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What exactly causes BBA?

Jose said:
.One possibility is: If aeration is on at night then youre off gassing all co2 that was in the tank from the photoperiod. If light (even indirect) hits the tank during this "no CO2" period then youll get algae IME. Every time light hits the tank co2 must be constant. This is a big problem for me. Big aquascapers also promote closing the windows when co2 is off.
Another possibility is that with oxygenation you are driving off co2 and the levels you get at the start of the photoperiod are lower compared to no oxygenation .
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Yes, that makes sense... Still too early for me to say, but so far so good (after 1 week since stopped aeration at night, reduced flow and other adjustments I will discuss in detail if this experiment is really working).

Thanks.
 
Jose said:
http://www.barrreport.com/forum/bar...gy/7493-battling-bga-and-bba-at-the-same-time
http://www.barrreport.com/forum/bar...opics/12686-bba-collection-of-knowledge/page2
Just some info I find interesting.
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A quote from Tom Barr from one of your links Jose

I've seen BBA in plenty of high CO2 tanks, but never on the plants.
New growth is absent or very very slow growing.
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BBA grows in ranges of about 5-10-15ppm of CO2, that seems to be an optima.(See Sheath and Wehr)
So non CO2= not good.
High CO2, also not good, but it will grow, but not very well.
Folks adding CO2, but doing so poorly?
Loads of BBA.
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I downloaded that book and can't see any such statement at all(10-15ppm being optima to BBA growth) Does anyone know which page? This is the same book I referenced earlier.

He is suggesting that increasing the CO2 range above the optima will get rid of BBA or lowering it to the "BBA optima" will trigger BBA.

The point he's making is a bit not logical. He says high/stable CO2 in the ranges of 30ppm which is above the otpima for BBA will get rid of BBA but basically just on the plants, meaning they'll be resistant to new growth of BBA on them. Well, that's to do with plant health and not providing new surfaces for BBA to attach to as we've all noticed how much BBA loves itself some "dirty" surface.
But as he says himself, he's seen plenty of "high CO2 tanks with BBA, but never on the plants....", meaning you don't get rid of BBA with CO2 and high CO2 has no direct effect on the BBA but has on plant health in an unhealthy planted tank.....At least that's how I read it.

But I see why one can have unhealthy plants when injecting CO2 when they can't keep the CO2 stable as he says a sudden increase of CO2 is also no good to plants, it's better to do an incremental increase.

So causing unhealthy plant health by not knowing how to inject CO2 correctly/efficiently has nothing to do with BBA but if you have BBA it will spread on to your plants too 🙂 These are my thoughts.
 
Did you read the parts where he says he has fixed most algae problems includiong BBA with co2 manipulation? And that he can continually induce BBA by dropping CO2?

sciencefiction said:
I've seen BBA in plenty of high CO2 tanks, but never on the plants.
New growth is absent or very very slow growing.
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What he means is that algae can be there on the surfaces from before but not on the part of the plant thats growing healthily at that point in time. So if you look back in time youd have suffering plants or something else combined that triggered the algae which grew on plants and other surfaces. After this the person fixes the problem and trims the ugly plants and algae stays on the aquarium surfaces but it does not regrow on the new healthy plant..
 
sciencefiction said:
I downloaded that book and can't see any such statement at all(10-15ppm being optima to BBA growth) Does anyone know which page? This is the same book I referenced earlier.
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Well I found his own answer to my question within the same thread, quoted below.

I recall seeing the citation for 5-10 ppm for optimal growth ranges for BBA.
I cannot locate it right now though
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Jose said:
Did you read the parts where he says he has fixed most algae problems includiong BBA with co2 manipulation? And that he can continually induce BBA by dropping CO2?
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Yes, he says dropping the CO2 in a co2 injected tank induces BBA. But that doesn't mean it has a direct effect on BBA. If he means that, he's making very poor conclusions. It most likely means it has a negative effect on the plants themselves, they can't handle the drop. It's known that plants need to adjust to the given CO2 levels... Hence the keep it stable thing.
He is referring to certain concentration of CO2 being inducing/non-inducing BBA and I don't see where he gets that from besides making conclusions on scarce evidence.

And from the info provided I fail to see the direct link between higher CO2 and elimination of BBA. All he's figured is his own method of growing healthy plants which in turn are resistant to BBA attaching, which method he may have perfected for himself but it seems hard to explain the method well enough to others so everyone gets it. It reminds of a quote:

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

That's it as if I were to say that I read somewhere, "can't remember where" that 30 ramshorn snails in ppm will eradicate BBA. If you still have BBA, then something must be eating your snails, you didn't add 30 snails, or you added them too fast or too slow, or your snails are walking out on you. BBA grows best when the snails are around 5-10-15, when kept at constant 30 snails, BBA is eradicated. However, if the count fluctuates, it's the reason for the algae, so please count your snails daily and make sure their count is at 30 at all times.......

Well the above was a joke...I couldn't resist 🙂


Jose said:
After this the person fixes the problem and trims the ugly plants and algae stays on the aquarium surfaces but it does not regrow on the new healthy plant..
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Yes, algae uses weak plants as a suitable surface to attach. The more surfaces you provide for algae, the more it will spread. This is similar to many micro organisms, including the famous nitrifying bacteria.
Unhealthy plants=more BBA friendly surfaces leads to BBA outbreak in most cases but not all.
 
Do theese people who advocate CO2 in the range of 30ppm have shares in selling CO2 cannisters?

i only use easy carbo yet have proper excellent plant growth and no algae in a high light tank.......one thing that hasn't being touched on much in this thread is the quality of Algae eating fish people are keeping.....my Farlowella does an excellent job in this regard without which i may well end up with a algae problem...
 
