# is BGA the result of EI dosing?



## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

I started to get some BGA on my moss. I think its BGA because it looks like its smothering my moss. its ONLY happening in one place - its only on the higher parts of the wood (closest to the lights) I do dose EI dry ferts and keep my lights on about 8 hours a day. I also have CO2 pumping in my tank. I do about 60 - 80 gallons a week. its a 120G tank. I want to nip this in the butt before it becomes severe.


----------



## eser21 (Apr 19, 2011)

BGA is a pain in the ass, when I had it, it was due to low oxygen and low flow. Unlikely to be anything to do with EI if you dose correctly. If it smells its BGA if your unsure. After finding the cause there are a number of methods to get rid, most are hit and miss. Enthromycin is the only sure fire way to get rid but normally only works once.


----------



## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

Well moss prefers low light anyways, so if its happeneing on the higher portions, id say the moss is reacting negatively to higher light levels. Just a guess


----------



## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

HD Blazingwolf said:


> Well moss prefers low light anyways, so if its happeneing on the higher portions, id say the moss is reacting negatively to higher light levels. Just a guess



the moss is growing pretty good. I started dosing flourish excel and it seems to be disappearing. I did smell it and it smells like ..... um... dirt/cut grass? its not bad at all. The only negative side to flourish excel is that some plants are turning clear.


----------



## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

would a 50 gallon water change a day help?


----------



## Chlorophile (Aug 2, 2011)

johnny313 said:


> would a 50 gallon water change a day help?


Not likely. 
Your best bet is to turn off the filter and fill a syringe with hydrogen peroxide and blast away at it.
Many people feel Hydrogen peroxide can kill fish, and there was one incident when a fish died after a h2o2 dosing, but I'm not convinced it was related.
I've poured probably a half cup of it or more into a 20 gallon tank with tiger barbs and no ill effects were seen. 
It breaks down into oxygen pretty quickly once you turn the filters on, and if the filters are off then it wont really be in contact with any animals.

Anyway, turn the filter off and attack the BGA with h2o2 several times a day for a few days, it should start to die back.
You can follow it off with a maracyn regimen afterwards if you want to be sure its gone.
But its possible it was introduced via tap water so I don't know that it would matter, it might just come back.


----------



## eser21 (Apr 19, 2011)

johnny313 said:


> the moss is growing pretty good. I started dosing flourish excel and it seems to be disappearing. I did smell it and it smells like ..... um... dirt/cut grass? its not bad at all. The only negative side to flourish excel is that some plants are turning clear.


normally cynobacteria smells like a stagnent pond, not cut grass. Does it pull off in sheets, like pealing sunburn...?

I found that H2O2 just makes it detatch and float around to find a new home... not kills it.... but thats just me.

If dosing excel to the water column is dealing with it i would be suspisious of it being BGA.


----------



## sajata (Aug 21, 2009)

Picture?

Sent from my DROIDX


----------



## EntoCraig (Jun 7, 2010)

Chlorophile said:


> Not likely.
> Your best bet is to turn off the filter and fill a syringe with hydrogen peroxide and blast away at it.


This is the only effective method I have found to kill BGA/Clado... Never had an ill effect on fish, other plants, shrimp, or snails.

I spot treated heavily for 1 month before it started to die.


----------



## Chlorophile (Aug 2, 2011)

eser21 said:


> normally cynobacteria smells like a stagnent pond, not cut grass. Does it pull off in sheets, like pealing sunburn...?
> 
> I found that H2O2 just makes it detatch and float around to find a new home... not kills it.... but thats just me.
> 
> If dosing excel to the water column is dealing with it i would be suspisious of it being BGA.


h2o2 never made it detach for me. 
I alternated dosing to the water column in high doses multiple times a day to spot treating. One day I would spot treat one day I would dose the water column. 
It took a couple of weeks to eliminate it in my 20gallon but it only cost me like 3 bucks, I used three of the large bottles of h2o2... 

I agree if excel is dealing with it its probably not BGA. I've spot treated bga heavily with excel and nothing happened.


