What exactly causes BBA?

[Jose]

I don't know about your experience, but I've noticed BBA and GSA don't go hand in hand. It's either one or the other.

Exactly. So, what is this telling you? Think about it. How can we induce GSA?

Also, even though that book says BBA doesn't live in places with high organics and high inorganic nutrients, that doesn't necessarily say it's inhibited when those levels are high. Maybe BBA has the ability to feed out of the environment on something else. Meaning that BBA may prefer waters low on other nutrients because it doesn't have to compete with other plants and organisms that like high nutrient content, and has a mechanism to feed itself on scarce sources of nutrients. What exactly does it consume to survive, I can't find yet from scientific info but maybe we will one day.

I like this thinking!

 

[sciencefiction]

Exactly. So, what is this telling you? Think about it. How can we induce GSA?

Well, the obvious option is low phosphates which induces GSA. But I've got to think about it more. It can't be just that.

 

[Jose]

Well, the obvious option is low phosphates which induces GSA. But I've got to think about it more. It can't be just that.

Yes but think about it a bit more. All important variables. Light, CO2 and the interactions with phosphates.

 

[sciencefiction]

OK. I am thinking 😀 But you must have something in mind that would save time if you share 🙂
Phosphates have an impact on photosynthesis, meaning low phosphate can slow it down, also can limit CO2 consumption, etc..

 

[Jose]

Phosphates have an impact on photosynthesis, meaning low phosphate can slow it down, also can limit CO2 consumption, etc..

There you are....so if you get GSA due to low P this means photosynthesis is slow, so the plant doesnt need as much CO2. Now if you dont get GSA, this means photosynthesis is not being slowed down by phosphates so you need more CO2 for the plants. If you dont provide that level of co2, then you get BBA. This is why you dont normally get BBA together with GSA. I know some one will now say, " I do get both GSA and BBA at the same time. Well this only means you are probably going from one side of the coin to the other in a short time frame..
Tom Barr has been able to induce BBA many times by just lowering co2. And it all boils down to the theory that healthy plants and clean water prevent BBA.
Why does Tom or anyone else who knows this still get algae? Because CO2 is hard to dial in for anyone no matter what you know.
But beware! I might just be trying to abduct you into my imaginary theory w/o scientific proof.

 

[sciencefiction]

Yes, I am quite certain healthy plants are not prone to BBA. But you forget BBA can overtake a totally non-planted tank.
BBA appears for reasons unrelated to plant health or plants but seems to "infect" unhealthy plants which is only normal, it finds suitable surface to attach, that's all.

If a heavily planted tank with healthy growing plants outcompetes BBA completely, then we may start talking allelopathy theories in a second.

 

[Jose]

Yes, I am quite certain healthy plants are not prone to BBA. But you forget BBA can overtake a totally non-planted tank.
BBA appears for reasons unrelated to plant health but seems to "infect" unhealthy plants which is only normal, it finds suitable surface to attach, that's all.

Yes this only means whatever might cause it is not only in a planted tank. This does not mean healthy plants dont prevent it.
What about instead of thinking what is causing it, why not start thinking what the best conditions are to prevent it from appearing? The result is an algae free tank, which is what we want.

Think of it this way. If you have a plantless tank, then the most oportunistic organism will leave there. If we introduce plants to start off with and they stay healthy, then maybe algae dont want to show up. Maybe algae sense the presence of plants and their health.

 

[Jose]

BBA appears for reasons unrelated to plant health but seems to "infect" unhealthy plants which is only normal, it finds suitable surface to attach, that's all.[/quote]

We dont know. It might be a chemical signal and not just a suitable surface. Look at the facts:
Healthy plants+ clean water prevents it. Why is this or how it works I dont know. Why do some people still get BBA in a planted tank if they say their plants look good. Well maybe they are suffering very slightly (CO2 demand) but this is enough to trigger the algae. Also BBA seems to appear maybe 2 weeks after the trigger happened. So this confuses people as well.

