Oh no! BBA!!! Say it isn't so!

[TifNee837]

Help please!?

I want to at least attempt to spot treat with hydrogen peroxide first, it's only on a few spots that I've seen - small specs on my UV (not pictured), one of my sponge filters, rubber / bottom of a heater, and the tip of one of my stem plants.

Unfortunately, the heater, UV and sponge are in a different tank than the plant it's on..so now it's in TWO of the tanks!

Someone please walk me through the spot treatment first, and then give me alternatives in case it doesn't work!

I literally just (semi) rescaped the 60 gallon and really am wanting to pull everything to scrub or whatever unless 110% necessary!

Thanks in advance!. 

[Mr. Ed's Aquatics]

Make a 3% hydrogen peroxide dip. 3mil per gallon of water. Equipment is easier since timing and placement don't have to be very specific, but for plants try to dip just the effected area for about 5 minutes, careful not to get on the roots. Rinse in clean water dosed with declorinator. 

Should turn pink and sluff off if you do it correctly. 

[Matt Pike]

You can use spot treatment of excel or hydrogen peroxide with a syringe. I have done that had some success. I would like to get some panda garra or Florida flag fish and try them I hear they eat it. I am sure some on with more insight on this will help out.

[Bill Smith]

I would think a Siamese Algae Eater or two (NOT Chinese!) would clean that up for you nicely. I've had quite a bit of luck with them myself.

[MickS77]

I've had success combating BBA with manual removal, as much as possible, and nutrient control. See where your nitrates are adjust accordingly, maybe cut back on feedings, shorten photo period. Once you get the balance right your plants should start out competing the BBA, it takes time. I still have a few small tufts but it doesn't spread anymore.

[Irene]

I haven't had much luck with hydrogen peroxide on BBA, despite a) dosing the entire tank with the most popular recipes listed online, b) directly spraying leaves outside of water and letting it sit for 5 minutes, and c) buying fresh bottles to ensure their potency. But many people swear by it, so maybe something in my tap water is interfering with it? However, one time I spot-treated my heater using Easy Carbon / Excel while the top of the heater was out of water during a water change, and all of the BBA disappeared! I'm not sure how safe that is for plant leaves, so I may experiment with a fast-growing stem plant next week. Let us know what ends up working for you!

[Bill Smith]

Just now, Irene said:

I haven't had much luck with hydrogen peroxide on BBA, despite a) dosing the entire tank with the most popular recipes listed online, b) directly spraying leaves outside of water and letting it sit for 5 minutes, and c) buying fresh bottles to ensure their potency. But many people swear by it, so maybe something in my tap water is interfering with it? However, one time I spot-treated my heater using Easy Carbon / Excel while the top of the heater was out of water during a water change, and all of the BBA disappeared! I'm not sure how safe that is for plant leaves, so I may experiment with a fast-growing stem plant next week. Let us know what ends up working for you!

Thanks Irene for the insights! I've had the same lack of results with hydrogen peroxide as well. I have very hard high-pH water, so I wonder if that affects it.

Will definitely experiment the target treating with Easy Carbon!

[Irene]

2 minutes ago, Bill Smith said:

Thanks Irene for the insights! I've had the same lack of results with hydrogen peroxide as well. I have very hard high-pH water, so I wonder if that affects it.

Will definitely experiment the target treating with Easy Carbon!

Ah, I have high pH with soft water. Interestingly, Wikipedia does say, "The rate of decomposition increases with rise in temperature, concentration, and pH, with cool, dilute, acidic solutions showing the best stability." Maybe next time I should try drying off the plant leaf with a paper towel before spraying with H2O2?

[Leo2o915]

On 7/29/2020 at 8:08 AM, Irene said:

I haven't had much luck with hydrogen peroxide on BBA, despite a) dosing the entire tank with the most popular recipes listed online, b) directly spraying leaves outside of water and letting it sit for 5 minutes, and c) buying fresh bottles to ensure their potency. But many people swear by it, so maybe something in my tap water is interfering with it? However, one time I spot-treated my heater using Easy Carbon / Excel while the top of the heater was out of water during a water change, and all of the BBA disappeared! I'm not sure how safe that is for plant leaves, so I may experiment with a fast-growing stem plant next week. Let us know what ends up working for you!

