# Arresting BBA Growth (or Why Can't *I* Trust Tom Barr?)!



## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Brian, the problem with measuring CO2 is that we just can't do it accurately. When we measure KH and pH and the tables say we have 30 ppm we may have far less than that, but, for some reason we very rarely have more. Several weeks ago I spotted a new CO2 meter thru google, that used a different principle to measure CO2, but the artlcle that accompanied the advertisement said clearly that measuring CO2 in water is very, very hard to do with any accuaracy, even using their method. The reason given was that CO2 chemically combines with the water, with other things in the water, as well as just being in solution in the water. So, trying to measure it means trying to measure all of the forms it takes in the water and combining them. (I'm paraphrasing quite a bit.) The final disapointment was that the new meter was not listed for sale - sort of a "to be available later" listing.

Shortly after that I decided not to even try to measure CO2 again. Remember, all of the recommendations for CO2 are based on measurements made using the KH/pH table, so are equally suspect. So, why try to guess the amount based on that? Instead I just started raising my CO2 a little every week, watching the tank all week, and if everything except the BBA looked ok, raising it again. I did that a few times until the BBA quit restarting itself on the plants. It still restarts on driftwood and on my heater, but not on plants, so I'm happy now!

Good luck with your battle and keep us posted.


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## pineapple (Jan 22, 2004)

Do yourself a favour and reset the tank by dosing a little Flourish Excel. That will rid it in days and then your better husbandry can take care of the issue of it not returning. Don't expect increasing CO2 to get rid of BBA in under months. I recommend dosing 40ml per 30g in one dose after water change. If the tank clouds slightly, it is because the FE has a tendency to reduce the bacterial filtration in your filter. But that should not be a problem. FE does not kill shrimp or fish in my experience.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Some will find they still have BBA even with high CO2, but they often have lots of BBA still there and have not gone in and removed it all.

Once you correct the CO2, you go in and clean the BBA off everything really good. Make sure you get most all of it, check later the next week when you do the water change, remove any left overs, within, 2-3 weeks, you should have most all of it gone.

Some use Excel in conjunction to aid in removal, nothing wrong with that.
I've never needed it though.........

Still, you need to do something beside change the CO2 nutrients etc, you need to make sure those things are set right, then go after the algae manually.

This is a big one time job but it very selective to algae and works well if you maintain good parameters. It's also a good way to see if parameters where properly corrected or not.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## jgc (Jul 6, 2005)

Thanks for the excel reminder... I have a nano that keeps going blue, but excel might be just the ticket for it (that and I have .5 Lt laying arround that I don't use anymore).


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

Hoppy - Sounds like the approach worked well for you. It's always good to know the approach should work.

pineapple - Personally, I've never had Excel work on the 'whole tank' approach, though it worked great as a spot treatment. Then again, last time I did the whole tank approach, I likely had that nasty DW in there. So, it's worth trying again. Good suggestion!

Tom - I'm listening (or am I) !

Status...well more of the same so far. After making the post, I got sucked into a proposal and now tonight I'm flying up to NJ for a one day jaunt. So, effectively, I'm getting a nice crop of BBA going. Actually, the case I have really isn't terrible. The nanas are taking the worst hit. It's just that I've done the Excel treatment before and prune all visible stuffs, and it just creeps back. So, my tank parameters are current condusive to it. I took some 'before' shots the other day, but they weren't very good.

But, life should drop down a notch by Friday. So, that's when I'll get my CO2 tank refilled, and I'll make sure to snap some reasonable shots to a) document the change and b) validate that it really is BBA :eek5: ! It seems like some of the bushy black stuff I've got was once called clado and validated by several other hobbiests. So, before I lead too many astray...

Thanks for the inputs/suggestions all!!
Brian.


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## dhavoc (May 4, 2006)

i had BBA in my 20 low tech (low light no co2) and tried the excel overdose at 4x reccomended, the BBA turned from a dark black/green to red over the next week and disappeared completely in 2 weeks. i was worried initially because the tank is full of rainbow shrimp, but they didnt even blink at high excell doses. so it does work but i have read not for everyone, guess i got lucky. can get expensive if you have a large tank though.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

The issue is not to kill the BBA, the issue is top prevent the long term new growth of any algae.

You can trim, Excel, Bleach etc, but that's a lot of work, expense or trouble that's simply not needed unless *you neglect the tank*.

BBA does not appear for any other reason than neglect, you negelected the CO2 dosing.