 

[sciencefiction]

Yes, I was thinking along the same lines. It sounds like thinking about outcompeting the BBA one way or another is the better approach than thinking about eliminating the cause which we can't be sure about.
It's obvious that we can't eliminate the environmental factors promoting BBA as we need to eliminate fish, plants and bin the tank too.....
Outcompeting it may mean a planted tank with high plant mass and healthy plants plus BBA eating fish/snails and possibly microbes that also compete with BBA, and allelopathy, so BBA is hit hard.

But why can some achieve that and others can't? Are those that can't all in the wrong? Because the moment one has BBA, they are told their CO2 is not high enough.Well, wait a second, we just found out BBA loves CO2.....So in a planted tank plants struggling for CO2 weakens the plants and just provides more surfaces for BBA to feed on. But it doesn't mean that CO2 deficiency is the only factor. It means that any factor that weakens the plants like low nutrients, etc.. can promote spreading of BBA, at least in my opinion.

Edit:
I've got ramshorn snails in my tanks. Maybe they ate all my BBA 😛 My clown loach/BBA tank has no snails 🙂

 

[Jose]

But why can some achieve that and others can't? Are those that can't all in the wrong? Because the moment one has BBA, they are told their CO2 is not high enough.Well, wait a second, we just found out BBA loves CO2.....So in a planted tank plants struggling for CO2 weakens the plants and just provides more surfaces for BBA to feed on. But it doesn't mean that CO2 deficiency is the only factor. It means that any factor that weakens the plants like low nutrients, etc.. can promote spreading of BBA, at least in my opinion.

Yes. So in the end happy plants (not just visually) mean no algae.

 

[Jose]

Outcompeting it may mean a planted tank with high plant mass and healthy plants plus BBA eating fish/snails and possibly microbes that also compete with BBA, and allelopathy, so BBA is hit hard.

I would say the first part is a must (healthy plants), but not the rest (BBA eating fish/snails and possibly microbes that also compete with BBA, and allelopathy). Although you do need a stable environment with a good biological filtration.

 

[sciencefiction]

Yes. So in the end happy plants (not just visually) mean no algae.

Well, the point is, one only speculates when saying one's plants are not healthy, hence the BBA, although they may appear healthy. That's been used as an excuse so one is tight handed and can't object on the theory. The other point being used is lack of CO2 or fluctuating co2.

From my experience, when plants are not happy they are visually not happy. And even if not happy visually, BBA does not overtake the tank neither it is visually present. So how about that point of view? I can show you my fry tank, iron deficient plants,, etc..not a spot of algae.

I would say the first part is a must (healthy plants),

Yes, it's a must because unhealthy plants provide extra friendly environment and surfaces for algae, especially the type like BBA that likes attaching to such surfaces. Now leave the tank bare, no substrate, no plants, just glass. Where will the BBA attach, the most to the outlets. It doesn't grow on glass unlike some other sorts of algae.

 

[DanielC03]

[Quote =] "José, post: 397047, Miembro: 12573"] Sí. Así Que en los episodios finales felices Las Plantas (pecar visualmente Solo) SIGNIFICA Que No Algas heno. [/ Quote]

alelopatía?

 

[Jose]

I can show you my fry tank, iron deficient plants,, etc..not a spot of algae.

Yes youre right. I dont think algae appears if iron is too low. What I mean of plants not being happy applies mainly to N and CO2. Also to the lesser with P and Iron. With low K you just get holes.
You might not get algae with low Fe, but this doesnt mean your plant is healthy.

Maybe I should just specify. Plants not being happy (if dosing EI) means not enough co2 to keep up with plant growth. But people say this is not true even though it has been shown over and over (specially by Tom Barr).

 

[sciencefiction]

I don't get your logic. Low iron doesn't cause problems only low CO2 does? You obviously haven't seen what low iron does to a plant. Most species melt and die. The hardy ones like hydrophila stop growing, meaning it takes it a year to reach a height of 60cm where it takes no more than 2 months in normal conditions. All growth is bleached. The leaves are thin, super soft and fall apart shortly. The stem is soft and bends down, the plant can't withstand the flow. Basically, it's destroyed physically right in front of your eyes.

I've had iron deficient plants in the BBA tank and iron deficient plants in non-algae tanks. It means nothing on its own. All are non-co2 enriched.

