Cyanobacteria (BGA)

[Matt Holbrook-Bull]

remember T5 output about 3 times the amount of light that a T8 does.

This just isn't the case and I'd be interested in seeing where you got that figure from. T5's are better but not that much better. The longer the tube becomes the less of an improvement there is over T8's.

Tom Barr said this about 2 years ago.. maybe hes changed his mind.. again.. like he does. Im not a scientist so I have no idea exactly what he said.

Anyway, whether thats the case or not.. thats still alot of light you have there which will be driving any problems very hard. Its far better when your experiencing issues to 'throttle down' the system by reducing amount of light. Light is the overall factor that will determine how fast the system operates.

 

[Colin]

I have just joined but thought I would chip in here as I had a bad case with BGA; I got rid of mine in the end by using Erythomycin. It worked very well but required a lot of water changes to clean the tank afterwards and mine is a 180 gallon tank, my fish did not suffer at all in fact they oblivous to the treatment. I carried out the treatment about 2 months ago and since then the BGA has stayed away


http://www.inhousepharmacy.co.uk/infect ... mycin.html




Hope this helps
Col

 

[AndyTaylor]

I have just joined but thought I would chip in here as I had a bad case with BGA; I got rid of mine in the end by using Erythomycin. It worked very well but required a lot of water changes to clean the tank afterwards and mine is a 180 gallon tank, my fish did not suffer at all in fact they oblivous to the treatment. I carried out the treatment about 2 months ago and since then the BGA has stayed away


http://www.inhousepharmacy.co.uk/infect ... mycin.html




Hope this helps
Col

I had a serious BGA issue for months that just would not respond to the usual blackouts, upping CO2, maintenance etc.
I too killed mine with Erythromycin.
I first manually cleaned as much of the slime away as possible, I covered the substrate with black tape as recommended to protect it from sunlight.
Then I figured out where the centre of the BGA was (in as far as I could). As luck would have it, it was centred on the Jewel background high up at the back of the tank. I made a hole in the background at this spot and pushed 1 quarter of an Erythromycin tablet into it. 2 days later the tank is completely clear of BGA and it hasn't come back since.
Neither the fish or the filters seemed to be affected by this treatment.

It must be said, however, that the BGA outbreak was almost certainly caused by lack of maintenance on my part. I've since paid a lot more attention to regular cleaning and pruning. Lack of water flow is a huge factor also.