# Cyanobacteria VS Bacter 100



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

Lets see if the magic really happens. Have some cyano in my new tank... hitched from from dry start. I tried peroxide, which seems to work, but with the size of my foreground is simply isn't economical. It take about 10ml to do a 3x3" patch and I have a lot of patches to do.

Anyways, just did a 70% water change and sprinkled Bacter 100 over the infected areas:

Before









Added Bacter 100:



























Lets us see what happens...


----------



## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

I am truly curious! I've heard it works. I wanna see it!


----------



## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I like to know also, I was just thinking about buying all the aditives from AFA, $136 including some power sand.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

So, I took a peek before work and I didn't notice any change but it's only been 12-13 hours. I'll post new pics with lights on this afternoon.


----------



## KH2PO4 (Jul 18, 2009)

Why don't just add more NO3? Isn't BGA the easiest algae to get rid of?
:red_mouth:red_mouth

OK, my experience with Bacter 100 vs BGA is it's still unclear.
I had sprinkled it in quite a bit (half the bottle onto 6 sqft area),
expecting all of them gone by the next day. But it didn't.

But it SEEMS to slowly help. Now cyanobacteria is no more a problem for me.
Not sure if it's because the Bacter 100 has added more competition to it
or because I have stopped dosing PO4. But the tank looks cleaner overall. 
There clearly is much less sludge in my filters too.

So now I have been adding a spoonful of Bacter 100 into each filter monthly.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

After 24 hours:



























So far it looks like the bacter isn't really doing anything, but it's really hard to tell. Some areas look better, some look worse. I just hit it with some more peroxide. Looked into Maracyn 1 and I'll cost about $20 for a single dose, of which I'm supposed to do 3-4. But... if it gets any worse I may go for it. I'm not losing my tank to this crap.


----------



## sayurasem (Jun 17, 2011)

Idk where you find your medicine, but petsmart sell API E.M. Erythromycin for $15. There are 10x 200mg powder packets in the box. It took me a total of 6 packets over 10 days of dosing and BGA is gone.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

KH2PO4 said:


> Why don't just add more NO3? Isn't BGA the easiest algae to get rid of?
> :red_mouth:red_mouth
> 
> OK, my experience with Bacter 100 vs BGA is it's still unclear.
> ...


I didn't add NO3 because I didn't know that would help. I haven't been dosing because the tank is only a week old, but maybe I should start. Plant growth seems good so far.

I'm noticing the same thing with the bacter. It seems like the bacter starts to turn into a film instead of small pebbles, but it's definitely not destroying it.



sayurasem said:


> Idk where you find your medicine, but petsmart sell API E.M. Erythromycin for $15. There are 10x 200mg powder packets in the box. It took me a total of 6 packets over 10 days of dosing and BGA is gone.


My LFS. I'm in Canada. Everything costs more here... it's a sick joke. Erythromycin at bigalsonline.ca is $18 for 10 packets. I need 16 packets for a single dose. What size tank do you have?

Anywho, just took airline tubing and 2 hours to remove as much as my back could take and added a bunch more bacter. It's not much of a test for bacter anymore, but the increase in cyano overnight was too much to risk it and relying on only the bacter. Also dosed 1.5 tsp of kno3.


----------



## HypnoticAquatic (Feb 17, 2010)

if the tank is only a week old is there any fauna in this? if not why dont u lower the water down to just above the plants that way u need less meds? just a thought hell if there isnt any fauna then drain most of the water out do some direct h²o² treatment then with your other treatment u might get a super fast turn around? but its all up to how much work your wanting to do to get it in check.. thats what id start at to get a decent foothold.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

HypnoticAquatic said:


> if the tank is only a week old is there any fauna in this? if not why dont u lower the water down to just above the plants that way u need less meds? just a thought hell if there isnt any fauna then drain most of the water out do some direct h²o² treatment then with your other treatment u might get a super fast turn around? but its all up to how much work your wanting to do to get it in check.. thats what id start at to get a decent foothold.


