# Blue Green Bacteria



## johnfw (31 Oct 2012)

Hi all

Posted a question incorrectly in New Menbers by mistake so posting again.

I should be grateful if anyone can give me advice on removing Blue Green Bacteria from my tank which started about 6 months ago. My set up is as follows:-

I have an 80 gallon tropical tank which was set up approx 33 months ago. The substrate is 4 to 5 cm of washed peat under 5 cm of washed gravel separated by a mesh net.

My lighting is 2 x 54w T5 Plant pro tubes which are on for 5 hours during the Summer, 6 hours during Spring & Autumn and 7 hours during the Winter. They have not been changed since the setting up of the tank. No direct light gets to the tank although the room has windows on three sides.

The tank is filtered by an Eheim 2075 external filter which is cleaned every 2 to 3 months and in addition I have two air stones and a Koralia water pump which gives a flow rate of 2800 litres per hour. A water change is done every 2 weeks of 10% of the tank capacity.

Since I set the tank up, my water readings have been P.H. 7.4 to 7.8, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, and Nitrate of between 40 to 80.

My plants consist of Giant Vallis, Normal Vallis, Amazon Swords and various crypts. All are growing well apart from the Amazon Swords which have become stunted.

My 15 fish are fed twice a day but only what can be eaten in 2 to 3 mins.

I have been advised to do various actions such as 1) Change 33% 0f my water each week, 2) Clean my filter every month and buy new light tubes, 3) Add chemicals and 4) Strip the tank down and start again as it is the peat that is causing the bacteria. In addition I have read James' Planted Tank article on Blue Green Algae.

I do not have a Co2 system in my tank.

Any advice on how to get rid of this bacteria would be welcome as I am now very confused as to what action to take.

Thanking you in advance

John


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## CeeJay (3 Nov 2012)

Hi johnfw

I had an outbreak of this when I first ran a low tech/low light setup.
It transpired that I had low nitrate in the tank and BGA is usually caused by low nitrates   .
I dropped in two teaspoons of KNO3 and it was gone in 4 days    .
You do not mention adding any fertiliser for your plants. I would recommend you get some 'All In One'  liquid plant food as this will contain Nitrate, which is what you need. You may get away with feeding the plants once a week on a no CO2 setup.
You probably have too much light to rely on fish waste alone to 'feed' your plants.


			
				johnfw said:
			
		

> I have been advised to do various actions such as





			
				johnfw said:
			
		

> 1) Change 33% 0f my water each week,


Always a good idea when battling algae   



			
				johnfw said:
			
		

> 2) Clean my filter every month


Good practice  



			
				johnfw said:
			
		

> and buy new light tubes,


Bad practice (and expensive)    Mine only get changed when they break or stop working   . So what if the efficiency of the lamps drop, the plants adapt and just grow a bit slower. No dramas there.



			
				johnfw said:
			
		

> Add chemicals


What chemicals are we talking about here?



			
				johnfw said:
			
		

> 4) Strip the tank down and start again as it is the peat that is causing the bacteria.


It's never a good idea to strip a tank when battling algae. We always strive to find the cause, and we know what the cause is in this case.
The peat alone will not cause BGA. Low nitrates will.

FYI 
I ran my 95l low tech setup for three years before I stripped it down. It only had one 20W T8 over it. Everything grew slowly but I wasn't in a rush. I just wanted to see that it could be done.
I know there are differing opinions on this forum regarding water changes on a low tech setup, but in the three years that tank ran, it only got one water change   , and that was when I had to move the tank to re-lay a floor. I usually just had to top up evaporation loss in the summer months. The fish were all fine. In fact they are still with me in one of my CO2 setups now.
Filter was cleaned about once a month.
Low tech should be easy once you get on top of this BGA.

In fact, here's a picture of it. 





Not a scape by any stretch of the imagination, but all the maintenance that got was: 
Fed the fish once a day
Fed the plants once a week
Cleaned the filter once a month or thereabouts.
As you can see, there was a bit of algae on the back glass, but I didn't lose any sleep over that  
Good luck.


