# Too many ferts = bba?



## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

Nah. Most of the time its caused by too much light and/or not enough CO2. What's your tank specs?


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

ThatGuyWithTheFish said:


> So yesterday I decided to measure my nitrates, and well,it was around 120ppm. The more disconcerting thing was that this was the day after my water change. I can assume that some of that is from fish waste, but I'm not very highly stocked so not that much. Can too much fertilizer contribute to algae growth, such as black beard and diatoms? I haven't dosed anything since then, and I was doing the recommended EI dosage.


Even if the plants are not removing anything, mathematically, no one should ever have much beyond 60 ppm of NO3 using EI, due to KNO3 if you do a weekly 50% water change with tap water that's NO3 free.

This also assumes your test kit is accurate, it may not be, so a standard solution can be made to verify this.

General target NO3 is 10-30ppm or so.

My tanks start off at 20 and drop below 10 at the wend of the week with my dosing.

You can modify the dosing in other words.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

But to answer your question, no, BBA screams a CO2 issue more than anything.


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## penpal (Mar 27, 2010)

plantbrain said:


> But to answer your question, no, BBA screams a CO2 issue more than anything.


Does excess organics attribute to that? I have bba as well in my tank, nothing extreme just on the wood rocks. ive re somewhere that organics in the older tank causes bba as well. My tank has been setup for nearly 6 years. I had no algae when it was first setup for a couple years and it was running 4 24w t5s an running on diy yeast. Now its running one 1 bulb and preaaurized co2 cranked... Same ei dosing and im getting bba. Im thinking about tearing down completely and starting from scratch.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Since BBA is on non live materials: Spot dose during a water change with Excel, or H2O2 3%(no more than 1 ml per 10 Gal of tank).

After 1-2 weeks, the BBA will die back and not be an issue, slowly adjust the CO2 carefully over the next few weeks, one small adjustment per 3-4 days with close observations.

Amano shrimp etc, can help.


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

penpal said:


> Does excess organics attribute to that? I have bba as well in my tank, nothing extreme just on the wood rocks. ive re somewhere that organics in the older tank causes bba as well. My tank has been setup for nearly 6 years. I had no algae when it was first setup for a couple years and it was running 4 24w t5s an running on diy yeast. Now its running one 1 bulb and preaaurized co2 cranked... Same ei dosing and im getting bba. Im thinking about tearing down completely and starting from scratch.


make sure that the co2 even though its pressurized is consistent

also i did learn a hard lesson on my 29 gallon
with lower light levels and tons of co2 tryign to prevent the very thing ur dealing with, i'd get black algaes
increasing light and allowing plants to grow a little faster actually helps prevent it as much as having the riht amount of co2. there is somethign to be said for substatial growth rates. 
otherwise, with one bulb, i'd turn off co2


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## syzygy9 (Aug 9, 2010)

penpal said:


> Does excess organics attribute to that?


My previous set-up was low-tech and after a couple years of less than perfect maintenance my plants stopped growing and BBA took over. One interesting thing I noticed was that the BBA seemed to particularly like to form on the ramshorn shells that my assasins left behind. To me this indicated that organics were playing some part.

I tore it down, cleaned it up, and went high-tech. A couple months ago when my first tank of CO2 ran out I thought little of it and continued to add ferts and run normal lights for 4 or 5 days before I could get a refill. The result was a BBA explosion. I'm free of it now, but there is no doubt that the sudden drop in CO2 was a factor.

To make a long story short, I believe both to be contributers but the lack of CO2 produced a more impressive outbreak for me.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Clean water will reduce algae in pretty much every setup from my experience. CO2 can help a lot, but that would depend on the amount of plant mass and how well your plants are growing.


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## ThatGuyWithTheFish (Apr 29, 2012)

Yes, absolutely light and CO2 have correlated with rapid increases in BBA. But fixing those problems seems to do little to rid them or even stop their spread. Hydrogen peroxide has killed only a small portion of it, too. I can't use excel because I have Java ferns. I think the H2O2 already damaged my Trident fern, as around that time it started to turn brown and die.


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

Excel doesn't melt java ferns IME.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Do you have a current pic?


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## farrenator (May 11, 2011)

this x2



Monster Fish said:


> Excel doesn't melt java ferns IME.


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