We want to lay blame on many other things, but it's us.
I do not enjoy less than optimal growth, nor pruning algae/issues etc.
So i know if I put things off too long, I will, so I stop doing that and i9f it does happen, I knopw what to do to correct it so I do not have to repeat the same labor/Excel etc process all over again.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## banderbe (Oct 10, 2005)

I believe that no attempt to measure CO2 concentrations should be made at all.

Just keep it as high as you can keep it while keeping the fish happy. 

I turn up my CO2 until I can just barely keep count of the bubbles which works out to around 3 per second. It always works and I never have any problems related to low CO2.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

If you lower the pH by 1.0-1.2 units from ambient levels using only CO2 gas to do so, that reduction of pH is due solely to CO2, should correspond to 30-40ppm of CO2 in solution.

You need to know what the ambient levels are in the tank and measure them if anything looks funny.

That seems to work fairly well.
A little tweaking here or there is fairly easy from then on.


Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## Urkevitz (Jan 12, 2004)

Can you lower your light levels?


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

plantbrain said:


> If you lower the pH by 1.0-1.2 units from ambient levels using only CO2 gas to do so, that reduction of pH is due solely to CO2, should correspond to 30-40ppm of CO2 in solution.
> 
> You need to know what the ambient levels are in the tank and measure them if anything looks funny.
> 
> ...


If you look at the equation for ppm of CO2 [CO2 (in PPM) = 3 * KH * 10( 7-pH) ], then manipulate it to get ppm = ( something to do with degassed ppm ), you find that the 1.0 pH drop only means that the ppm of CO2 is 10X what it was for the "degassed" sample. So, unless that degassed sample has 3 ppm of CO2 in it, and that depends on how long you wait for it to degas, you won't have 30 ppm when you have the 1.0 drop. Unfortunately, we have found that the ppm of CO2 in a water sample keeps on dropping for a day or two down to as low as .5 ppm, so this method is a crude estimate for ppm of CO2 at best. But, we don't really need to know the ppm of CO2 in the water, only that it is as high as we can get it without harming the fish/shrimp. That we can determine by careful observation and slow increases in bubble rate.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

And that ambient method does tend to work fairly well, even if the smaple drops a little buit less than 3ppm. the targeted range for CO2 is still met pretty well although more on the low side which is better than the higher side..........

trhere is no perfect method, other than a looking at the weeds and adjust to compensate, but this, the pH/KGH table, and fish health seem to work.

I'm not keen on the fish health method personally.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

plantbrain said:


> The issue is not to kill the BBA, the issue is top prevent the long term new growth of any algae.


This is definitely my goal...so perhaps I should retitle the thread.

Regarding CO2 levels...my KH~8 and my SMS is kept around 6.5-6.6. Using the outgassing method, my pH went up to 7.8, which should be me right in that 3.0 ppm range. BUT, my BBA still thrives.

Thus part of the reason for my experimentation.

I'm taking the afternoon off tomorrow, so I'll get the CO2 resupply. Then a few photos, then a thorough tank cleaning, then I'll be off to the races....err, the slow observations, is likely more appropriate.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

You probably need to see the other thread about CO2 using the alternative method.

That might help, eyeballs work pretty good also, look at the plant reponse, they respond slower than fish, so take it slow and then you no longer need to tweak the fish to get good CO2 ppm levels for the plants.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## banderbe (Oct 10, 2005)

If you feel that your fert regime and CO2 are where they should be but the algae won't go away, consider overdosing flourish excel.

It's perfect for that kind of situation, and once the algae is gone you can stop dosing it and if you are right and your ferts and CO2 are in the sweet spot then algae should not come back. It worked for me!


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## rrguymon (Jul 10, 2005)

BSS said:


> Regarding CO2 levels...my KH~8 and my SMS is kept around 6.5-6.6. Using the outgassing method, my pH went up to 7.8, which should be me right in that 3.0 ppm range. BUT, my BBA still thrives


Sound simular to my water. My KH is about 8 and degassed ph is 7.9. I had BBA problems until I took my PH down to 6.3 - 6.4 as indicated on the SMS controller. 6.5 - 6.6 I get algae. My fish are fine at 6.3. In fact, I have had it down to 6 and the fish were fine. KH PH relationship does not work for my water. 

I took the PH down very slowly when I was home to observe the fish. I was concerned about gassing them but they never showed any signs of stress at all even when the PH was 6. So I am confident that keeping at 6.3 is safe and it is effective. 

Rick


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

NM water likely have non carbonate hydroxide alkalinity.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

*Round 1!*

Good thoughts/ideas, all! Keep 'em coming!

Rick - I'm guessing I'll end up close to where you did...but time will tell.

