# BBA going purple



## castle (16 Jan 2018)

Hello, 

I have algae in my tank - which is okay. As part of my efforts to understand and experiment more, I've been injecting 2ml of Easy Carbo into the tank every morning, and reducing lighting duration to 5 hours (from 7). Using a Chihiros A-series over a 60-P. Not using compressed CO2.

By all means *let me know if I should do more/something else*; but look, my bba went red/purple...







This is the tank about a week ago...






I'd just removed a lot of duckweed, and planted Potamogeton gayi behind the wood to hopefully help outcompete the algae. It's not a great photo, but it does the job.

(WC 25% weekly, lighting 5 hours a day + 1 hour in evening, 3ml of Tropica Specialised a week, 2ml of Easy carbo daily). Plants are Eleocharis acicularis 'mini', Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo, Sagittaria Subulata needle, a few crypts (albida brown, lutea Hobbit, spiralis) and finally Potamogeton gayi, and fissidens fontanus).


----------



## papa_c (16 Jan 2018)

This is a good thing....when I spot dose BBA with glute the first sign of it dying is it goes red/purple after 24 hours, then goes beige/white and then disappears. Carry on and you should see it all disappear. But then trying to work out what causes it is a totally different story!


----------



## castle (17 Jan 2018)

Ahh, I haven't been spot dosing, just 2ml additional each day. I suspect I will keep this up now for the life of the tank, or at least until the P.Gayi takes hold. 

The Easy Carbo is new to the tank; the tank lights were on for 8ish hours a day, and I did water top up only. Not only that, but Tropica complete fertaliser was used sporadically, so there was never any kind fo routine for the tank. What I think really tipped it, was removing some filter media into another tank and replacing it with new media. I dunno, tank declined rapidly after that.


----------



## ceg4048 (17 Jan 2018)

Hello,
          BBA and any filamentous algae is caused by poor CO2, so either you are not dosing enough daily EasyCarbo or your light intensity is too high, or a combination of both.

Cheers,


----------



## Dolly Sprint 16v (23 Jan 2018)

The lights are to bright - can you lift the lighting unit up that will reduce your lighting intensity, say 12" from the top of the water

Paul


----------



## castle (23 Jan 2018)

Dolly Sprint 16v said:


> The lights are to bright - can you lift the lighting unit up that will reduce your lighting intensity, say 12" from the top of the water
> 
> Paul


Thanks, I'll try lifting them 6inches (45cm from substrate) to see if that makes a difference


----------



## castle (25 Jan 2018)

I have maintained EasyCarbo dosing to the water column, with filter on at 3ml a day in the morning. It's showing an obvious detrimental effect to the algae, with lots of algae now showing red around the tank. What I've done further is reduced the light duration to 5 hours from 5+1, and lowered the lighting strength by 1 - on a scale of 1 to 6 I think - stopped dosing fertaliser due to the introduction of a few Limnobium laevigatum which have grown exponentially. I will monitor the floaters, and if they start to look ill, I'll does some fertaliser. Trying to bring some balance to the tank, but not have an adverse effect on plant growth.


----------

