# Hard water, CO2 and BBA



## mbkemp (Dec 15, 2016)

I am not a guru. Some of those will be along shortly I am sure 

First, welcome to the forum! In my experience when I have had a problem with bba it stemmed from two things. First, too much light for the amount of co2, or inconsistent co2. Second, high organic load. 

I would lower light to six hours to start and clean, clean, clean. Filters, substrate, hoses, deep clean with a couple of extra water changes 

In my opinion Ro water will help you due to the amount of nitrate in your tap. Water that hard has a bunch of all kind of things in it


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## 64D-1701 (Apr 7, 2018)

Are you using a HOB filter or a canister? I started pressurized CO2 with a HOB, but after switching to a canister, I realized there's a huge difference in the amount of CO2 required (canister requires much less and allows for better dissolution). Three bubbles/sec turns my drop checker yellow.

I still have some similar issues with algae, mostly green spot. I dose less than EI for N & P due to bioload, and full EI for K & micros. Still looking for the magic lighting intensity/duration.


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## Meloman (Aug 19, 2018)

Thanks for the replies so far guys. I'm using a Oase Biomater 600 Thermo. Its now been 4.5 hours since my water change and the drop checker is, I would say, still a dark green.


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## mbkemp (Dec 15, 2016)

Are you measuring ph manually?


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

For a planted tank you only need 10 to 20ppm of nitrate for the plants. Your test kit is indicating 100 and the reading in you old tank water is 250. That could be dangerous for fish. Also your GH is very high try to get that down. Hopefully the filter you purchased will help on both. Long run you might want to consider using RO water. 

The amount of CO2 you have affects your PH which is also dependent on KH level. The cart below for a ph of 7 and KH of 15. The cart at the link below indicates you have about 30ppm in your water. The chart may not always produce accurate results. But you are probably OK on C)2. Also some times BBA may be caused by insufficient oxygen levels in the water. Remember plants need CO2 when light is not present. 

https://barrreport.com/threads/co2-ph-kh-table.10717/



> I do a daily 20ml with an off the shelf nutrient mix


Do you have any information on the bottle as to what is in it? Many fertilizers don't include all the 14 nutrients plants need. Do you have any information as to what is in the bottle.? With your high GH nitrate and CO2 you could easily have multiple nutrient deficiencies which could be slowing plant growth and feeling algae growth.


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## Orichid123 (Feb 25, 2018)

I have no c02 and had bba and bought true algae eaters siamenis and they have controlled if not eliminated the bba try it


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

mbkemp said:


> Second, high organic load.
> 
> I would lower light to six hours to start and clean, clean, clean. Filters, substrate, hoses, deep clean with a couple of extra water changes


This is good advice.

Here are some other things I would consider.

Throw out the test strips. They are pretty much useless. I would not make any decisions or seek advice from readings from test strips. Get GH, KH, Ammonia, Nitrate, & Phosphate test kits. (then test your tap water, I highly doubt it’s 60 to 80ppm). 

I would buy a pH meter and calibration fluid (do not buy pH test kit!). The most reliable method we have to measure CO2 is the pH drop from completely degassed water. 

If it takes a couple of days for your drop checker to turn green, something is wrong. You may have a CO2 leak. I would be checking everything. Doesn’t sound right with a constant stream of bubbles in a tank that size.

When you ask for help, list as much as you possibly can about your tank, and plenty of pictures. What is your substrate, what kind of plants, fish load, filtration, fert dosing, etc. etc. etc. The more information you provide, the higher quality responses you will receive. 

Honestly with what you provided, no one can really tell you much. It’s basically just guessing, but you probably have unhappy plants, too much light, high organics (and maybe too much flow?), which are the things that BBA love.

So as stated above, I would start by lowering light level and clean, clean, clean. Then come back with detailed information about your tank, and I am sure many would be glad to help you.


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## Meloman (Aug 19, 2018)

Hi, guys,

Thanks for all the answers so far.

Here’s a bit more detailed information about my tank.

