# blue green algae AKA cyanobacteria



## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

this S$%% been pissing me off since i setup my new tank, it will not go away, doesn't matter what i dose. some sources says to dose more nitrate and some says its excess Nitrate and Phosphate that causes it. well in both cases blue green algae did not give up, it continue to thrive and taking over everything, i have tried reducing and increasing the nitrate and no results. last thing i can think of is phosphate which could be excess because this is only one month old ADA aqua soil setup and i think soil still might be releasing some nutrients to the water (mostly phosphate). 

am going to perform big water changes to see if that will help and this time not dose any Phosphate, normally i dose 1ppm Phosphate 3x week. 

i know for sure its not co2 related issue, am not newbie and i know what am doing. if you have suggestion please do share.


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## Sethjohnson30 (Jan 16, 2012)

How much flow do you have? A lack of
Flow will cause bga problems. 

Here's what I do 
1. Dose maracyn
2. Black out the tank while dosing the maracyn
3. Keep nitrates around 10-20 at all times. 
4.Make sure you have at Least 5x the flow rate of your tank sized(personally I have 10x but that is not an option for everyone) so if you
Have a 10g tank you want 50gallons per an hour(unless your me then you have 100gph) 
5. At the end of this do a large wc an clean out your filter.

If you follow these steps I guarantee your bga will go away. It always works for me.


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

I had a little bit of BGA after I filled up my DSM. After I started my EI regimen, the nitrates alone made it disappear. I didn't have to dose erythromycin or do a blackout.


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

Sethjohnson30 said:


> How much flow do you have? A lack of
> Flow will cause bga problems.
> 
> Here's what I do
> ...



maracyn use to work, but it doesnt work for me anymore, black out doesn't work either. flow is good IMO, 10times the flow. like i said keeping the nitrate high doesn't work either. i was dosing EI and my own fert, in both cases cynobacteria is still there. i will try to increase the flow further, but i don't think its going to help either.


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## chunkychun (Apr 6, 2012)

yeah i tried changing parameters and all and just gave up and dosed erythomycin and it cleared up and hasn't come back!

oops too slow in my reply...


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## AlyeskaGirl (Oct 6, 2011)

Common causes I've heard of are:

*High organics. 
*Poor Water Circulation
*Old Light tubes
*Inadequate fertilization, which could be due to the new substrate like you said. 

How to remove or suggestions:

*3-5 day blackout
*Fast growing stem plants to outcompete for nutrients
*maintain proper nutrients; which you do
*Excel or Hydrogen Peroxcide spot treatment, wait 30 minutes and remove bacteria
*Erythromycin or Maracyn as the last resort

Since you tried all that, I'm so sorry.


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## Sethjohnson30 (Jan 16, 2012)

If none of that works I would say bleach.....time to tear down and restart, sounds like a super strong strand of bga


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

Sethjohnson30 said:


> If none of that works I would say bleach.....time to tear down and restart, sounds like a super strong strand of bga


not an option, done this in the past and cyno will still come back.


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

at this point, turn off filter. spray it will h202. 1ml per gallon of tank volume
let sit for 5-10 minutes


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## frogmanjared (Feb 21, 2008)

When I had an issue, more flow, manual removal, and extra K made it finally kick the bucket.


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

Have you tried cutting out the urea?


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

BruceF said:


> Have you tried cutting out the urea?


not related to Urea IMO, otherwise all the tpn, sechem dossers should have cyno in their tanks. like i said cyno is still there doesn't matter if i dose urea or EI dosing.


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

HD Blazingwolf said:


> at this point, turn off filter. spray it will h202. 1ml per gallon of tank volume
> let sit for 5-10 minutes


i have done this in the past, but its an temporally solution, it will kill it but it will return again within days. plus this method also killed some plants when i tried it, unless i did something wrong when dosing the H2O2.


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

don't dose the tank, spray the cyano

shoudn't kill any plants.. there are a few sensitive plants that it can hurt some leaves but wont kill the whole plant

cyano is 99.9% of the time related to oxygen levels. i think ur pretty good about having decent agitation so i won't guess that but it is an anaerobic bacteria. doesn't do well with much oxygen


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

HD Blazingwolf said:


> don't dose the tank, spray the cyano
> 
> shoudn't kill any plants.. there are a few sensitive plants that it can hurt some leaves but wont kill the whole plant
> 
> cyano is 99.9% of the time related to oxygen levels. i think ur pretty good about having decent agitation so i won't guess that but it is an anaerobic bacteria. doesn't do well with much oxygen


ok i guess i will try the H2O2.

maybe add an air stone when lights goes out. i do dose allot of co2 during the day, everything pearls within couple of minutes including the cyno.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Where, specifically is the BGA? Crowns of the vegetative cones, apical meristems? Or on the sediment, below the gravel line or?

I have BGA below the gravel line closest to the window in many tank,s but it's well behaved and stays there. I scrape it every so often, maybe once a month, but it does not pester me, nor has for years.

So it's there, but does not pose any bloom issues.

You might deep gravel vac say 20% of the sediment each 3-4 days and replant the stems etc back after. This will clean the tank up nicely, and give you a chance to clean the filter, add purigen etc or whatever else you'd like to try.

If EM is not able to handle it post recovery/post treatment, then clean the tank good and dose well, check CO2 again. Black out works for getting rid of what is there, but only if the root issue is addresses while you do the blackout.

