# BBA on Buces in my high tech tank



## Easternlethal (15 May 2016)

I have a tank with some relatively demanding plants like hcs, macandras, toninas and pog. helferis, so I dose high EI, lots of co2 and medium/high light. Tank is about 1.5 years old.

I dose Cano3, k2so4, kh2po4 and gh booster and my filtration is about 15x turnover.

Everything was good until BBA started growing on my buces and I just couldn't get rid of it.

I am trying to address this by adding more biofiltration and cleaning amd am pretty sure my tank is clean - water is pretty clear.

I've moved the buces around between the high and low flow areas of my tank and it doesn't seem to be making a difference.

I know that reducing lighting will help but I am worried about my other plants.

So I am contemplating reducing my ferts. Can anyone advise which ferts I should start with? I use relatively little kh2po4 so Am thinking of reducing gh booster first.

Anyway it would be nice to hear from owners who have overcome similar issues.


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## zozo (15 May 2016)

Buce is a relatively slow grower, but it grows fastest in high flow areas.. I got mine in the high flow very short to the surface and indeed there it's one of the first plant showing beard algae.. Beard algae is not flow related but light related  doesn't matter if high or low tech, if its conditions are favorable it will grow, and then you"ll most likely see it at the top of the tank even at the filter outlet growing the best. In my case because the buce is placed less than an inch bellow the surface it emerses during water chane and i always spray/mist a bit peroxide on it's leaves about a minute or 2 before i start refilling, if i see beard devellop. I the infection is to severe, you'll need longer treatments to be realy effective, this might damage the leaves. So if you have the option to emerse them, this is a very effective way to keep iit under control. Once beard is in the tank it'll never get totaly out again, it will keep comming back, specialy on the buce.. If you have yours clean one time, then inspect very closely and start as soon as possible don't wait for rasputin, start when you see a three day beard arive. And as said they grow fastest in highflow area, this also helps, if in low flow make sure it's a shaded or filtered light spot.  That's the spot where they barely grow but also never get a beard.. Beard hates low light..


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## Easternlethal (16 May 2016)

I'm not sure it's light related in my case because i have buces in the shade right at the bottom of my tank underneath driftwood and right near the top close to the light and bba grows on both of them. Putting them near high flow seems to work best but that's probably only because the spores can't settle. 

If, as I think you saying, they grow slowly so under EI they will always lose out to bba, then I don't know how other folks can maintain their buces in EI conditions. Perhaps they trim and nuke a lot with h202, but that's a very tiresome chore for me..


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## rebel (16 May 2016)

I am a beginner, but I've had no ends of trouble with buce and high light co2. 

Do you have SAE? For your issue, this would be easiest solution.


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## zozo (16 May 2016)

Fighting beard algae is always a tiresome chore and needs patience and severely infected leaves seldomly come out unharmed. If you do not want to nuke them and see what survives you need to cut them away..

i got 3 tanks now, one is high tech and relatively high light and a low tech with relatively high light for a low tech and onother low tech with very low light. In my experience the last tank is the only one not growing beard algae in both others i have.. I swap plants around all the time so there is definitely beard introduced to the super low light tank but it just doesn''t grow there.

Where ever you read on the internet when it comes to beard algae all points to Co2.. Except if you have a low tech without it.. Does that mean your are doomed to convert your low tech to high tech once beard algae arives? I'm not so sure about that.. It might be co2 related if you use it if you don't use it there must be another.. And there is another, thats finding the sweetspot in fert and light.. This experience tell me even in high tech depending on the plants you grow going down with fert and light must have same effect on beard algae as upping everything like more co2, more ferts and more light. But if you have fast growing llight loving plants uping co2 to safe optimum level is the best option in high tech. And if you are already at the max co2 output, you need to down something like fert or light.

Buce is a low light plant relatively slow growing, so placing a buce in a high tech is the same requirement as anubias.. Find a sweetspot to place the plant. And then find the sweet spot between light, ferts and co2.

Got 3 buce in the high tech tank, the only one never growing beard is the one in the lowest flow and lowest light spot. And i do not do EI lets say i do EV (Estimate visualy) 

You may pick by own experience where the sweetspot chain is brooken in your case.. Light? Co2? ferts? or placement of the plant?  It's one or the other which one remains the milion dollas question.

Placing a cleanup crew in your tank like shrimps and algae eaters is essential but never the solution.. Bare in mind a algae eater like the famous siamese eating beard algae grows rather large when matured, takes a while but eventualy it might outgrow you tank and might become frustrated and agresive towards other tank mates.

This all under the assumption your own cleanup husbandry regime is spot on and regularly done..


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## Easternlethal (16 May 2016)

Thanks for the discussion guys. It was a while ago but I actually switched to EI because of bba and algae in the first place. In doing so I upped flow, filtration and co2 and it has worked on everything except for the buces. So now I am dialling ferts and lights back and getting deja vu in reverse. But I guess that's just part of the hobby. .


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## zozo (16 May 2016)

Easternlethal said:


> But I guess that's just part of the hobby. .


Yup it gives us the run arounds.. In persuit of the perfect, one that doesn't excist.. Maybe for a short period, that's the time we often wait for to start shooting and show off our pics.  By the time you get alround experienced and you know which type of plants and what light etc. etc. fits best together you might get closer to the perfectionisme. For proffesionals building a few scapes a month also sometimes still have the strangest experiences with algae issues and such.. So even they get the run arounds too sometimes.

Anyway i experience the same as you do, all is clean and only buce grows a beard.. Not realy a nasty one, but it does.. I clean it off and a few weeks later it very slowly comes back. But as said only the buce in the high light areas do this. So for the next high tech i build with buce i know where not to place them.. 

And consider my self a novice, probably compaired to many others will always be one.. Every tank is different and lives its own life, that's what i learned.. It's hard to say what you should do from a distance. But you never should do multiple changes in the same periode but one at the time, that's the way to find out what the trigger in your case is. So if you change something change only one thing and wait it out for a few weeks and see what happens.. If it doesn't do any good change someting else.. 

What i understand from dosing EI, is you can't overfeed since you do a 25/50% waterchange weekly anyway to reset.. So there always is enough and never to little... If i were in your shoes i would start with just going down with the light first and keep the ferts as is. Could be the intensity.. keep it like that for several weeks and see what it does.


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