----------



## Chlorophile (Aug 2, 2011)

Another thing I can suggest to the OP if its just on a piece of wood is to drain the water level until the BGA is above the water line, and then fill a spray bottle with hydrogen peroxide and spray the BGA a lot, every couple of minutes for 15-20 minutes... This should kill it, but it may kill the moss too, I'm not sure as I've never sprayed moss with h2o2.


----------



## EntoCraig (Jun 7, 2010)

Chlorophile said:


> Another thing I can suggest to the OP if its just on a piece of wood is to drain the water level until the BGA is above the water line, and then fill a spray bottle with hydrogen peroxide and spray the BGA a lot, every couple of minutes for 15-20 minutes... This should kill it, but it may kill the moss too, I'm not sure as I've never sprayed moss with h2o2.


I was dosing to kill the clado that was growing within my Christmas moss. the moss didn't die, but the clado did. the moss however didnt grow during this period. After the clado was gone, the moss continued to grow.


----------



## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

you can see it on the wood. its not horrible because i dosed with excel.


----------



## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Wipe it off, clean the tank good, dose, water change etc.........clean filters......

Trim the moss back, fear not, if the CO2 and dosing is fine, you'll have no issues growing the snot out of moss, moss does poorly when the CO2 is also poor.


----------



## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

plantbrain said:


> Wipe it off, clean the tank good, dose, water change etc.........clean filters......
> 
> Trim the moss back, fear not, if the CO2 and dosing is fine, you'll have no issues growing the snot out of moss, moss does poorly when the CO2 is also poor.


I just cleaned the prefilters in the overflow. the main filter in the sump. trimmed the moss.

I have about an inch of sediment in the sump.... should I suck that out as well?


----------



## [email protected] (Jul 17, 2008)

BGA in -your- tank is the direct result of that thing you did to your sibling when you were, Ummm, ten. Yeah, ten. 

Oh, alright. After you kill it with a carbon overdose, you'll need to pull the wood and use a wire toothbrush to scrub the dead bits off the wood. Harbor Freight sells them.


----------



## Chlorophile (Aug 2, 2011)

johnny313 said:


> you can see it on the wood. its not horrible because i dosed with excel.


Thats definitely BGA, all other suggestions included, you should scrape off what you can and then spray the rest with hydrogen peroxide while its above the water line. A clean filter is great, a water change is great - both add oxygen, if you have a power head lying around add that. 



plantbrain said:


> Wipe it off, clean the tank good, dose, water change etc.........clean filters......
> 
> Trim the moss back, fear not, if the CO2 and dosing is fine, you'll have no issues growing the snot out of moss, moss does poorly when the CO2 is also poor.


Don't think his concern was about not being able to grow the moss well enough.
Good co2 has never gotten rid of BGA in my experience.


----------



## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

Chlorophile said:


> Thats definitely BGA, all other suggestions included, you should scrape off what you can and then spray the rest with hydrogen peroxide while its above the water line. A clean filter is great, a water change is great - both add oxygen, if you have a power head lying around add that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Toms'! Point is that a healthy tank will take care of itself for the most part


----------



## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

I do not clean the gravel when I do water changes because there are too many plants. is not cleaning the gravel a bad thing? the BGA only grows in that one spot.


----------



## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Chlorophile said:


> Thats definitely BGA, all other suggestions included, you should scrape off what you can and then spray the rest with hydrogen peroxide while its above the water line. A clean filter is great, a water change is great - both add oxygen, if you have a power head lying around add that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And does this pic look like BGA to you?

Hard to tell, the issue is poor growth, not the indirect consequence of BGA. BGA is very easy to control and get rid of if you have decent growth, eg I never get it in my tank except under the gravel against the glass in the ADA AS.

It never infest the moss etc.

In other words, the goal for plant hobbyists is to grow plants, not kill algae.
You master that, then algae is rarely much of an issue. Otherwise you often chase your tail after the algae....and never get to the gardening you wanted to do to begin with(the real goal).