Tank
Open top 900 x 50 x 43 cm Circa 185 litre empty
Filtration Oase Biomater 600 thermal 
Glass lily pipe and surface skimmer 16mm pipe
Water temp circa 24oC
Twinstar Nano Algae inhibitor
Aquario Nano diffuser, large 

Fertiliser - The Aquascaper Complete Liquid Plant Food (No nutrient information on the bottle or packaging)
Substrate - Tropica Aquarium Soil
Hugo Kamishi Quartz White Gravel 
Dennerle Plantahunter Natural Gravel Rio Xingu 
Rocks - Mini Landscape Rock
Wood - River Wood

Livestock
30 Cardinal tetras
9 Harlequin Rasbora
5 Otocinclus 
10 Amano and who knows how many Cherry Shrimp by now.
Half a dozen Nerite snails 

Plants
Microsorum Trident
Anubias petite
Bucephalandra sp.
Cryptocoryne sp.
Staurogyne repens
Micranthemum sp. "Monte Carlo"
Hydrocotyle verticillate
Rotala sp. "Green"
Ludwigia palustris

As already stated I’ve lowered the light intensity on the Twinstar 900s to 75% but I will reduce the light period to 6 hours as suggested, does that mean I can raise it back to 100% or keep it at 75%? 
Cleaning. I do a >50% water change each week with a good clean of the filter, Glass, white gravel and hoses every second week when crud starts to appear. This takes me at least 2-3 hours if I’m not doing any pruning. I often take out the Rio Xingu gravel and give it a good clean in bleach water, or replace it completely with new. The Quartz White Gravel gets a vacuum each week and a 70% change every two months. I’ve only done one so far as the tanks not that old but every two months looks about right before I feel it looks to discoloured. 

Today I started using EI with a kit from aquariumplantfood. I’m dosing 30ml of Macro and Micro 3 times a week with a water change on the 7th day. I’m interested to see the results compared to the Aquascaper. 

For testing water parameters, perhaps I should have said that I have an API liquid test kit but that doesn’t do hardness tests, hence the reason for buying the JBL test strips as well. I will purchase the liquid kits for hardness if you feel they are necessary but most people write that they are a waste of money and unreliable. I’ve already explained why I took the plunge and brought the JBL kit before somebody reminds me that I’ve already spent money &#55357;&#56842;. 

The results from the API liquid test kit on my tap water was…
Ph circa 6.6
Nitrate 60-80 ppm This was hard to read on the chart that’s why I mentioned that I took some tap water to my local shop and they tested it there, albeit using test strips, but found roughly the same results. I have contacted my local water company about this but have heard no reply.
Nitrate 80ppm
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0 

The API kit doesn’t test for chlorine or hardness.

Anyway, that’s about it. If you need any more information just shout &#55357;&#56842;

I'll try and get some photos posted soon.

Edit: I've just ordered a Nutrafin Master test kit so I'll come back soon with some, hopefully, more accurate results


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## mbkemp (Dec 15, 2016)

I would leave lights at 75% with reduced photo period. Sounds like you are doing a bunch right. Bba is a menace




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## Nlewis (Dec 1, 2015)

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As mentioned earlier, clean everything. Build up in organics is what always triggers BBA in my tank. Typically I can clean my filter and do a big water change and it will just fade away on its own. 


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## Meloman (Aug 19, 2018)

Hi, Guys,

I received my Nutrafin test kit now so I can give you some results soon.

In the meantime, I thought Id share these pictures of some plants that are showing some signs of distress. I think the Hydrocotyle verticillata has a touch of green spot algae but I'm not sure about the other plant, which sorry, I don't know the name of. If somebody could give me a diagnosis of the problems I would be grateful. These issues are all associated with the BBA that I'm also getting as well.
Just to let you know I also started EI dosing 5 days ago with 30ml. I should mention these symptoms were also present while I was using the off the shelf fertilizer as well :-( 







And here's one of the whole tank


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## Meloman (Aug 19, 2018)

Hi, guys,

I used the Nutrafin 7860 test kit today to test my tap water before a water change tomorrow. I was looking forward to using this kit as I've read some good reviews on it but after using I'm not sure. The results below are on fresh tap water treated with Seachem Prime before it will go into my tank tomorrow

PO4 circa 2.5 mg/L
Ca 100ppm
NO3 5
NO2 no color change
NH3/NH4 0
pH 7.2
KH 17
GH 14
Fe 0

The interesting result is for the No3. The Nutrafin gave me a result of 5 which I was suspicious about so I tested it with both the JBL strips and API liquid master kit and both these gave results ranging from 100 to 60-80 respectively. I repeated the No3 test three time using the Nutrafin and all three results were the same. Even when I took a sample to my local shop to carry out a No3 test they even got high results, way more than 5. By the way, the JBL strip results for the Ph, Kh,Gh and No2 wasn't far off the Nutrafin. The API doesn't do Gh and Kh so I cant compare them. 
The most worrying result was for the PO4 at around 2.5 Like all these test kits is hard to read against the charts. I will repeat the PO4 test again tomorrow. 
I will also repeat all the test again before the next water change so that will give this tap water one week in the tank.
So, going on my initial findings, are my results systematic with the problems Im having, high Co2 requirement to get the drop checker to change color and plant problems as sown in the pictures above?
If anybody could please advise I would be greatfull

Checked the PO4 and NO3 this morning before putting the water into my tank. PO4 had changed to circa 1 and NO3 remained the same at 5.