There's only a handful of Amano shrimp in there. I was hoping to leave the sump running to get a cycle going... as the aqua soil is supposed to leach. But, after a week I was getting 0 reading for both ammonia and nitrite. I don't have a nitrate test, but with my tanks I usually have none unless I'm dosing. Never knew cyano liked that condition though.

So, either the tank is cycled (possible if the AS NEW doesn't leach as much as before and half the substrate was from a cycled tank) or my test kits are bad. They aren't too old though, so I don't think so. Unfortunately, I'll have to buy a new kit to find out.

This is an unfortunate situation. First time with a cyano breakout and I've done so many tanks. I never really worry about algae because I never have it (except during startup). I've had a touch of cyano here and there, but it always cleared up.

I think my issue is the high light and co2, so high plant growth (I've had some really fantastic growth right out of the gate) and the nitrates have likely bottomed out. It took about 6 days for the cyano to get going. I had a touch of it, but over the last two days it's being growing very fast.


----------



## shrimp pliskin (Mar 16, 2012)

I successfully eradicated cyano by adding some anacharis which contains antibacterial properties.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

Thanks for the tip. I'll try that next if my current interventions don't work. I set up my auto doser last night for full EI. I skip the Gh booster because I have liquid rock from the tap. Upon researching cyano and no3 it does seem that cyano shows up with low nitrates. Hit the tank hard with kno3 yesterday and started a typical EI regime today. Hopefully that slows or stops the growth. I brought the tank down to 100umol at the substrate for 10 hours a few days back. Dropped my high intensity light period to around 8 hours starting today. It may be a little less, the LEDs a dim for a while on each end where the intensity is nearly useless. 

The tank seems to be doing well except for a little dust algae, typical. Ottos will be going in soonish.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

Seems like the cyano is growing slower where established, but it's still spreading to other areas of of thank. I did a heavy siphon of all the effected areas, taking some soil and any lightly rooted plants and all. Did about a 50% water change, dosed another 1/2 tsp of kno3, along with the daily EI dose of everything and sprinkled all the bacter (maybe a tablespoon or more) I had left on every spot I saw some cyano, removed or not.


----------



## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

I have a DHG tank:










ADA AS etc.

I dose about 1/2 teaspoon KNO3 2-3x a week, feed shrimp a little and the CPD's.

The plants do not need that much NO3, but a little helps. I did 3x a week water changes for the 1-st 1-2 months. Now I just do 1-2x a week.

I dose about 1/2 EI, but.....it's not a tank full of stem plants, and I reduce the light to 30-50% full power.

I've cleaned the glass 1x since setting it up.
Which is not bad I figure.

I transfered some hair algae from out side and it pestered the wood a bit, but the H2O2 worked and I upped the CO2 a tad, noticing that I'd run out for a couple of days:icon_roll
No wonder I got algae.........

Fixed that and did back to back daily water changes for a few days, fixed things right up.

BGA is more a sign you have not been dosing KNO3/running a bit too low on NO3. It's one of the easier algae to get rid of however. 3 day blackout with KNo3 dosing should get rid of it pretty effectively with no cost. EM works also, but might be a bit hard to find out side the US etc.

I dose 3-5ppm of PO4 as KH2PO4 2x a week at least to all my tanks.
Sometimes I might see a little on the gravel-glass near a window side of the tank well below the sediment surface, but nowhere else ever. I sometimes clean that off but many do not.

It does not cause an issue.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

I was pondering while at work today, about my tank of course, and realized that somehow when calculating my fert mix I made it half strength. I was using the dosage for a 60-80 gallon and forgot to double it. Anywho, came home and doubled up today... so at least I should be dosing properly now. 

Tom, thanks for info. I should be dosing 3/4 tsp every other day of kno3 now. I just took the EI dose and split it over every day for my dosers. A guess this is still a lot less then your hairgrass scape as I should have a lot more plant mass, and double the tank size.