My Fissidens is growing quite well:


----------



## Kathyy (Feb 22, 2010)

Hold the siphon just on the substrate or plants to clean the gravel, a lot of gunk will come up. You can push the siphon into some plantings like hairgrass but that will break Staurogyne stems and uproot Marsilea [guess how I know]. I seem to have a cleaner tank when I take the trouble to rinse out all the sponges in the filters weekly rather than just the prefilter sponge. If you don't have a prefilter on your intake consider sticking one on and rinsing it out at least weekly. You might stick a powerhead to blow water through dense growth too. BGA grows in stagnant and fast flowing water but should have trouble sticking to healthy plants if flow is stronger.


----------



## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

I need to get an additional power head. I only have one in a 120 gallon.. this may be the cause. I did have another PH in the tank, but the plants looked like they were aggravated by the current.


----------



## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

I never had good luck treating BGA with H2O2. Like someone said earlier, you can use EM tablets to kill BGA (which is not an alga at all). The treatment does get a bit costly for a tank that size, but it works well.


----------



## JoraaÑ (Jun 29, 2009)

Wasserpest said:


> I never had good luck treating BGA with H2O2. Like someone said earlier, you can use EM tablets to kill BGA (which is not an alga at all). The treatment does get a bit costly for a tank that size, but it works well.


one of the easiest algae to handle...use Em tabs..5-6 days it will be history. I recently helped a friend to get rid of BGA..180 gal tank under $35 peace of mind. buy Em tabs from kensfish.com and play with shipping..there are many option choose what is good for you.


----------



## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

BGA can be a pain if you don't figure out the route cause, first and foremost, and secondly, if you don't attack it. I would always try to crank up my CO2 in high tech tanks and water change in low tech. I found, in my personal experiences, that it has not been CO2 that has caused my issues. I have also found that it can really thrive under the same conditions where your plants will also benefit (that doesn't mean balanced by any means, I am just talking about seeing rapid growth).

I was hesitant to does nitrates at EI levels. A small part was the general belief that nitrate is bad. The second was everyone on the forums saying that it increases the intensity of red plants. Well, I kept on getting BGA. 

My method has been simple. Use H2O2 daily. Some will die, some may go to the top. The stuff that starts floating will either hit the ground (use more H2O2) or get in your filter. If you attack it hard with H2O2, and clean your filter, it will go away. 

The thing that really helped though was immediately upping my KNO3. On first site, I quadruple EI dosing amounts for 1 day. Then I double it up for awhile. If this works, you probably need to dose more in general.

Circulation can help but I personally have not had luck with that alone. Again, I haven't personally seen a direct connection with CO2 either. Well, that isn't exactly true, if I get BBA at the same time, I have found connections to CO2 and that is mostly in non CO2 tanks. 


I will also add that I am usually passive with algae. I like to know the reason for it. This stuff just doesn't seem to go away, at least for me, without attacking it aggressively. Maybe if your tank is perfectly balanced it will subside, I have never had it in a tank that I know is balanced. As said, I find it to thrive with plants if you make changes and it grows so rapidly it's very hard to get rid of if you let it stick around. 

This is my experience, I know Tom has better insight than I, but that has the downside of the fact he knows more than me and therefore has the ability to more thoroughly understand things than I. 

I don't mean to call you out Tom, you are always right, but I often am well behind you in my understanding so your great advice doesn't always work when you have other issues you don't know are issues.


----------



## DerangedCorgi (Oct 15, 2010)

Is it normal for BGA to grow where the gravel/substrate contacts the glass? I'm getting a bit of it and I'm nuking it with some H2O2 and it seems to work.


----------



## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

DerangedCorgi said:


> Is it normal for BGA to grow where the gravel/substrate contacts the glass? I'm getting a bit of it and I'm nuking it with some H2O2 and it seems to work.


It's a very common place to get a small amount of it. In my experience, I will get a slight amount right at the glass and it doesn't seem to spread. I get other types as well, again in small amounts.

I do the same, just go around the edge's with H2O2. It also works well for GDA and other algae that tends to build up because you cannot easily get down there when cleaning the glass.

I don't know why BGA shows up right there but my guess is that decaying organic material builds up more than it would in the middle of your substrate as it gets "trapped" more easily.



That's actually something I wanted to mention in my last post. If you have decaying leaves and what not, that can be a trigger for BGA as well.


----------