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## Meloman (Aug 19, 2018)

Any comments?


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## ursamajor (Oct 6, 2015)

Do you watch a lot of George Farmer's videos? Looks a lot like one of his tanks.

I wouldn't throw out that off-the-shelf fertilizer. By my understanding The Aquascaper Complete Liquid Plant Food is an all-in-one fertilizer based off EI dosing. It should provide everything you need.

Frankly I think your tank looks fine. I think a person can drive themselves crazy testing things and chasing perfect water parameters. I would just look at the most important variables (CO2, cleanliness, ferts, light) systematically and try to rule out variables. Your CO2 should be fine. Your tank maintenance sounds excellent - keep it up. You can trim badly affected leaves and use a toothbrush to clean algae off the hardscape. If you dose EI or the complete fertilizer as recommended, your plants should have everything they need and you can focus less on fertilizers. That leaves lights - maybe try incrementally lowering your lights to see what happens. Keep photoperiod the same to eliminate one variable (8 hrs for example). I would try 70% for a week or two, then 60% for a week or two, etc. At some point your plants might start suffering, but you may find a sweet spot before then where you get good plant growth with less algae.

It's a slow game. Give it time, keep up your already good habits, and experiment with variables until you are satisfied.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Meloman said:


> And here's one of the whole tank
> 
> 
> 
> ...


First of all nice looking tank. Well conceived and nicely presented.

In reading more about your tank, a few things jump out at me.

First of all, you have a mix of low light slow growers and a few high light stems. Making them all happy will be a trick.

For most of your plants, very little light and very little ferts would be perfect. Those plants grow slowly, and are an easy magnet for algae. The stems would like much more light and ferts to be happy. So it's a tough task you are up against.

The other thing I noticed is that you are using an active substrate. I'm no expert on them but there are some here who are. They alter the water chemistry, and may require adjusted levels of all ferts. They also change over time, so you really need to understand how they affect everything. Again, I don't use them so I'm not much help. I would seek out some here who do, or maybe even start another thread just about your substrate. 

And I know you said the tank was heavily planted, but I would consider it maybe medium or sparse. When people talk about heavily planted, they mean plants in pretty much every sq inch of floor space and growing up to the surface. I mention it as EI levels may be too much for this tank. 

If I were you, I would search for some journals of folks who have similar set ups. Here's one that comes to mind, and he referred to his as "medium" tech.

https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/1106130-60-gallon-first-freshwater-tank-new-equipment.html

And if it were me, the first thing I would do is figure out how much light I am dealing with. Do you have any estimate on your PAR levels? I'm not familiar with those lights and have no idea. Knowing the light levels you are providing should drive all of your other decisions, including plant selection. 

Next I would make sure to get the CO2 dialed in. Is your drop checker changing color now? Either way I would still recommend getting a pH monitor and measuring pH drop accurately. 

Once you get those things right, it will help lead you to better decisions on ferts. Just my opinion, and I do hope you get things fine tuned, because I really do like the tank. Very, very nice.


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## Meloman (Aug 19, 2018)

Thanks for the comments. I'll take everything on board that everybody has said. Its really appropriated 

I must admit the tank does look nice, its just the bloody BBA that's doing my head in. I like everything to be perfect, but I suppose I'm dealing with nature here and I don't speak the language yet :frown2:

Do you watch a lot of George Farmer's videos? Looks a lot like one of his tanks. Yes, he did the tank for me :smile2:


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## ursamajor (Oct 6, 2015)

I knew I recognized one of George's tanks. He has a distinct, beautiful style. I'm jealous that you got to work with him!

Are you familiar with his Youtube channel? One of his home tanks got a bad case of BBA, and he documented how he beat it. I'll attach a few links. It's a low-tech tank, but you might find it helpful.


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## Meloman (Aug 19, 2018)

Thanks for the links. Yes, I'm familiar with his channel. I've watched it for hours some days before I had my tank commissioned by George, he only lives about 30 minutes drive from me. As for his reasoning for the BBA, well, I'm not sure what else I can do. Water changes, cleaning its all a regular thing for a Sunday, and like I said before, on arrange it takes me 3 hours as I'm that particular. 
A lot of guys have written that fluctuations in CO2 are the main culprit of BBA and I know mines an issue as it takes so long for my drop checker to change colour, without crazing amounts of CO2 from the diffuser, hence my original post. A friend at my local shop, yep the same shop George maintains, lent me a power head to try and get the water moving a bit more, but that hasn't made much difference. He also lent me a in-line diffuser so I may give that a go at the weekend.