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## johnfw (3 Nov 2012)

Hi Ceejay

Thank you for your information. I must admit that I used to put 'Waterlife Bacterlife' into my tank once a week and feed my plants every ten days with 'Waterlife TropiFlora plant food'. Unfortunately I have been rather amiss as I ran out of these products about the time this bacteria started to form and have not replenished my supply. I am about to reorder and wonder if the lack of these two ingrediants was part of my problem. The use of KN03 has also been suggested by a member of the Portsmouth Aquarium Society. Should I try the Bacterlife and TropiFlora first for a month before going down the KN03 route ?
Regards
John.


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## CeeJay (3 Nov 2012)

Hi John

I think as long as you feed your plants you will be OK, it just might take a bit longer to get rid of the BGA. Siphon out what BGA you can along with your water changes, and once you get the dosing right, it won't come back.
Don't be afraid to overdose the fertiliser either, as you will find these commercial products are very weak. This will not cause any undue stress to your fish and it definitely won't cause algae.
I was using a home made concotion. The information was kindly distributed 'JamesC' and can be found here All In One towards the bottom of the page.
(I used the recipe DIY TPN+ 3, as I had most of the ingredients for my EI tanks), but I had to dose 2-3 times the recommended amount to keep the BGA at bay.


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## CeeJay (3 Nov 2012)

Hi John 

PS
I just looked up the two products you mentioned.
I would definitely use the Waterlife Tropiflora as your plant food, but you can safely drop the Waterlife Bacterlife. Once your plants are healthy they will break down most, if not all, of the Ammonia in your tank. 
Think of it as free filtration  
Win win situation


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## johnfw (3 Nov 2012)

Hi Chris

Thank you again for your help. Have read 'JamesC' article which is quite informative. Will also look at Tropica fertiliser but with my tank being 350 litres, a 300ml bottle would only last about 9 weeks. Will start with the TropiFlora and see what results I get.

John


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## CeeJay (3 Nov 2012)

Hi 
At 350l I would seriously consider mixing your own by buying the dry salts. You will save yourself a fortune.
It works out around £2 to make 500ml of your own 'All In One'.
Compare that to 500ml of any commercial brand


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## gmartins (5 Nov 2012)

I dose heavyly with ferts and sometimes I still get BGA. I note that this happens especially on the right side of the tank which gets a little bit of direct sunlight. Not big deal, I just remove it during wc.

However, I did have a large outbreak in the past and I did a 4-day blackout. It worked perfectly. Large wc before and after and you're back on track again.

cheers

GM


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## Ichthyologist (2 Dec 2012)

So here is my working hypothesis on Cyanobacter infection and what I am going to try to control and early outbreak in my medium tech tank, I will report back. IMHO, there is a load of guff written on the web about BG algae, I have done some secondary research on what controls Cyanobacter growth. The main controller of cyanobacter populations in aquariums ( and wild freshwater bodies) appears to be wild type bacteriophage that will lyse the cyanobacter cells, see   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1183273/ based on this primary research I am going to try the following.

1) up my NO3 as I have been under dosing, thank you UKAPS

2) stick to a strict 10 hour photoperiod as this has been shown to optomise the number of bacteriophages (pfu) in this chart http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... figure/f2/ and the bacteriophage need the dark period (or rather lack of UV ) for infection.

3) hope that that I have not contributed to the guff of the interweb  flame away, I can take it.


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## ceg4048 (2 Dec 2012)

Just clean you tank and filter regularly, and add more NO3. All that other stuff is rubbish because that is not the life cycle occurring in the tank. That keeps things simple and it also demonstrates once again how completely incompetent NO3 test kits are. This should be a lesson to the OP to stop wasting money on NO3 test kits.

Cheers,


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## Westyggx (2 Dec 2012)

I have been unsuccessful in removing this from my tank since 5 months. Tried everything and it just keeps coming back for vengeance.


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