# BBA, organic waste and filtering through peat



## Lindy (28 Jul 2015)

I'm getting terrible bba despite low light levels and 50%wc every week. I understand it is caused by excess organic waste and wondered if filtering through peat could be producing the excess waste? I've started switching off the filters at feeding time incase lots of micro worms or bbs are getting sucked up and rotting in the filter. Maybe reusing old substrate released a lot of waste into the water and i should have done extra water changes? 

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## alto (28 Jul 2015)

I suppose you've followed that very lengthy thread on BBA (I've not read it since it passed several pages) ...
I've observed outstanding BBA in tanks that have very low light & (apparantly) low waste levels (fortunately not my tanks) & essentially "no" BBA in peat filtered tanks (considerable brown staining of water column), so I don't think it's as simple as just reducing/removing the peat.

Assuming that you need the peat for lowered pH, you might look at alternate sources of peat, also try some purigen or charcoal (better at DOC removal but more $$ as it can't be (easily) regenerated - Amano used "bamboo charcoal" which was likely the most economic available) ie play at offsetting the current "balance" in the tank ...
though, again, I think BBA responds better to more aggressive methods such as Seachem's Excel and mechanical interference:
- local shop keeps a horde of hungry juvenile "SAE" for just this purpose - affected plants that ship in, go straight to the SAE tank to get "cleaned"; any signs of BBA in the display tanks & SAE go in (and no fish food for 2-3 days)
- amano shrimp will eat BBA (in the early stages) but it's rather low on the palatability list so this really only works if no other food is present (red-nose shrimp are reported to be more fond of it, though again I believe this was in the context of "young" BBA))
- removal of all affected leaves + shrimp/SAE etc 

It's quite likely that old substrate released considerable waste into the water column - how well was it rinsed? did you do daily water changes for the first week or two?

I'm a lazy aquarist & I've done a lot of things to my tanks that are virtually guaranteed to produce volumes of assorted algaes (including BBA) but I don't have much algae (but I obviousy also don't have any super charged light/CO2/fast growth tanks either) - not saying I'm great at planted tanks (I'm a terrible aquascaper by the standards of this forum ), just that it's not as straightforward a relationship as some claim.

In your situation, I'd
1) daily water changes, even if it's just 20 % focused on debris vacuuming of substrate & plants
2) filter media - fine wool to trap debris, charcoal/purigen (but only add the latter after a week of daily water changes unless it's convenient to check/recharge/remove the media every couple of days), if you can track down one of those old DE filters (such as the System one) run that
(I think adding in UV took over as it's far less labour & technically easier (charging the DE filter takes practise))

3) mechanical removal/spot treatment with Excel - how feasible is it to remove plants for treatment ... or move fish to temporary tanks while aggressively battling the algae 

4) add CO2 - even at 5mg/l it will make a difference, just leave this on 24/7, you can always increase surface ripple at night

5) more light? - not sure how low your low light is


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## Lindy (29 Jul 2015)

Thanks for the detailed response Alto. Lots of water changes are near impossible as all water change water is matured and the ph is chemically reduced before going as i have sensitive fish. 
Using purigen also removes the beneficial properties of blackwater extracts/humic acids and peat.
Amano shrimp will not survive in my soft water  and i don't want to buy fish just to eat algae.
I didn't rinse the substrate which i think was a big mistake although i did a 90% wc before adding fish. I'm going to catch all fish and redo the tank (again) capping the old substrate with new ada africana. Lots of wcs with water straight from hose (as there will be no fish) 
Have reduced quantity of wood, bought more plants and more tropica ready prepared specialised fert so just need to skoosh it in. 
Fortunately the fish still seem very happy so the water quality for them has not reduced.

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## Lindy (29 Jul 2015)

Oh and i tried reading the thread about BBA but is was 99% people bickering and taking shots at each other so stopped around page 8. Unfortunately any real info was lost to me.

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## roadmaster (29 Jul 2015)

I keep cherry shrimp and noticed a fair amount of them being drawn into the filter as evidenced by the live and dead ones found in the filter at filter cleaning time(monthly).
I also noticed bad smell when opening the filter not the usual wet dirt smell.
I reduced feeding's to once a day or every other day and placed a pre filter sponge over the intakes to keep out the shrimp.
This seemed to help in overall cleaner tank.


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## dw1305 (29 Jul 2015)

Hi all,





alto said:


> Assuming that you need the peat for lowered pH, you might look at alternate sources of peat, also try some purigen or charcoal (better at DOC removal





ldcgroomer said:


> Using purigen also removes the beneficial properties of blackwater extracts/humic acids and peat.


Lindy is right, it is the humic substances in the DOC that keep the fish happy.

I know from <"Apistogramma forums"> that some of the nutrient poor black-water tanks have a lot of Red Algae, but very happy fish.










cheers Darrel


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## Edvet (29 Jul 2015)

Indeed if the fish are happy i don't care about the algea.


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## Lindy (29 Jul 2015)

Maybe I just need to embrace the algae but for the first time there is bba on my plants too and I have unhappy looking plants. Looking to upgrade filter. If the plants start looking better then I'll not worry about the furry bba.


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