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Algae experiment

Pst57

New Member
Joined
3 Jan 2019
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7
Location
Chelmsford
I have been trying to get rid of BBA algae. Looking online I have found that some people have used white wine vinegar to kill mold.
While doing a water change I painted some of the BBA algae with white wine vinegar, and refilled the tank. After a couple of hours it has now turned red and I am hoping that it's dead.
Has anyone else tried this?
 
Haven't heard of this one but I have read of using 6% Hydrogen Peroxide, painted on or syringed onto the effected area. Never used this method before myself other than using HP once initially as a DIY C02.
 
Hi all,
some people have used white wine vinegar to kill mold.
I might prefer white (spirit) vinegar, cheaper (about £5 for 5 litres) and nothing else in it. "Cleaning vinegar" is about 6% acetic acid (CH₃COOH).
After a couple of hours it has now turned red and I am hoping that it's dead.
Pretty sure it will be.
Has anyone else tried this?
Possibly not, but if you have hard water (and I'm <"going to assume you do">) you can ignore the vinegar when you refill the tank, the alkalinity (H+ ion acceptors) will totally neutralise any remaining acids (H+ ion donors).

cheers Darrel
 
I'm in Essex, where the water is hard.
I repeated the experiment on a larger area of BBA, on rocks, wood and some anubias plants, using 40ML of white wine vinegar.
After 15 minutes I filled the 180 litre tank back up. The fish, shrimp and snails all look ok. I will monitor the plants over the next few days. The BBA all turned red, I'm not sure of the effects on the filter bacteria or the advantages over HP
 
Hi all,
I'm not sure of the effects on the filter bacteria
<"Absolutely minimal"> would be my guess. This is from Laura E Lehtovirta-Morley <"Ammonia oxidation: Ecology, physiology, biochemistry and why they must all come together"> FEMS Microbiology Letters, Volume 365, Issue 9, May 2018. ">
........ The notion that ammonia oxidation is problematic at low pH was overturned by the discovery of the first obligately acidophilic ammonia oxidiser, N. devanaterra (Lehtovirta-Morley et al.2011). Originally isolated from an acidic agricultural soil, this archaeon grows autotrophically in the pH range of 4–5.5 in laboratory culture with ammonium chloride as its sole energy source. Although Nitrosotalea is the only obligately acidophilic ammonia oxidiser described to date, it is unlikely to be the only microorganism performing nitrification in acidic soils......
or the advantages over HP
It would be a less <"strong oxidising agent"> than hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) so <"potentially safer">? This would be particularly true with hard tank water, where you have a lot of <"carbonate buffering"> to neutralise any "spare" acid.

<"Citric acid (C₆H₈O₇)"> would be another option. I would keep <"all these substances"> well away from any <"mosses"> or <"obligate aquatic plants">.

The advantage of both acids (and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)) would be that there isn't any residual salts, you've only added hydrogen (H), oxygen (O) and carbon (C).

cheers Darrel
 
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