BGA and other stuff

[Onoma1]

Hi all,Any (and every) tank will have Cyanobacteria, Diatoms, Green Algae etc. present. They are pretty much universal in liquid water and will arrive in any new "pond" within a very short period of time.

If you get a dust sample (even from high in the atmosphere) and re-hydrate it, it will grow all sorts of "algae" from resting spores.

cheers Darrel

I agree.

One of the issues I am struggling with this that these spores remained dormant until I have made an error (nitrate spike) or when I have had cross contamination (a plant bought in that I haven't (stupidly) quarantined, the use of terrestrial moss from the garden, moving objects between tanks then I *think* I have introduced existing and new and wonderful algae into the tank.

To misquote (the late great) Douglas Adam's statement about the future ICT, perhaps Algae in the home is has arrived but is "just not evenly distributed"?

 

[kevin silva]

As for the clado and algae I still suspect insufficient ferts. Take a look at my fert regime. For N I am 15ppm per week, K I am adding nearly 30 per week ppm and Mg I am adding 15ppm (my chart shows 4ppm but I have found 15 to be perfect).
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Hi, i was adding 11.5ppm of N(15.5 if you consider TAP water), 16ppm of K, 2ppm of Mg of ferts weekly despite the low light for 3 weeks. Also i would like to add that i tried every kind of fert regimen, from lean dosing to full EI, and both systems still get me algae. Thats why i tried tropica ferts...yet you can see the results... All my calculation are made on that website (Rotalabutterfly).

The key to success seems to be finding the correct balance between these factors. I found it (by accident) lost it and seem now to be in a perpetual battle with algae. Our Zen masters of aquascaping find this fairly easily (and make it look effortless).

Some of the additional solutions that have been suggested to me (these may help with all algae types) are:

· More frequent water changes

· Use of Seachem Purigen and activated carbon in your filter.

· Increasing the size and diversity of your clean-up crew

· Reduction of your bio-load by removing fish/ feeding regime

· Using a Chihiros Doctor 3 IN 1. I have used one and can testify that it prevents algae forming – ads more 02

· Jurijs also suggested positive filter bacteria products

Some short term fixes are:

· Spot dosing of liquid carbon or hydrogen peroxide

· Treating heavily infected plants outside the tank with liquid carbon (see Jurijs Jutjajevs )

Hey, i remember those times. I used to have a 70L aquarium back in 2010 (16yo at the time). Basically i followed the ada method of ferts(k and step1) and substrate. I would manualy dial the co2 needle valve everyday (had no solenoid) with only my eyes as a measuring test. 2 x 28w T5. The tank ran for a whole year like a charm, all the stems looking like the ones you see on the internet, a beautiful carpet, not a singly bit of algae...So yeah, how lucky i was. Although it didn't lasted as i ended up having to dismantle it because i had no way to refill my CO2 bottle.
The sugestions you gave are pretty good, but i am trying get things done by myself mostly, so no "easy" solutions for now. I get that it can be harder for some systems to run healthy without a twinstar/chihiros, but it is feasable i guess. Still, i might consider them in the furture .

As for this week, i tried to clean as much algae as possible from the hardscape and plants, trimming old leaves and stems. I also started doing small TPA every other day (25-30%). One thing i did noticed is that CO2 would stay high even during the night (maybe this was an ongoing problem for a long time ). Drop checker was lime green in the morning. I concluded that the gaseous exchange was poor due to A-bad surface agitation and B-surface scum. So i did solve that problem by upping the outflow a little and making sure there was no surface scum before going to bed. Today the DC was Blue by the morning, and no sign of that oily film. HURRAY! I will see the impact of this for the next few weeks. When it comes to plants, new leafs look healthy and have very little algae (beside ferns). No dying leafs and for now everything seems fine. I will post some pictures today/tomorrow.

Thanks.

 

[Easternlethal]

You could try using a surface skimmer instead of your outflow.

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[alto]

Maintaining balance is a main reason while professional aquascpaers such as Green Aqua & Jurijs mit JS recommend starting with RO water and then bringing it to where you want it with suitable additives - the water becomes a constant rather than a changing parameter (especially if you’re on water supply that sources water from various reservoirs etc)

 

[kevin silva]

Little update on the situation here. It's been almost 2 weeks since i cleaned everything and lowered the lighting unit (100% power). Ferts are still the same, so is CO2.
After the cleanup:








Today:






From those images we can clearly see that the light increasment made it easier for algae to grow, fastening plant growth a bit (still slower than what should be expected). I will have to change my CO2 bottle this week as i managed to gas out 2kg of co2 for 120L in about 2-2.5 months(maybe normal, idk...). Water haven't seen any surface scum for the last 7 days and the DC is blue in the morning. I have made around 5 water changes in 10 days. No improvment on the plant side beside a slightly faster growth. I was originally planning on going with this method for 3 weeks but i can't see the tank getting any better so i rather look out for something else. I think a lot of you will probably tell me to lower the light, and i am already planning to do so. I would just consider the fact that i lowered the light for 3 weeks (last month) achieving nothing but an algae farm. The light were giving me aproximately 40-50 par at the substrate and around 100-140 par at the surface. A twinstar of 60cm on my tank would still get me way more light considering the par readings of this forum. Also consider the fact that i started that experiment after a black out and washing the substrate/hardscape so it was originally clean. All that while dosing both expensive complete fert (tropica) and EI, just to make sure there was no problem. Yet, there could be a problem with CO2...but...even if reading a drop checker might lead to some misconceptions, i guess finishing a 2kg bottle in 10 weeks is not. On top of that, my drop checker gets a yellowish tint just as soon as the light reach the tank (i do cover the tank so no sunlight). Now flow, i think that a skimmer, a medium filter and a wavemaker can do the job. Might be wrong, tell me. I know i am repeating myself with all my specifications of whatever i tried out so far, but i have been dealing with this problem for over 6 months now, and i ran out of forum threads searching for answers a long while ag😵h, and answers. Thats why i came to this forum in the first place, may even help others on the run. Sorry if this come a little arrogant but it gets very frustrating, low CO2, high light, low nutrients, low flow, low surface movement, low plant mass.

 

[kevin silva]

Hi, just wanted to give you a little update on the progress for this week so far. I ended up lowering the light to the 2/7 setting, which is quite low. The green algae started receding, aswell as my stem plants. Lower leaves started melting and the stems got even thinner(snapping almost by touch). Basically BGA and BBA started appearing wherever there were plants at a really high speed. Every little detritus that would get in between plants would feed algae, and turn into a little scruff of BBA/BGA mix. I think this was a result of too little light, as it only happened on the lower parts of the plants and only on the most demanding plants (in therms of light). It got to a point where i don't know if a recovery is still viable for some plants, i already thrown away the monte carlo.
This week i will update my light to 3/7 setting (and rise the fixture a little bit) and start dosing excell. I will also get my hands on a new neo diffuser.

Before maintenance:






The dirt/detritus that turn into BGA/BBA

After:

 

[kevin silva]

Hey guys, last 10 days have been quite positive for most of the issues on my aquarium. First thing i did was upgrading my light to setting 4/7 (seems like i was on setting 3/7 the whole time).

For the first 5 days, the tank was running without CO2 and i managed to somehow get rid of all the green hair algae. I think lowering the light, as well as running the tank without CO2 might have helped. The front area, now without monte carlo was clean as well (no BBA/BGA/Green algae). All the other plants still had plenty of algae and were barely surviving so i decided once again to wash whatever was left from the myrio, throw away some more plants (cyperus,rotala green, limnophila). Did another big water change, big clean also on the substrate. At this point everything was clean and the only problem were the remaining plants which were full of dirt (algae+debris).

Last five days:
day 1: Added new neo diffuser and got my bottle filled up. Started dosing excel, normal dose. Dosing EI now.
day 2: Skimmer fell into the substrate and made a huge hole during the night. 50% WC. excel/EI dose.
day 3: excel/EI dose
day 4: 50% WC and cleaned the filter. excel/EI dose.
day 5: excel/EI dose

pics from today:







I am really impressed with the deficiency of this neo diffuser, i had read some online reviews on the product itself saying it was really good, but i never though it would make such a difference...I am currently running on a lower CO2 bubble rate, yet, i see way more bubbles (easily 2x more) around the tank. 5* rating product right there, hopefully it won't clog too much.

 

[kevin silva]

2 weeks later, and the situation is getting even better, i kept the same routine, same light, same co2, same ferts from last update. There is still some minor hair algae, mostly on older leaves. I guess it will eventually go away. Most plants seem to grow just fine. Rotala h'ra is taking a bit more time recovering than the rest though.
What really impress me is how clean the tank is all in all, no more dirt in between leaves, no more mulm accumulation on the substrate. Cleaning the tank used to take ages, the entire thing would be full of dirt in a week, from plants to filter. It took me half an hour today, and i took my time... Will see how things evolve, might later try to increase the light setting, i don't know...

 

[Tankless]

How did this progress?

 

[jaypeecee]

If you get a dust sample (even from high in the atmosphere) and re-hydrate it, it will grow all sorts of "algae" from resting spores.

Hi Darrel,

Astonishing! Wow! Mindblowing!

JPC