I did a good cleaning of the BGA yesterday, and today it looks like the growth has slowed a bit, so I might add a bit more nitrate and keep on it for a few more days. Likely 2-3 as that's more than enough time to see if the BGA is still coming, or backing off and if it's fading I'll keep doing what I'm doing. If not, I'll do the blackout. I'm just trying to avoid the blackout as most of my plants are just now getting a good rhythm going. There's been a good bit of dead plant matter I've been trying to remove as the plants transition from emmersed to immersed growth and that has likely helped the BGA as well. Some plants just changed over off the bat, some are slowly morphing (like the L. glandulosa) and others changed over while the old growth melted (downoi, Nasaea).

This is quite the learning experience for me, the transition to many stems, somewhat more difficult plants, and the start up/ maintenance of such a large tank. While the tissue cultures are nice... they are tricky to start with due to any die off during transition.. This is by far the tank I've had that has both the best growth, and the worst die off.


----------



## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Once you get an alga, you have to work extra hard to get rid of it.

So prevention is worth a pound of cure, many folks do not add enough in the beginning and this is true for CO2 as well.

As the tank grows and fills in, the CO2 and NO3 demand typically increases, because you have 2-20X more plant biomass often.

So I'd just do basic stuff, like taking a small siphon hose and fluff off the BGA, and suck it out. Some folks use H2O2 afterwards. Then a large water change. Wait a day or two, then do a blackout for 3 days and add KNO3 etc.
After 3 days, turn lights/CO2 back on and adjust things, add KNO3 more often etc.

You can really go and bend the rules with ferts over a wide range if the light/CO2 are good and you have a rich sediment.
Those are more important than nutrients..........but ferts are still important.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

Aha, yes... so true. BGA is a complete bugger to eradicate. Most algae I've gotten in small quantities, usually amounts I can live with. Plagues were usually stopped dead when I cut back light, or fix the co2, of course.

It's ironic, I know how much light I use, and all too often try to push the limits. The initial growth and colour, in the period between startup and the algae infestation is like a drug. You know you shouldn't do it, and drop the lighting down... but it's hard to have the disipline. Add to this my fancy, shiny, new LED fixture and I just had to play with it. I've been decreasing my light levels every few days, either in duration or intensity. I'm still running pretty high light, around 80umol at the substrate and 190 or so at the surface. Not bad though, if you consider many tanks jump much more between the soil and surface. One plus of the high power LEDs and having the light so high, ~40" off the soil.

I've been slowly bumping my co2, bit by bit. I'm much higher than I've ever been, drop checkers are getting into the yellow, but I think I still have a lot more to go. I'm starting to worry about my return pump as it is chopping a constant stream of co2. It's pretty loud.

Tested my nitrates and I'm at around 10ppm now. I'm going to monitor it for a few days do see what effect the daily dosing and water changes are having. Part of the learning for me, as this isn't something I've ever paid much attention to. I'd like to observe the rate of uptake in this tank, just until things settle and I have a feel for this setup. My first high light, high co2 setup. 

I'm seeing first hand how fast high lighting can amplify and speed up any issues. Luckily, I'm proud of this tank so far, so I'm in the tank every day poking and prodding. A few plants will need trimming soon. Most are developing nicely, just a few that need to finish transitioning. I've only lost one species so far, knock on wood. Not sure what happened there... it didn't do well from the beginning. Straight melt until I pulled it.