How do you dose with easy carbon and excel spot treatment is better ? 

[Irene]

15 hours ago, Leo2o915 said:

How do you dose with easy carbon and excel spot treatment is better ? 

Last week I got a pipette full of liquid carbon and squirted it on some plant leaves while they were underwater. Didn't see much of a difference, so this week I'm going to spot treat a plant out of water and see if it makes any difference. Not sure how long to leave it out of water; will listen for any sizzling sounds. 😉

[Leo2o915]

50 minutes ago, Irene said:

Last week I got a pipette full of liquid carbon and squirted it on some plant leaves while they were underwater. Didn't see much of a difference, so this week I'm going to spot treat a plant out of water and see if it makes any difference. Not sure how long to leave it out of water; will listen for any sizzling sounds. 😉

I just dosed The Whole tank hopefully it works if not I’ll just go back to stop treating with hydrogen peroxide 

[Bill Smith]

For what it's worth, I've had a lot of good luck recently with BBA by throwing in a few Siamese algae eaters.

[Alesha]

On 8/6/2020 at 1:07 PM, Irene said:

Last week I got a pipette full of liquid carbon and squirted it on some plant leaves while they were underwater. Didn't see much of a difference, so this week I'm going to spot treat a plant out of water and see if it makes any difference. Not sure how long to leave it out of water; will listen for any sizzling sounds. 😉

I've had this work too! After removing water for a water change, we doused the leaves with BBA with Easy Carbon when they were out of the water, waited a few minutes and then added water. The BBA turned pink and died. I've tried it while the plant is immersed and that's never worked for me.

[Solidus1833]

The best thing I ever did to combat BBA was get a Siamese algae eater. I've got an XL one in my 72g that constantly cleans and cleans I love the way they look and maintenance the tank. I also have a barely 1/2inch Siamese algae eater in my 20g that was getting overgrown. That little sucker has plenty of food. 

[Bill Smith]

If you have a quarantine or extra tank, you can always use it as a "toolbox" tank. Keep a few extra BBA-eaters in there (Siamese Algae Eaters, snails, Florida flagfish, etc.), and drop in a plant for a day or so when it needs to be cleaned off...

[tuculover]

I have really good luck spot treating with Easy Carbon. I turn off my filters while I spot treat everywhere I see it and then start things back up again. I don't worry too much about how much EC I'm adding to the tank, I try and clear it out with a water change a few days later. Between an SAE and some Amano, the now pink BBA gets cleared out. That said, I totally agree with @MickS77, nutrient control really helps to keep it down.

That said, I am going to nuke a tank this weekend that I can't seem to get a handle on. Boil/peroxide everything and start the cycle over.

[Andy's Fish Den]

On 8/6/2020 at 3:46 PM, Bill Smith said:

For what it's worth, I've had a lot of good luck recently with BBA by throwing in a few Siamese algae eaters.

I had two tanks with bad outbreaks of BBA, I tried hydrogen peroxide, excel, easy carbon and still didn't do anything. I got two Siamese algae eaters for each tank, and in one tanks I haven't seen a tuft of BBA and in the other there's a couple small spots, but I'm sure they'll be gone soon. I've also heard that panda garra are good BBA eaters as well, I'm supposed to be getting some at a swap a local club is doing soon and will keep them on standby to try as well. 

[genuine_red]

I spot treated hydrogen peroxide from a pipette on completely submerged plants and had great success, with the BBA turning red within 24 hours. SO, I confidently used it liberally on plants in another tank with disastrous consequences. Within 24 hours, the BBA was killed, along with one third of the fish and all four of the nerite snails. In another disaster, I pulled all plants with BBA and--again confidently--soaked them in straight peroxide for 5 minutes, then left them in clean water. Within 24 hours, every plant had melted. What was I thinking? I lost several anubias, buce, and crypts, all of which were fairly expensive. Lesson learned, (except I may spot treat in tiny doses on affected plants). I would love to learn how to avoid BBA altogether. It's difficult to determine what causes any type of algae since it's a mix of lighting (my lights are all on timers), ferts, and water parameters. And every tank suffers from different types/combinations of algae. In fact, the only tank with no algae is my plant qt tank, which runs no filter ... and also has no fish.

