# Buce Tank is a hot mess - advice needed



## SinisterSheltie (May 28, 2013)

I have an Aqueon Evolve 8 Buce tank that's been established for about six months now. Growth and color was never spectacular under the two Aquatop zen-nano lights(10000K probably) I had running; new leaves were small, mostly green, and I'd only get one new leaf every two or three weeks or so, so I upgraded to a Finnex Fugeray Planted+ clip on. It's a much more appropriate light for a planted tank, but with the added intensity, I started dosing my tank. I do 0.5mL Excel daily, 0.5 mL Flourish Comprehensive once a week, and two/three drops of Flourish Nitrogen when my nitrates are low. For a few weeks, when the BBA started growing, I upped my Excel dosing to 1mL daily. No help against the algae. 

I tried to keep dosing minimal to avoid algal problems but clearly I've thrown the tank out of whack. I have hair, black beard, and green spot algae everywhere and my oldest/highest buces are growing even more stunted leaves which refuse to open. Some are yellow... Charts online have been only minimally helpful - which is why I have come to you guys. Any input?

Tank parameters:
Light: 9 hours
Temp: 79°F
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0 
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5 mg/L (last week X>160 mg/L --- Not sure why. Did 25% change afterwards)
kH: 8.5 dkH (last week it was 11)

Bump: Adding: Phosphates were at zero last week, this week 0.25mg/L.


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

You cannot run that much light with only nice tank. Too slow grower and you don't have enough plant mass. Add floaters or raise you light. You need to take the foot off the gas pedal and keep thing low light low tech for the sake of your plants.


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## SinisterSheltie (May 28, 2013)

Dang. Ok. 

Is the damage reversable?


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## serenityfate (Jan 29, 2014)

read about the "one two punch method" on how to use hydrogen peroxide to eradicate most of that bba , and do more water changes ..


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Are there any fish or shrimp in the tank? If not, I would suggest using an Algecide or peroxide to kill off the algae. At the same time try reducing light, I think 9 hours is way too much... Try 5-6 at first or reduce the light by raising the light or blocking with floaters as suggested above... I had the same issue and they do great under a finnex planted under thick floater cover.


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## battmanh (Feb 15, 2014)

I would be careful with H2O2 and your buces. It is very possible to melt the leaves of your buces. It has happened to me when I treated rocks near my buces. Keep us updated with how you approach the recovery of your buces.


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## SinisterSheltie (May 28, 2013)

I considered the H2O2 method but I do have a couple white clouds minnows(under observation until being put in my big tank) and a microgoby(Schismatogobius ampluvinculus). I can catch the white clouds with relative ease. The microgoby, not so much. He's an invisible little bug. Will definitely consider the method though(and consider figuring out a way to safely trap him). 

I'll definitely shorten the lighting timing. 

Will CO2 assist the plants at this point, or is Excel sufficient? Or just stop monkeying with it once I lessen the lighting duration?


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

I don't think melting leaves is something to worry about at this stage. If it was me I would be cutting all the leaves off and starting from.scratch before the root structure gets covered in algae. Shorter the photo period, add floaters, keep up with water changes, keep dosing ferts, and maintain a clean tank with lots of manual removal.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

philipraposo1982 said:


> You cannot run that much light with only nice tank. Too slow grower and you don't have enough plant mass. Add floaters or raise you light. You need to take the foot off the gas pedal and keep thing low light low tech for the sake of your plants.


+1 this is 100% correct

Also agree that you should just ditch all the leaves that are caked in algae. They only hurt more.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Would the BBA really "hurt" the Buce/slow it's growth though?

I understand why you cut off leaves showing deficiency/toxicity signs since the leaves would be damaged and the plant would waste energy trying to repair the un-repairable leaves instead of growing.

But as far as I know, algae doesn't really "hurt" plants besides blocking out light in the covered areas. Or does it actually "steal" nutrients away from the plant it's attached to (does it pull nutrients from the water column or actually suck/leach it out of the plant itself? I have heard healthy plants produce some minor toxin that keeps algae from growing, if algae (BBA) is growing faster, does it too have that ability to release some sort of toxin that has the same affect against plant growth?

I genuinely don't know and am interested in hearing.

If the leaves should be cut off though, wouldn't you want to leave, at the very least, one leaf, even if it has some algae? (for photosynthesis reasons)
Buce grow extremely slow in my experience, even slower than Anubias and Java Ferns.

But I do agree, you have way too much light. But Buce can be grown in high tech as long as the balance of lights, co2, ferts, plant mass are in balance to prevent algae from taking over.

Philip, I know you had some pretty bad BBA on your crypt tank. I heard you had great success with the floaters and co2, but did you really cut off all the BBA infested leaves or no?
Would excel spot treating (less prone to melting plants than h2o2?) not be a option to remove the currently present BBA, while changes are made to keep new BBA from growing? Just seeing if there is a option for the OP, without cutting off all the leaves.


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

In my crypt tank I cut all the leaves with bba. Even if it was a small 2mm tuff on the tip. I feel this is part of my success with how quickly I became algae free. I don't have the scientific background to confirm that it did in fact make the difference but in my mind it made sense. 

As for the bba leaching from the plant, I am not sure of this either but I don't mind hack things back and starting over. So rather that guess I take a more drastic approach. 