I did retitle the thread so as not to focus on killing the BBA that is there. I really am interesting in preventing the recurrence.

I'm attaching a couple photos. Per the recent threads on clado, I'm pretty confident that's not what I have. So, I'm more confident now that it is BBA. Perhaps two types, the low growing one that loves the outer edges of Anubias leaves, and the bushy type that will also pop up on the Flourite from time to time.

Some of the specs. My husbandry has been a bit lax as of late. I've bee doing WCs every 2-3 weeks. Also, my fert regimine has been in flux. Most recently I've been down to dosing just Flourish Fe and then Flourish and Flourish Fe. Due to likely overstocking/overfeeding and not having 'something' right, when I was at the 'standard' EI dosing, my N and P levels would get way too high (e.g. 40+, 2++). As the fert uptake could be due to low CO2 levels (though the charts would indicate otherwise), I've restarted a 50% EI macro dosing of 1/4 tsp KNO3, 1/4 tsp K2SO4 and 1/16 tsp PO4-stuff. For micros, I'll go with 5 ml of Flourish and Flourish Fe on alternate days. Though I still need to confirm, my KH should be 8. My SMS setting was in the 6.5-6.6 range. I recalibrated my probe, and it appeared dead on. I've nudged the SMS down (not a real precision dial  ), and it now is at least down to 6.4, though I haven't noted the probe turning off yet. No fish stress noted.

Other items. I reattached a new CO2 tank Friday. During my 50% WC yesterday, I manuall removed the majority of the BBA infested leaves. I also turned off the filter, spot treated with Excel (especially on the DW, though I did avoid the Anubias in the front/center...which is kinda a 'control' sample) and then added the rest of 25 ml of Excel. Though the Excel OD hasn't worked in the past (for whatever reasons), I will try another OD'ing experiment for the next 2 weeks. I'll also let each CO2 change sit for 2 weeks before dropping it any further...unless I visually view new BBA growth...assuming I can tell :icon_roll .

So, I think that's it.

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLE! DING! DING!


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

That is definitely BBA.

The old BBA will stick around after you increase the CO2............
New growth should always stop, if not, you did something wrong with the CO2.

As far as the BBa reminding you have a few options:

Bleach/peroxide/Permangnate/Excel

I do not like these options, once the BBA has attached, it'll leave a ratty looking leaf that does not contribute to the plant nor pearl much.
May as well hack it off.

Wood, rock, glass, equipment etc, bleach it.
Dechlor return to tank.

I have 2 main methods, one, trim what's there agressively. The other is to trim in week time frames, I'll hack a fair amount one week, then go after another section the next week.

After 2-4 weeks, the tank is cleared up.
This works if you get the CO2 runnign correctly.

Now ......for you sorry saps whop think bleach/H2O2 is the silver bullet miracle stuff: those don't make your plants grow better. Thye are in no way going ot help the plants grow better nor are they nutrients per se.
Having enough CO2 does............and the plants grow much better with ample CO2!!!

Now Excel is a 2 part issue, one, it'll kill some species of algae, BBA is suspectible. But it also helps the plants grow better by allowing the break down into CO2.

Still....you never solved the main issue, proper use of CO2 gas(althoughb you can switch to Excel only if you want) and you still are left with ratty ex-BBA infested leaves.

So you will have to trim those ugly leaves anyway at some point or just accept them for eterinity. I prefer to trim now, why wait and put a 1/2 dead leaf back into the tank?

Complaining over the amount of trimming to the point not much is left in your tank? *That's your own fault for letting things get to this point.*Sorry, but that is the fact of the matter.

If you stay on top of things, see BBA, work on the CO2.
The plants will stall and not grow as well first, long before BBA pops up.

So that's 2 things you should be able to catch ......before it gets bad.

Now most folks here, myself included, have allow things to get that bad and go so far it is a massive job. This is just reality, not some personal reflection. 

That's good, you need to realize the consequences of neglect. You also need to know what can be done to prevent it later. Sop you don't make the same mistake again and can help the next poor sap that comes along.

I had no web back when I dealt with BBA. 
No one knew, everyone said NO3's, PO4's excess etc etc, which was all crappy myths, speculation.........

I figured out how top prevent it in my tanks, but was very unsure about other folk's tanks and about the excess nutrients.

So several folks in our club decided to figure out how BBa responds to nutrients. Namely Steve. I went high with Traces/PO4, NO3, he went low on Traces/NO3, PO4.

Nothing had any effect. 
Tried Living water vital, tried barley straw, rot your own, pre rotted, extract, no of these did anything to BBA.