I'm using the spot method with liquid Carbon daily. About 5ml on the most affected plants, which is the Trident. I may dip one in bleach this weekend as the wood its attached to comes out quit easily.


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## Raith (Jun 27, 2014)

Does CO2 help eliminate algae because it allows the plants to grow faster?


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

> I used the Nutrafin 7860 test kit today to test my tap water before a water change tomorrow. I was looking forward to using this kit as I've read some good reviews on it but after using I'm not sure. The results below are on fresh tap water treated with Seachem Prime before it will go into my tank tomorrow
> 
> PO4 circa 2.5 mg/L
> Ca 100ppm
> ...


What stands out to me the most is your iron level of zero. From what I have seen on line this test will give you a reading from 0.0 to 1ppm. But I have not used this test so I don't know how hard it is to read. Many fertilizers will typically provide you with at least 0.1ppm of iron. However all that said I suspect you might have an iron problem. 

In your initial photo some leaves had a dark green vein while the rest of the leaf yellow green to brown. A condition commonly referred to as chlorosisthat can be caused by low iron. It could also be caused by nitrogen deficiency but with 100ppm nitrate in your tap water. Many commonly used iron ingredients in fertilizers are PH sensitive. The most commonly used one Iron EDTA works best at a ph of 6 to 6.5. Your PH of 7.2 is too high for EDTA. I would try boosting your iron. You could try boosting your iron with iron gluconate (Sachem sells this) or iron DPTA (good to about to a PH 7.5. Iron gluconate is not PH sensitive but breaks down quickly in the tank so it must be dosed about once every other day.

I would also try to reduce your nitrate even further. I no nitrate filters are available but I have no experience with them. The other option is to mix distilled or RO water with your tap water.But with your nitrate as high as it is you would probably need about 30 gallons to get nitrate levels down significantly. Using distilled or RO water would also reduce your KH and GH values. 

The problem with your high KH doesn't affect CO2 directly. KH is a measure of carbonate salts int he water like calcium carbonate. You plant may or may not be able to use carbonate as a source of CO2. These tend to push your PH up to around 7 and lock it there. As stated earlier some fertilizers don't work well at this PH. 

There are two basic ways to monitor CO2 levels in the tank. One is to use a ph probe and adjust the CO2 until you see a PH drop of 1. But with your high KH this methode is problematic and may not provide an accurate estimate of CO2 levels in the tank. The other methode is to use a drop checker. In your case a drop checker is your best choice but many people also consider it inaccurate. 

So overall I think you need to focus on reducing nitrate, KH, and GH and PH. and try dosing additional iron.

As to BBA and CO2 many people have adjusted water flow and CO2 in the tank until they find a settings that reduce BBA. Then they conclude it was CO2 that caused it. However in one old post I read one person found that by just adding an air pump and air stone to his tank BBA algae would die back substantially. He remove the air stone and the BBA came back. He didn't may any CO2 setting or water flow changes. He concluded that Low oxygen levels were the likely cause. So simply increasing your aeration of your water may help. Improving plant growth would also help since oxygen is a waist product of well growing plants.


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## Meloman (Aug 19, 2018)

Thanks, Surf. 

Your response is greatly appreciated. Since my last post I added a power head (Ehiem streamOn 2000+) and this has helped a lot with the general appearance of the plants, but Im still getting the yellowing of some leafs and a bit of GSA. The BBA I've spot treated with liquid carbon and that has helped but I think the underling problem still exists. 
I will look at the iron deficiency, as you suggest, and give that a go. All else failing, I will try the RO/Tap water mixture and see if things improve. 

Thanks again on the advice regarding the yellowing of the leafs, I was hoping somebody would comment on those pictures.

Best regards


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

fortnite said:


> hard water <a href="https://watersoftenershub.com/best-water-softener-salt/">in</a>Spain cause some problem


You do know you are responding to a thread from 2018.........right?:grin2:


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## cl3537 (Jan 28, 2019)

Greggz said:


> You do know you are responding to a thread from 2018.........right?:grin2:


You do realize you are replying to a spam bot right? :laugh2:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

cl3537 said:


> You do realize you are replying to a spam bot right? :laugh2:


Really? No I did not.

Makes it even funnier!:grin2:


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