I feel you are trying to fit everything into your theory but from where I sit it doesn't fit. Any deficiency can destroy plants, be it iron, N, P, K, whatever. Chlorosis, necrosis, etc.. CO2, phosphate and light are the 3 that are hard to hit a 0 level in a tank, as the first two are produced in the fish's environment, sediment, the latter is normally always present sufficiently enough as we keep our tanks lit.

So most deficiencies we see are caused by all other nutrients but are attributed to lack of CO2 and high light instead.

 

[Jose]

So most deficiencies we see are caused by all other nutrients but are attributed to lack of CO2 and high light instead.

This is the problem here. What are we talking about? a non co2 tank or a co2 enriched tank dosed with EI levels of ferts?

In an EI dosed tank the "defficiencies" are due to co2 and not nutrients. Because you can fix them with co2 and not by adding any more of other nutrients. Please notice EI dosed tank.

 

[sciencefiction]

In an EI dosed tank the "defficiencies" are due to co2 and not nutrients. Because you can fix them with co2 and not by adding any more of other nutrients. Please notice EI dosed tank.

Yes, I noticed the "EI dosed" tank. My 5 hydrophila stalks and a couple of anubias need more than the EI dose of iron right now. I don't want to imagine what the tank would need had it been heavily planted and pushed to grow with injected CO2.....algae factory as iron will be limiting unless I heavily overdose on it, and dose the right type.

I am sure other nutrients are affected by chemical reactions too and don't stay available to plants all the time depending on one's water chemistry.
EI tells you enriched substrate is not needed. All is well via the water column. Well that's not true because in my case the only way my plants grow well is with iron enriched substrate which I presume provides more acidic conditions for the iron to stay available to plants.

So what does EI tell me? Nothing. EI is not comprehensive. It's a theory that doesn't always produce the right result and again all is blamed on CO2 and high light.

 

[Jose]

There is obviously no method that suits everyone. I think you also have a point. In my case I have very hard water. I had to dose more phosphates but not iron. I just dose iron more frequently but same weekly ammount.

 

[sciencefiction]

Do you want to see light deficiency? I've shown these before. It's from my emersed plant setup.

Ludwiga stalk growing shaded(or should I say not growing at all...by the way it died eventually)




Now same plant a few cm to the left of this one, but growing unshaded and planted 3 months later than the above one.



Aponogeton plant growing shaded in the corner under my emersed plants. Take a note at the visual poor structure


Now below is it's brother aponogeton, picture taken same day and plant is planted a few cm further but gets full light, both plants went into the tank on the same day.


My 3 sword plants when they had enough of light before my lights failed


Now look at the exact same 3 swords and plants with 40% decrease in light, notice plants have disappeared....No other change done in the tank.


Iron deficiency in hydrophila. Can you notice the small BBA tuffs? 🙂 The bottom leaves had more BBA.


Then here is the same plant in the same tank a few weeks later with regular iron dosing


And here you can see the transition in between not dosing and after the first week of dosing, tops started growing bigger and green.


Now here is another one you may find interesting. To the right is the older growth, to the left the newer growth
The change was caused by a dose of KNO3


KNO3 mild deficiency, smaller leaves, shorter distance between nodes. High deficiency of K causes holes and melt in bottom leaves of this ludwiga so I think it's more lack of NO3.


After I dosed KNO3 for the first time the same plant converted into this form, redder leaves, longer distance between leave nodes and started growing rapidly.

 

[sciencefiction]

And here is my glosso carpet I had for a while. When I first posted this picture here ages ago, consensus was that the glosso is growing ok in my low tech because of some sort of hormone my high flow is not letting build up, hence the perfect horizontal growth. Now let me tell you the glosso carpet got doomed not more than 2 weeks after my lights failed. It was a gonner, disappeared without a trace. It just couldn't last in lower light. Algae was no issue with more light. Algae is no issue with lower light but lower light is a huge issue to my plants in my low tech non co2 enriched tank.
So I can't believe any of you when saying decrease your lights, add CO2 and all is sorted out like magic. There's more to it.

Here are a couple of pictures I had taken before the big doom, meaning light reduction