CO2?

Yep.

Now making sure you have good CO2 is also the circulation in your tank, how well things get mixed and spread around, surface movement etc, this allows you to turn the CO2 up without gassing dangers for your fish.

Many say they cannot add more since their fish are gasping in the AM.
So increase surface movement.
Next turn the gas off at night.

I've used the gas for 15 years, never lost a fish, although I have killed some shrimps.

Think about this stuff.
Think about your CO2.

Also, a dojo(Golden Dojos are nice) will gobble flourite and other gravel through their gills and this really hurts any BBA attached to gravel, cory cats etc can bother it also on gravel.
Many species of pleco will rasp wood and rock clean.
SAE's, young ones are good also.

So there you have most of the issues with BBA and how kill it and what to do to prevent it. 

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## banderbe (Oct 10, 2005)

be patient with Excel and give it at least a month of overdosing before you stop. The change is almost unnoticable and then one day you just sort of notice that your tank's algae is gone. It seemed rather sudden to me. It wiped out thread/hair/fuzz, bba, bga, and seems to at least slow the return of gsa.


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

Thanks for the continued comments.

My initial goal with this 'venture' it to focus on the CO2 levels. Following the standard 'wisdoms' of KH/PH chart and outgassing, I had always felt I was at the appropriate levels. But, clearly the plants have been telling me otherwise...I just don't speak "plant" too well yet !

The ratty leaves will definitely be going. I just wanted to leave them front and center to make observations a bit easier.

Status: when I got up the AM, the SMS was at 6.4 and the light was still blinking. So, I bumped the bps rate a bit. A half hour later, the pH was down to 6.3, so I tried to slightly nudge the SMS knob up until the CO2 stopped. Hopefully, I'll now be in that 6.3-6.4 pH range.

Oh, and I did notice some add'l pearling last night. So, things seems to be heading in the right direction.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

banderbe said:


> be patient with Excel and give it at least a month of overdosing before you stop. The change is almost unnoticable and then one day you just sort of notice that your tank's algae is gone. It seemed rather sudden to me. It wiped out thread/hair/fuzz, bba, bga, and seems to at least slow the return of gsa.


Well, I can say the precise same thing about increasing CO2 also.
So is it the anti algae part of Excel or the CO2 supply from Excel or the gas tank?

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

BSS said:


> Thanks for the continued comments.
> 
> My initial goal with this 'venture' it to focus on the CO2 levels. Following the standard 'wisdoms' of KH/PH chart and outgassing, I had always felt I was at the appropriate levels. But, clearly the plants have been telling me otherwise...I just don't speak "plant" too well yet !
> 
> ...


When you add more CO2 at a steady rate, rather than using a pH controller, you do get a better feel for the effect of adding more CO2.

My advice is to really watch the plant's health and growth with CO2, you think you might be adding enough but plants grow very agressively like in the ADA photo's and other nice tanks when you have added enough.

So look for that type of new growth.
The actual CO2 ppm pH/KH etc etc is relative to the plants.
You might find the CO2 ppm at odds with relative plant effect.

Some claim 200ppm of CO2 based on the chart and pH/KH, and they have fish......there is no reason to doubt their test kits, they calibrated them etc.

Add more CO2 slowly, watch the plants, fish etc.
Add just enough to max out the plant growth.

BBA will not come back. If you see BBA later, note if the plant growth slowed down, stunted smaller new growth etc and then go after the BBA(trim/remove/Scrub wood/rock etc), add a bit more CO2.

Then it's very easy to handle. Mild cases can be kept in check with SAE's, but without them is a better way to test for the CO2/BBA effect as are simply looking at plant growth(SAE's do not influence plant health/growth, they due attack algae though).

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## Alight (Dec 10, 2005)

OK, just one word of warning about increasing CO2 slowly. Fish can adapt to quite high levels of CO2 if it is increased slowly. Your CO2 can be quite high (well above 30 ppm) and your fish can be quite happy if the increase is slow. The only problem will come if you add a fish from another tank that does not have high CO2 in it. In this case, if your CO2 is very high (50-200 ppm) the newly added fish can be quite distressed, gasp at the surface, and some can die.

I had this experience recently when I moved an adult Discus back to my planted tank after it had been in a breeding tank for a few months. It looked almost dead for a while, gasping at the surface. I turned off the CO2, upped the aeration, and the fish recovered in about 3 hours. Since the, I've turned the CO2 down a bit from the level it was at, and everthing still looks fine--still good pearling and algae under control.


