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GSA- BBA Suspect Imbalance

And just to add, also thinking of getting rid of the sand foreground and having soil and planting instead.
 
True Siamese Algae Eaters will graze on BBA best to get young ones before they become adult then possibly re-home depending on their size. George Farmer on one of his latest YT found moving flow direction the BBA all but disappeared
 
I have also been thinking about in tank diffuser rather than inline. And I’ve kept the light lower whilst we’re messing about and dosing excel which seems to be helping.
You can do both inline and intank if you want to.... I bought a cheap splitter from a China seller and it works fine.....
 
Hi Guys,

Sorry for delay responding. Got married last week, then been away for a week. So you can imagine the mess of a tank I’ve come back to.

I’m not really one to agree with getting fish for a job then rehoming.

I’m going to spend the day on it early this week and get it back on track. Remove the sand and stones, debating just putting soil in the bottom as the sand is only looking good for a couple of weeks.

Do you think the positioning of my inlet and outlet are okay? I will raise the outlet to give more surface agitation.

I’ve tried the splitters on my previous setup- also had bba but managed to get on top of that. And was never that stable or consistent.

Thanks
Chris
 
Hi Guys,

Big maintenance session completed on Wednesday:
  • Filters cleaned
  • Neo flows cleaned and bleached
  • pipes cleaned
  • replaced sand and removed decorative gravel.
  • swapped diffuser ceramic.

I’ve also raised my Neo flow outputs by about 2 inches and turned gas up slightly? And will run a ph profile today, then will update with my results and pictures. I’ve brought a bottle of apt fix and will spot dose daily.

I need to make up some more ferts, i done my last one to @Deano3 2hr aquarist style. But will raise phosphate slightly to hopefully combat the gsa.

Will keep posted.

Thanks
Chris
 
Hi Guys,

Carried out a PH profile over Friday and some of Saturday (had a wedding to go to), and my results are as follows:

Tank PH 7.76

Friday:
12:00 (Gas on)- 7.1
12:30- 6.8
1:00- 6.46
1:30- 6.34
2:00- 6.63
2:30- 6.68
3:00 (Light on)- 6.78
3:30- 6.73
4:00- 6.57
6:00- 6.66
6:30- 6.51
7:00- 6.56 (Filter off for 5 mins to do APT Fix)

Saturday- Not a very good one, busy day.
12:00- 7.22
12:30- 6.88
2:00- 6.76
3:00- 6.71

Is that a little unstable? Or seem to be where it should be?

Thanks
Chris
 
Looks to me like the rocks are trapping food and detritus at the base of the wood which is making it difficult for the fish to get to and the flow to sweep up. Its also where the bba is occurring. I will replace the rocks - which look a little bit big..

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Thats an interesting point - how would one do cleaning of these areas - should the rocks be removed once in a while to do a proper vacuuming of the area around the base of the wood?
 
Hi @Cd2021

Are you still struggling with BBA?

If so, I have just managed to track down a scientific paper that deals with freshwater Rhodophyta of which Audouinella is one such example. This species of algae is commonly known as - you guessed it - Black Brush Algae/BBA. It prefers alkaline water with pH up to 8.5. And this is because it has a higher affinity for inorganic carbon in the form of bicarbonate. But, freshwater Rhodophyta are complex little devils. I quote the following:

"Rates of net photosynthesis along the light period revealed a general pattern for all algae tested (Fig. 6), which is characterized by two relatively clear peaks: a first (higher) during the morning (07.00–11.00 hours) and a second (lower) in the afternoon (14.00–18.00 hours)". And they prefer low light regimes.

The very nature of BBA are that they have complex needs. But the attached paper below highlights some of the factors that we need to address if we are to make them unwelcome visitors to our tanks:


If you run into any problems with the science, just let us know. There are enough of us here to lend a helping hand, myself included.

JPC
 
Hi JPC,

Thanks for sending across. The BBA is still present, i will certainly have a look through this- although i think will be well above me! haha.

I am currently dosing APT fix daily, with seems to be combating but ultimately not solving the issue.

Kind Regards
Chris
 
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