# Returning BBA



## andy blundell (25 Nov 2019)

A few week ago noticed BBA in my tank and after a bit of research started treating with Seachem Flourish Excel, a couple of days later i noticed white spot so did a 50% water change then chemically treated for white spot. Result being that BBA receeded then completely disappeared in a matter of days. Have continued with daily does of Flurish Excel but BBA is starting to reappear.

Two things i have noticed and was wondering whether these could have any effect on growth.

1) - After dosing the white spot treatment, i noticed ammonia and nitrate levels start to rise, im assuming that either the clean or the treatment affected the cycle of the tank. Would the increaed ammonia / nitrite explain the BBA die off? Only once these both returned to normal levels of 0ppm did the BBA come back.

2) - During the time the BBA died off i had removed the activated carbon fromy my filter because of the white spot treatment. A week after re introducing the carbon BBA was back. Is this a factor? i am dosing weekly with TNC lite.

Any help greatly received.

Thanks


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## MJQMJQ (27 Nov 2019)

Is your tank heavily planted?The ferts might be too much.Get some fast growing stem or floating plants.Any treatment for diseases should ideally be done in a smaller separate tank for a few minutes which doesnt harm the bacteria in main tank and reduces amount of meds u need to use.I guess the BBA die off is due to whatever meds u used.U can test by removing some healthy BBA and put in a container then dose the same concentration of the treatment u used.


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## Tim Harrison (27 Nov 2019)

Welcome andy 
You need to give us the full stats of the tank along with a good FTS, the more images the better. Stats like tank sze, filter output, lighting intensity, photoperiod, how much fertz you're dosing etc.
But to start with TNC lite does not contain NPK, so that might have something to do with it.


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## andy blundell (27 Nov 2019)

Many thanks for the replies to this post, im still new to this hobby so keen to learn for all you experts out there.     

My tank is a juwel rio 125, i am using the internal filter and pump supplied with tank rated at 500 litres per hour. Tank came with multilux led lights that i have on for 1 hours in the morning and then 5.5 hours in an evening. 

I do weekly water changes, where i vacuum the gravel and remove all the filter media and swill in the removed tank water. I remove about 30% of the water each change. Once water is topped back up i add 10-15 mills of TNC lite. I am also adding about 5mills seachem flourish excel on a daily basis. I do water test before each change and typcially getting ph just over 7, ammonia 0ppm, nitrites 0ppm, nitrates 20ppm

I wouldnt consider tank to be heavily planted, i have anubias hastifolia, baccopa caroliniana, echinodours tricolor, echinodorus ozelot red, echinodorus barthii, anubias nana bonzai and bucephalandra red.

Image below is when tank was planted around two months ago, but doesnt look like that now!!! All plants have shown reasonable growth since then although i have had some individual leaves decay that i have cut off and remove from the tank.






and some photos of what i think is my bba


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## andy blundell (27 Nov 2019)

Thats interesting, so is it not BBA as my LFS told me?

Low flow definetly makes sense this stuff is appearing in the opposite corner to where my filter outlet is. Would an airstone help, I did have one in this corner but i removed it becasue it was noisy but im guessing that air bubbles would encourage flow in the effected area?

When you say too much N in my tank, what would cause this? Is it overfeeding?


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## Tim Harrison (27 Nov 2019)

If you can try and post some pin sharp images, it would make identification a whole lot easier. In the meantime perhaps have a read of this http://aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/ and
this https://web.archive.org/web/20180901114828/http://theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm you might have better luck identifying it yourself, and finding a solution


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## andy blundell (27 Nov 2019)

Thanks all. The links Tim provided make me agree it is cyano. 

Will fit air stone tonight to improve circulation. 

Earlier in this thread it was mentioned that tnc lite may be contrbuting as it doesnt contain NPK, should i stop dosing this? Would TNC complete be better?


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## Tim Harrison (27 Nov 2019)

Take a look at this as well https://www.aquasabi.com/aquascaping-wiki_algae_bga-blue-green-algae.

I think it might be an idea to use TNC Complete. TNC Lite lacks NPK, the fundamental nutrients required for plant growth. In addition you could also use root tabs. The best defence against algae, or way of preventing it, is to grow healthy plants.

I'd also add a lot more plants, including some floaters, this will help with biological stability and discourage algae. Take a look at Tropica's "Easy" plant list. I'd go for some vallis and maybe more Echinodorus spp. and maybe some cheap stems like Ludwigia or Hygrophila spp.

Overall, your tank doesn't look that bad, so I wouldn't be too worried atm. I'd remove the infected leaves. You might be able to gently rub the algae off the anubias, I'd take it out and run it under a tap. I'd also syphon any out of the tank and do at least a 50% water change. Keep up with the weekly water changes and keep on top of maintenance and fertz dosing. See how you get on 

Maybe you could give some thought to scaping the tank a little by adding some natural wood and rocks, it'd give you somewhere to attach your anubias and buce  Also reading these might interest you Non CO2 Methods and The Soil Substrate Tank.


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