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

Got the SMS controller set between 6.3 and 6.4 now (with KH still ~8). Stopped the Excel dosing last weekend, and the BBA seems to be receding quickly...with no obvious new growth. In addition, new growth on several plants are looking nicer. Finally seeing some of that pink tint on my B. japonica, and the internode length is tighter and the leaves are longer on my broadleaf stellata.

Pearling has increased, but is still fairly moderate, IMO. The riccia is now pearling, but not until quite late in the lighting period. So, should I dial down the SMS setting a notch more...for increased pearling and possibly better plant growth? Or should I leave well enough alone?

Would love to hear comments for and against! Thanks,
Brian.


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

Alight said:


> OK, just one word of warning about increasing CO2 slowly...


Good feedback. I'll keep that in mind!


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

May I suggest that you take a water sample from the tank, let it sit in the open for 24 hours, measure its pH. Then set your controller to a pH 1.0 lower than that. If you are lucky that might get the CO2 ppm up somewhere in the vicinity of where you want it. If that still doesn't give you the results you want, then you can start adjusting the controller setting down a bit lower every couple of days or so. It would help if the bubble rate were high enough so that the controller were shutting off the CO2 an hour or so after it comes on with the lights.


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

Hoppy said:


> May I suggest that you take a water sample from the tank, let it sit in the open for 24 hours, measure its pH.


Certainly worth trying again, but last time I did it, my outgassed pH was 7.8, so I was at about a 1.2-1.3 pH drop when I was getting the recurrent BBA.



> It would help if the bubble rate were high enough so that the controller were shutting off the CO2 an hour or so after it comes on with the lights.


I guess I've been reluctant to do this because I was afraid of something going wrong (e.g. stuck solenoid) and having way too much CO2 blast into the tank. I was trying to hit that sweet spot between a 7x24 setup versus the use of an SMS controller. I do tend to notice my CO2 on fairly frequently though and have been slowly opening the needle valve a bit more. I'll look at giving it another nudge.

Thanks for the suggestions, Hop!


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Alight said:


> OK, just one word of warning about increasing CO2 slowly. Fish can adapt to quite high levels of CO2 if it is increased slowly. Your CO2 can be quite high (well above 30 ppm) and your fish can be quite happy if the increase is slow. The only problem will come if you add a fish from another tank that does not have high CO2 in it. In this case, if your CO2 is very high (50-200 ppm) the newly added fish can be quite distressed, gasp at the surface, and some can die.
> 
> I had this experience recently when I moved an adult Discus back to my planted tank after it had been in a breeding tank for a few months. It looked almost dead for a while, gasping at the surface. I turned off the CO2, upped the aeration, and the fish recovered in about 3 hours. Since the, I've turned the CO2 down a bit from the level it was at, and everthing still looks fine--still good pearling and algae under control.



This is often due to low O2 levels.
Folks that say high CO2 causes their discus to turn dark are full of beans.
Discus turn dark for a number of reasons. 

I've seen this occur a dozen times where I come over because they have BBA, they say they cannot add more CO2, hurts their fish/dark etc.

I have them change the surface movement from the filters, then add a tad more CO2, suddenly plants grow well, fish color up adn come up of hiding and we add another 10ppm or more extrra CO2 than those same levels that caused them to turn dark as they claimed.

Clearly it's not the CO2 directly/exclusively, it's also the O2 and mixing.
Perhaps the CO2 being stable at a high level rather than building up too much, the surface movement allows for some off gassing.

The darker colors seem to be much more a function of low O2.
So to test this idea, I used pure O2 gas and loaned them my O2 gas tank.
The dark color went away with good O2.

I add CO2 only during the day and add a fair amount, I
never use a pH controller. They cause as many issues as they solve if not more.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

Status: I think I've stopped the BBA from recurring! Here's some of the steps/results...

1 - SMS is now set at 6.2-6.3.
2 - Did about 2+ weeks of full tank Excel treatment. It actually worked better for me this time (former acid likely threw it off)
3 - Just did another outgassing, this time measuring resultant water with SMS contoller. This time the water came in around 7.4 (though my KH~9). Last time, I think I tested with a kit and likely left the water sample on top of my lights...so likely some heat effect.
4 - New growth is so much better, that I now know what healthier grow looks like :icon_redf , and I'm having to do a bit of a rescape  .

I did think about notching the CO2 down a bit more...and maybe I will later. But for now, I'm pretty psyched about the better growth and the lack of BBA (and it's affects on much of my nana growth).

So, I think that draws this thread to a close...unless I find something else to report.

Thanks for comments, suggestions and encouragements, all!
Brian.


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