[Irene]

@genuine_red Sorry to hear about your plants! For me, BBA was caused by a combination of lights being too strong and mineral deficiencies that caused my plants to stop growing (I have very soft water). Here's what I did:

1. Removed dying plants that were too far gone
2. Decreased my Fluval 3.0 light down to 30% intensity (for a 16″ tall, 20-gallon high tank with no CO2 injection)
3. Started dosing Seachem Equilibrium once a month to raise my mineral content to 4-8 dGH
4. Spot treated the algae on submerged plants using liquid carbon in a pipette (since hydrogen peroxide didn't work for me)

I spot treated only 1-2 leaves at first as a test and then waited a week to see if the plant would survive. When it did, I spot treated about 7-10 leaves each week, and gradually my plants started becoming algae-free again and are actually growing lots of new leaves. It was a very frustrating but ultimately rewarding experience. Best of luck in figuring out what's causing your BBA!

Before:

After: 

[genuine_red]

Wow! That is a huge difference!

My water is very hard, but I don't know if that means I don't need ferts as often or more or less light, or maybe hardness isn't a factor ...

I have three nano display tanks (10-12 gal) that get water changes at least once a week. The algae is now minimal in two of them. I think that's because I cut off most of the affected leaves. The other tank now has a type of green, furry stuff on the wood and substrate (see first pic). I've pulled the wood completely out and scrubbed it clean and picked out affected substrate, but it keeps coming back. I probably shouldn't be so picky since the aquarium looks great from a distance (see second pic) ... but I AM picky and that stuff is spreading. I'm going to try Seachem Flourish Excel. If full tank treatment doesn't work, I'll try spot treating. I really don't want to uproot my aquascape again to scrub the wood.

The third and fourth pics are my tanks where algae is now minimal.

[Irene]

@genuine_red Oh wow, your tanks look beautiful! Yeah, lack of minerals probably isn't your issue. I had already tested many other plant nutrients first, and nothing else seemed out of whack. After looking at different online articles, here is a list of recommended nutrient levels I wrote down to try to troubleshoot what my plants were lacking:

• CO2 content: 20-30 ppm
• Nitrate (NO3): 10-25 ppm OR 10-20 ppm
• Potassium (K): 5-10 ppm OR 10-20 ppm
• Phosphate (PO4): 0.1-1 ppm (dose to 0.5 and let it drop to 0) OR 0.5-2.0 ppm
• Magnesium (Mg): >10 ppm OR 2-5 ppm
• Calcium (Ca): 10-30 ppm
• (calcium-magnesium-potassium ratio = 2:1:0.5)
• Iron (Fe): 0.05-0.1 ppm OR 0.1-0.5 ppm
• General Hardness (GH): 4-8 degrees 
• Carbonate Hardness (KH): 4-8 degrees 

I tried tweaking the individual nutrients I thought my plants needed more of, but I ended up making a bigger mess of things. Eventually, I went back to using Easy Green since it's already calibrated to the right concentration of nutrients for most tanks. The one thing it doesn't list in the ingredients is calcium though, which is what I was missing. 🙂

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I did first try dosing the liquid carbon on the whole tank for several weeks. It was gradually killing some algae because I could see lots of particulate floating in the water and making it cloudy, but it didn't seem to make much of a dent for some reason. Eventually, I gave up and just started spot treating, and it worked much better/faster for me. Best of luck to ya!

