answer some.

1) I have valisinsria in my tank and it thrives in medium light, I have had success in a sand/gravel mixture of substrate and adding Liquid Ferts like Easy Green (It works) What kind of substrate do you have?

2) I dont know anything about BBA but I know that lots of light and nutrients imbalances can be how it thrives so ye..

3) Cherry shrimp like stable water parameters, it seems your golden shrimp died from the changing water. I think its great idea if you can get stable water.

4) Your tank looks perfect without CO2, also I read BBA thrives with CO2 so maybe stay away from it till have the BBA problem fixed.

Also your cooling fan Is at a perfect temp.

[JoeQ]

You would probably benefit from stressing more time on maintenence and less time on logging of paramaters. I see a ton of dying/unhealthy growth that needs attention, particals floating (both in the water colum and suspended on top) It would probably also benefit you to increase turnover and add filter floss (think achieving crystal clear water). With a non injected co2 tank keeping that surface super clean will go a long way when it comes to gas exchange (absorbing co2 from the atmosphere)

 

https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/algae-control/how-to-control-bba?_pos=1&_sid=4dd2ab83d&_ss=r

Edited September 1 by JoeQ

[JoeQ]

Just as a followup, I didn't mean to come off harsh in my above post. I just put things blunty. What I was getting at was tank maintenance fundamentals is your most important factor when dealing with algae. Being Johnny on the spot with cleaning has way more impact, then your nitrates being at 20ppm vs 30ppm. Or your blue light being on 5% vs 3% for X amount of hours.

Edited September 1 by JoeQ

[awgraham]

@CoryWithAKatana Thanks for the answers. My substrate is Aquasolum black humate.

@JoeQ The video helps a lot. Never seen the turkey baster method. Have always felt that my cleaning process doesn't make much sense because a lot of what you're trying to catch gets circulated in the water. With the baster method, seems easier to get most of what gets kicked up. 

I try to clean my aquarium every weekend, but as my data reflects, I've gone 10 or more days between changes more often than 7-8 days. Until I can get the substrate cleaner, would you recommend doing smaller, more frequent changes? Using the baster method, after doing this method many times, should I see less waste to be cleaned up?

As for filter floss, I was using it in the past, but stopped. I didn't seem to notice a huge difference in the clarity of the water. Maybe I didn't know how to best look to see the differences.

Thanks!

 

 

[JoeQ]

On 9/1/2024 at 5:14 PM, awgraham said:

The video helps a lot. Never seen the turkey baster method.

You might be mistaken, I don't think I posted the turkey baster video. 

On 9/1/2024 at 5:14 PM, awgraham said:

Have always felt that my cleaning process doesn't make much sense because a lot of what you're trying to catch gets circulated in the water. With the baster method, seems easier to get most of what gets kicked up.

This is one big positive about a higher turnover rate, it gets into the filter before it settles. But another Idea would be to gently stirr up the substrate before you start your syphen and then suck up all the junk. 

 

On 9/1/2024 at 5:14 PM, awgraham said:

I try to clean my aquarium every weekend, but as my data reflects, I've gone 10 or more days between changes more often than 7-8 days. Until I can get the substrate cleaner, would you recommend doing smaller, more frequent changes? Using the baster method, after doing this method many times, should I see less waste to be cleaned up?

Consistency is key, use whatever schedule gives the highest chance that maintenance will get done.

I'm fairly lazy, I use to do 'Fish tank Sunday' which was a 50% water change and whatever other maintenance needed to be done. 1/2 the time I never completed everything because of me quickly becoming frustrated or because of time issues.

My new schedule is this, on Sundays all (3) tanks get a 50% water change. This takes about an hour.

The rest of the week I aim to do something every day.  It might be trim some sickly looking growth, spot vacuum, clean a filter real fast. move a plant or decore, ect.

 

On 9/1/2024 at 5:14 PM, awgraham said:

As for filter floss, I was using it in the past, but stopped. I didn't seem to notice a huge difference in the clarity of the water. Maybe I didn't know how to best look to see the differences.

Filter floss should be the last stage before clean water hits filter media or is sent back to your tank. Even filter floss in an air powered box filter will make a huge difference 

Edited September 1 by JoeQ

[reefhugger]

On 9/1/2024 at 6:46 PM, JoeQ said:

I don't think I posted the turkey baster video.

The video was at the end of the page on 2 Hr Aquarist.  I'm appreciative of this post because I'm being overrun by BBA in one of my tanks. I like the idea of stepping up daily perusal of that tank, although at this point a reset may be in order.  My other tanks aren't having the BBA difficulty so its something specific to this tanks setup.  Anyway, thanks for that info.

[JoeQ]

On 9/4/2024 at 6:03 AM, reefhugger said:

The video was at the end of the page on 2 Hr Aquarist.  I'm appreciative of this post because I'm being overrun by BBA in one of my tanks. I like the idea of stepping up daily perusal of that tank, although at this point a reset may be in order.  My other tanks aren't having the BBA difficulty so its something specific to this tanks setup.  Anyway, thanks for that info.

Ahhhhh ok, now I see and you are welcome. It is most likely (for whatever reason) algae grow has gained an upper hand in that particular tank. A 'reset' or good cleaning/overhaul is always a good first step when dealing with any out of control algae outbreak.