----------



## CmLaracy (Jan 7, 2007)

I haven't read the entire thread, and I may be a little biased  but I promise you if you follow this mini guide your BGA will be a joke to get rid of, and it'll never come back.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/68793-bba-bga-causes-treatments.html

Oh and in regards to bacter 100, I found it to help BGA a little, but not sufficiently enough to be a stand alone cure for the amount of BGA I see in those photos. It does a good job at stopping it before it really 'starts' if you know what I mean. My guess is that some of the bacteria in the bacter 100 find cyano to be delicious


----------



## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

CmLaracy said:


> I haven't read the entire thread, and I may be a little biased  but I promise you if you follow this mini guide your BGA will be a joke to get rid of, and it'll never come back.
> 
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/68793-bba-bga-causes-treatments.html
> 
> Oh and in regards to bacter 100, I found it to help BGA a little, but not sufficiently enough to be a stand alone cure for the amount of BGA I see in those photos. It does a good job at stopping it before it really 'starts' if you know what I mean. My guess is that some of the bacteria in the bacter 100 find cyano to be delicious


+1

Yep


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

Okay, so I got back from my trip last wednesday, the 4th and the BGA was pretty bad along the top branches and problem areas. It was about what I expected as I gave it about 6 days to grow. I waited till the next day and did the old manual removal by syphon. This got a bunch of it and then I did a 60ish % water change. I was looking at the tank last night and realized all the sheet of BGA are gone. There is still a lot of "dusting" of BGA on leaves and such that come off easily, but haven't been sheeting. I thought it might be GDA, but I'm pretty sure it's BGA. 

Anyway, the Eurythromicen is on its way, but if the issue is doing very well before it arrives from somewhere very far away, I will forgo the treatment and save the meds. For the record here's what has changed since the first outbreak.

-EI dosing started
- Nitrates went from 0ppm to a relatively constant 10ppm. 
- Phosphates unknown, no test.
- Tap water water changes, every second day until I was finding little dead plant matter within the tank and then backed off, now at weekly. I had a lot of tissue cultures and a lot of melting the first week or two. I generally followed a typical start up schedule for a nano tank. Started with daily 50% and slowly decreased the frequency. 
- Decreased par a the surface from 330umol to 170umol and at the substrate from 130umol to 75umol, using Mistergreen's Close Enough Par Meter.
- Co2 was decreased slightly when the blue tetras were introduced (they were sensitive) and held constant for about 3 weeks. For the last 1.5 weeks I've been messing with it, so in general the co2 levels have been lower, or bouncing up and down.

* My co2 notes may not hold up against what I've said in other threads. I just realized today that my ph probe is wacky and has been giving me false reading, likely for some time. I realized tonight that my levels were likely close to satisfactory but I have been messing with it lately, trying out different diffusers.

I think a blackout would have caused success earlier, but I didn't want to risk weakening the plants with the huge transition they just finished and all. Not sure if it's a legit concern, but I had a lot of melting already, I didn't want to make things worse.


----------



## tobystanton (Jun 27, 2012)

Try put some frog-bit or duckweed or red root floaters in your tank, they will suck up all the nutrients in the water and get rid of your algae fast.


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

No, don't want that stuff in my tank. The algae is 95% gone, I think I beat it. I was trying to do it without meds so I'm happy it's receding.


----------



## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

Meds wont work with bacter 100. Tyats for sure. Its a bacterial supplement. If ur adidng anti bacterials. Then, ur fighting ur fix.

Bga is imo caused from poor bio filtration. This could be a new tank, or just underfiltered by flow and or oxygen levels. Remvoing bga and getting good beneficial bacteria will take care of it in most cases. Its very rare than nitrates are needed to stop it, they do help prevent it though


----------



## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

What do you mean meds won't work with Bacter 100? I tried the Bacter, it didn't really do much. You need to use a lot of it and it only seeme to slow the growth. 

The eurythromicen kills gram negative bacteria, which the cyano is. Most biological bacteria that applies to our tanks is apparently gram positive. Hence why marycin knocks out the biological filter while straight eurythromicen doesn't. As far as I can gather anyway. 

Regardless, I'm no longer using the Bacter. It was a fail for me, and even though the eurythromicen is a sure fix I think I've fixed the root issues and I'm good now.


----------



## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

Thats fine. I figured the bacter 100 was out for u. I just thought the antibiotics would negatively affext the bacter 100. Im glad the issue is resolved


----------