In the past I have use peroxide in my anubias to remove bba. It worked without hurting my plants.

Now that my crypt tank has the moss carpet that's already starting to grow, I am experimenting with thinning out my duckweed and allow more light. With the greatly increased mass of plants I should be fine.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Once before on here I heard a warning about H2O2 and Buce.
I don't have exp/w BBA either in my tanks. But every thread out there which talks
about BBA states that it is the result of too high of a light level for the level of CO2.
But adding CO2 would not help if there is no faster growing type plants that can
effectively grow faster when that CO2 is added.
In a Buce only tank you will need to regulate the light even more exactly than any
regular tank. I'd suggest Dwarf Water Lettuce as your floater. Short roots that won't
block your view or hang up on plants unless they are very tall in there.
The next missing ingredient is Potassium. You have everything but that one.
There may be traces of it in the Comp, but that nutrient is a Macro meaning lots of it
are used by the plants. Put Fertfriend into search for a liquid fert calculator. Scroll that
page down some as it's not at the top of it.
The Planted+ IS a better light for plants. But with only Buce in there you will need for it to be hung about 20" above the sub. But since it's a "clip on" it may be OK @ 18" up.
I feel that this would be better than floaters. The more floaters there are the more they use up your nutrients making it harder to keep them stable.
Can we see a picture of the whole tank ?


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

I dipped my buces in an h2o2 + water dip, leaves did melt somewhat, however, stem was healthy and the plant grew back very well. I originally had them in my high light/CO2 tank after treatment moved them to my low light shrimp tank where they grew much better.


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## doggo (Jun 14, 2014)

I drastically overdosed my 45g with H2O2 not too long ago and it didn't harm my buces at all. There weren't that many of them but they were unscathed. Killed off my jungle vals though:crying:


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## Jeff B (Oct 16, 2010)

Once you get it clean some shrimp will help keep them clean. Excel plus some faster growing stem plants helped clean up my Flora tank from blue green algae and other types. Cherry shrimp polished up the buce's. 

Buce died back from 25% peroxide 5 min dip but bounced back algae free.


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## PhilipS (Jan 9, 2014)

Unless the plant has blackened throughout and looks withered do not trash it.

Hydrogen Peroxide is not as effective against BBA as using Excel (Glutaraldehyde) properly. It's really a B12 issue. Refer to the Scapefu podcast.

Use the rest of Your Excel to zap the BBA directly with a long dropper. You will be adding no more than 10ml per day. Do this first thing in the morning when you add fertilizers. Do not treat the whole tank, Just use it directly to hose down a plant or a few leaves underwater.

Zap a different plant or area each time. It may take a few days or a week until the BBA turns red then white, and maybe detach like tumble weeds. Remove with tweezers daily.

Search for Cidex Metricide Omnicide 14-DAY and buy a gallon on feebay @$20 when you run out of Excel. Dose no more than 1ml per gallon daily directly to affected plants; not the whole tank. Continue weekly water changes.

May take 2-3 weeks to eradicate the BBA. You will have a new looking tank.

Meanwhile, stabilize your temperature, maximize the CO2 per your KH, adjust your light to about 50PAR at the floor. Minimize the organics/compost. Add some narrow or petite plants like Rotala, Ludwigia, and carpet plants. They will rob the algae of necessary nutrients. SAE fish, and Shrimp are great for cleaning up.

This trick worked for me and I am so happy with my planted aquarium.


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## vapemaster (Sep 23, 2015)

For what it's worth I was having a real mess of a time with algae in a 20g long tank. There was really algae (many different varieties) growing on many different surfaces and plants in the tank. After trying various Excel and H202 regimentsi accidentally cured it by going on vacation. 

more specifically i did the following:

cleaned the tank thrououghly physically eradicating all that i could. This involved removing rocks and driftwood from the tank and scrubbing them in bleach water followed by repeated srubbing in clean hot water collowed by a soak and scrub in a hot water + 10x normal dosage of Prime (or other dechlorinating product).

Then I scraped all the glass in my tank and did a a 30% water change after redepositing my hardscaping items to help clear the water of debris.

Then I had to leave for 2 weeks for vacation and I decided to try and put all my fish and plants into psuedo stasis. I put an autofeeder on a light feeding schedule and then drastically reduced my lighting. I am using a custom built LED rig so I can really tweak intensity and duration easily but essientiall i turned my lights down to ~15% full value (full is out of control though even now i run them ~65%) and reduced the photoperiod to 6hrs. I also wrapped a blanket around it because the ambient heater was off and wanted to give my tank heater a little insulation. (top was still open to air)

When i came back i was nervous that i would have decimated tank but i was shocked to find the opposite! Every single bit of algea (except for some very stubborn but isolated patches of BBA) was gone. I don't just mean dead, i mean gone. Glass was xtal clear and all my plants were pristine once again. They really appreciated being able to photosynthesize without a blanket of filamentous algae on them as well .

I should mention that I had 4+ amano and 3 Otto's in there as a hungry clean up crew. Those guys didn't seem to care for the algae too much when it was really healthy but in the great winter they seemed to forage like champs. 

Also I encourage you to bump your K and P numbers. I have high nitrates from a high bioload and dose a modified PPS-Pro that has no KNO3 which has really encouraged growth and health of all my plants. 

good luck in the algae wars. it's a tough fight but can be won.


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