Edited September 4, 2020 by Irene

[Chandra]

1 hour ago, Irene said:

@genuine_red Oh wow, your tanks look beautiful! Yeah, lack of minerals probably isn't your issue. I had already tested many other plant nutrients first, and nothing else seemed out of whack. After looking at different online articles, here is a list of recommended nutrient levels I wrote down to try to troubleshoot what my plants were lacking:

• CO2 content: 20-30 ppm
• Nitrate (NO3): 10-25 ppm OR 10-20 ppm
• Potassium (K): 5-10 ppm OR 10-20 ppm
• Phosphate (PO4): 0.1-1 ppm (dose to 0.5 and let it drop to 0) OR 0.5-2.0 ppm
• Magnesium (Mg): >10 ppm OR 2-5 ppm
• Calcium (Ca): 10-30 ppm
• (calcium-magnesium-potassium ratio = 2:1:0.5)
• Iron (Fe): 0.05-0.1 ppm OR 0.1-0.5 ppm
• General Hardness (GH): 4-8 degrees 
• Carbonate Hardness (KH): 4-8 degrees 

I tried tweaking the individual nutrients I thought my plants needed more of, but I ended up making a bigger mess of things. Eventually, I went back to using Easy Green since it's already calibrated to the right concentration of nutrients for most tanks. The one thing it doesn't list in the ingredients is calcium though, which is what I was missing. 🙂

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I did first try dosing the liquid carbon on the whole tank for several weeks. It was gradually killing some algae because I could see lots of particulate floating in the water and making it cloudy, but it didn't seem to make much of a dent for some reason. Eventually, I gave up and just started spot treating, and it worked much better/faster for me. Best of luck to ya!

How do you keep up with so many tests and kits, @Irene?

[Daniel]

@Irene Before and After!

I am glad that the green algae on the heater, sides and back survived. It just seems that that velvety green algae has positive biological value to the health of the tank. It is a matter of taste of course, but I also like the look.

22 minutes ago, Chandra said:

How do you keep up with so many tests and kits, @Irene?

@Chandra, Irene may clarify this, but I think she is saying she doesn't try and test everything or manage individual nutrients. She likely monitors nitrates and based on the nitrate level, doses with Easy Green.

[Irene]

@Chandra @Daniel Haha, so when I was trying to figure out my nutrient deficiency problems, I did buy several extra test kits to narrow down which nutrient I might have too little or too much of. However, now that I'm no longer chasing individual nutrients and am just using Easy Green, yes I mainly just check nitrates to make sure it's at 20 ppm. Once a month, I also check GH and dose Seachem Equilibirum to keep my calcium and other minerals high enough.

[genuine_red]

6 hours ago, Irene said:

@genuine_red Oh wow, your tanks look beautiful! Yeah, lack of minerals probably isn't your issue. I had already tested many other plant nutrients first, and nothing else seemed out of whack. After looking at different online articles, here is a list of recommended nutrient levels I wrote down to try to troubleshoot what my plants were lacking:

• CO2 content: 20-30 ppm
• Nitrate (NO3): 10-25 ppm OR 10-20 ppm
• Potassium (K): 5-10 ppm OR 10-20 ppm
• Phosphate (PO4): 0.1-1 ppm (dose to 0.5 and let it drop to 0) OR 0.5-2.0 ppm
• Magnesium (Mg): >10 ppm OR 2-5 ppm
• Calcium (Ca): 10-30 ppm
• (calcium-magnesium-potassium ratio = 2:1:0.5)
• Iron (Fe): 0.05-0.1 ppm OR 0.1-0.5 ppm
• General Hardness (GH): 4-8 degrees 
• Carbonate Hardness (KH): 4-8 degrees 

I tried tweaking the individual nutrients I thought my plants needed more of, but I ended up making a bigger mess of things. Eventually, I went back to using Easy Green since it's already calibrated to the right concentration of nutrients for most tanks. The one thing it doesn't list in the ingredients is calcium though, which is what I was missing. 🙂

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I did first try dosing the liquid carbon on the whole tank for several weeks. It was gradually killing some algae because I could see lots of particulate floating in the water and making it cloudy, but it didn't seem to make much of a dent for some reason. Eventually, I gave up and just started spot treating, and it worked much better/faster for me. Best of luck to ya!

Thanks for the info and resources! The article sounds like I need a chemist lol. I'll stick with the easy green for now and try the excel after my water change tomorrow. (The green-fuzzy has about doubled since the pic I took yesterday!) I may also try not feeding that tank for a couple of days so the fish will "eat their salad," as I once heard it called. Fingers crossed one of these things will work!