I saw Tom Barr speak last weekend. ardjuna, you are just plain wrong in your assumptions about him.
 
Jose, if you are convinced that dropping the CO2 level triggers BBA and increasing it back eradicates it, why not try it in your own tank first?
But don't drop the CO2 level suddenly, drop it incrementally so the plants don't stress out during that period.

Also, I recall an article someone posted here once.
It was basically saying that plants can compensate for poor CO2 with better light. That basically CO2 are not just directly related but interchangeable in a way due to the way they work for plants.

And it says, that best growth is achieved with high light and high CO2. Worst growth is achieved by high CO2 and low light. And medium growth is achieved by high light and low CO2.

People talk about limiting the demand of CO2 by plants by lowering the light but what may actually be happening is limiting both energy sources available to the plants, and thus for example letting the plants do with less nutrients which may be the ones that have been limiting. I am just speculating saying that but one can conclude like this too if in the mood today....
 
tigertim said:
Do theese people who advocate CO2 in the range of 30ppm have shares in selling CO2 cannisters?

i only use easy carbo yet have proper excellent plant growth and no algae in a high light tank.......one thing that hasn't being touched on much in this thread is the quality of Algae eating fish people are keeping.....my Farlowella does an excellent job in this regard without which i may well end up with a algae problem...
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liquid carbon is a known algaecide, thats why people use it for spot treating algae🙂
 
sciencefiction said:
Jose, if you are convinced that dropping the CO2 level triggers BBA and increasing it back eradicates it, why not try it in your own tank first?
But don't drop the CO2 level suddenly, drop it incrementally so the plants don't stress out during that period.

Also, I recall an article someone posted here once.
It was basically saying that plants can compensate for poor CO2 with better light. That basically CO2 are not just directly related but interchangeable in a way due to the way they work for plants.

And it says, that best growth is achieved with high light and high CO2. Worst growth is achieved by high CO2 and low light. And medium growth is achieved by high light and low CO2.

People talk about limiting the demand of CO2 by plants by lowering the light but what may actually be happening is limiting both energy sources available to the plants, and thus for example letting the plants do with less nutrients which may be the ones that have been limiting. I am just speculating saying that but one can conclude like this too if in the mood today....
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Not quite correct, addition of co2 lowers the light compensation point of the plants allowing them to grow with less light.
 
Big clown said:
liquid carbon is a known algaecide, thats why people use it for spot treating algae🙂
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Yes, but dosing treble the recommended dose of liquid carbon in a non-co2 BBA ridden tank wont' stop nor eradicate the growth of BBA. I tried that myself, couldn't go any higher because my pleco started running to the surface. Then I spot dosed, but very stupidly I spot dosed outside the water which killed the BBA on the plant and the plant itself, both went purple 🙂 What a fool 🙂
 
sciencefiction said:
Yes, but addition of light lowers the co2 compensation point too, allowing them to grow with less CO2. It's not one sided.
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Not my understanding of it sorry. Light is always the accelerator, plants have a coping mechanism for dealing with lower levels of co2 and adding more light will just get you closer to the point where the plants won't cope but just before you get there your plants will grow well. Adding co2 changes the way the plant works internally so needs to be treated differently.
 
OllieNZ said:
Not my understanding of it sorry. Light is always the accelerator, plants have a coping mechanism for dealing with lower levels of co2 and adding more light will just get you closer to the point where the plants won't cope but just before you get there your plants will grow well. Adding co2 changes the way the plant works internally so needs to be treated differently.
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Quote:

High light availability may also allow aquatic plants to lower CO2 compensation point (Maberly 1983; Maberly 1985)

This may be particularly advantageous of matforming photoautothrophs in shallow water. In such systems, the light is often abundant, whereas concentration of CO2 inside the mat are low due to low intra-mat water exchange. Here, the interactions between light and CO2 may allow the photosynthetizing organisms to extract CO2 more efficiently, resulting in a lowered CO2 compensation point.

Source link, one of the many:
http://www.bio-web.dk/ole_pedersen/pdf/PlantedAquaria_2001_2_22.pdf
 
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sciencefiction said:
Yes, but dosing treble the recommended dose of liquid carbon in a non-co2 BBA ridden tank wont' stop nor eradicate the growth of BBA. I tried that myself, couldn't go any higher because my pleco started running to the surface. Then I spot dosed, but very stupidly I spot dosed outside the water which killed the BBA on the plant and the plant itself, both went purple 🙂 What a fool 🙂
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liquid carbon is also known to use/remove o2 from the water. i was dosing 3.5x in my shrimp tank without problems and it did reduce the bba to almost non existent levels. I daren't add more lc so started with pressurised as well which finished the job nicely then I just used the normal dose to keep the hardscape bba free
 
sciencefiction said:
Quote:

High light availability may also allow aquatic plants to lower CO2 compensation point (Maberly 1983; Maberly 1985)

This may be particularly advantageous of matforming photoautothrophs in shallow water. In such systems, the light is often abundant, whereas concentration of CO2 inside the mat are low due to low intra-mat water exchange. Here, the interactions between light and CO2 may allow the photosynthetizing organisms to extract CO2 more efficiently, resulting in a lowered CO2 compensation point.

Source link, one of the many:
http://www.bio-web.dk/ole_pedersen/pdf/PlantedAquaria_2001_2_22.pdf
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Keyword.... May. Also it seems to suggest it's limited to certain species of plants. Assuming it's possible(I'm not say it isn't), I don't see why this would be a desirable condition to attempt to achieve in the aquarium as it would result in too little wiggle room.
 
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