It's annoying, but is the easiest pest to get rid of and keep away.
Not that helps you any here

A good cleaning of the sediment and filter, trim, preening etc, every few months, maybe once 6-12 month cycles, not a bad idea. I do this with the ADA soils, I remove the dust/fines and leave the larger grains with the gravel vac.

O2 is easily able to move through the sediment and plant roots have access to it, if the plants are not piping enough down into the sediment(so the CO2 thing plays a role there likely also since good CO2 drives plant growth much more than any nutrient and more growth= more O2 to the sediment)

I do not think dosing is the issue nor urea. As long as the NO3 is say 5-10ppm or more, you should be fine.


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

plantbrain said:


> Where, specifically is the BGA? Crowns of the vegetative cones, apical meristems? Or on the sediment, below the gravel line or?
> 
> I have BGA below the gravel line closest to the window in many tank,s but it's well behaved and stays there. I scrape it every so often, maybe once a month, but it does not pester me, nor has for years.
> 
> ...



looks like i got work to do for this weekend. thanks Tom
i was dosing 1/2tsp of KNO3 3x week on this 48g tank, so i don't think increasing the nitrate really fixed anything here. even with my Fert i was adding 1ppm of Urea and 2.5ppm of Nitrate everyday, this did not help either. the point is, it seems to thrive in both cases, low or high nitrate.

its is everywhere now, on Crowns of the vegetative cones, apical meristems and the sediment, but it started on sediment first.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Yes, this has nothing to do with KNO3 dosing as suspected.

Once established, like many algae/cyano's, it's tough to get rid of, high or low nutrients, but that bloom signal.... sure makes a mess. The signal could be multiple things.

As is often the case for gardeners and aquatic gardeners, it all comes back to the basics and elbow grease, getting in there, cleaning everything to the bone and redoing stuff.
I don't really mind that, but if the algae comes right back, then......you can go nuts quick.

Remove any and all leaves, wipe glass, spot clean or kill any algae outbreaks asap, clean filters often, add lots of shrimp and algae eaters, feed fish well(urea sort of does the same thing), good O2, current and CO2, light adjustment, purigen, etc.
Stay on top of it.

Sure, we have tanks or know someone who does very little to their tanks and it seems to work really well........but those are the exceptions. And they work generally for the same reasons, the light is less than they think etc...often easier species are chosen, etc.
Yep, you got some cleaning to do. Tank will look better and it'll give you a chance to redo things that may have been pestering you.


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

erythromycin should be here tomorrow, its a 250mg 30 of them, so how do i dose the correct amount before i waste it? its going to be treating 48g ADA 90p tank. please suggest how the treatment should be and how much erythromycin should i dose. thanks


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

anyone??


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## wkndracer (Mar 14, 2009)

when I used it I did the recommended dose for treating fish the first day and 1/2 dosed after that for 5 more days.


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## herns (May 6, 2008)

happi said:


> please suggest how the treatment should be and how much erythromycin should i dose. thanks


 
It should have on the package.

Erythromycin/ Maracyn is a potent med to cure BGA. Ive been using that few times in the past and it always have good result.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

EM should kill any BGA. It does not prevent returning BGA, but it will kill everything that is there. 

I treat for 3 days, I doubt you need to treat beyond that.

Big water change before, dose KNO3 and then a big water change 4-5 days later after treatment and more KNO3.

Anything 10ppm or over is fine for NO3 for the dosing KNO3.


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

plantbrain said:


> EM should kill any BGA. It does not prevent returning BGA, but it will kill everything that is there.
> 
> I treat for 3 days, I doubt you need to treat beyond that.
> 
> ...



Tom didn't you agree with me that in low or high nitrate it can still come back. so i don't know why do i need to keep that nitrate at those levels?


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

happi said:


> Tom didn't you agree with me that in low or high nitrate it can still come back. so i don't know why do i need to keep that nitrate at those levels?


Yes, but the 10 ppm threshold seems to prevent reoccurrence more so than not. Particularly with the BO method and with EM to a lesser extent.
Still, it's a general protocol I've used for folks with BGA issues, it works.


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

am on 3rd day of treating it and haven't seen any difference yet, what are the signs to look for? beside it floating up toward the surface, which hasn't happened yet either.


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## Borikuan (Jun 4, 2012)

Im battling a BGA outbreak miself. Will this med kill my bio filter?


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

Borikuan said:


> Im battling a BGA outbreak miself. Will this med kill my bio filter?


so far i have heard that it does not harm the bio filter, but you are still likely to get ammonia spike, nitrate spike as the Cyno break down from the med.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Are you certain it's EM you are adding? BGA should be dead by the 3rd day, even the black out method kills BGA by the 3rd day.


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Jun 15, 2008)

happi said:


> am on 3rd day of treating it and haven't seen any difference yet, what are the signs to look for? beside it floating up toward the surface, which hasn't happened yet either.


Hi happi,

A couple of years ago I dealt with BGA / Cyanobacteria on several occasions. The first time it responded well to EM treatment however the next outbreak the EM had minimal affect and it came back almost immediately after the treatment ended. Apparently there are several species/strains of cyanobacteria, some of which may be show resistance to antibiotics.

Eventually I got rid of it by removing as much as possible manually, spot dosing with H2O2 for about a week, and being more conscientious about keeping my NO3 levels up.


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## happi (Dec 18, 2009)

i just realize that it might be GDA,looks similar to cyno in my tank. this is not my pic but this is what exactly happening in my tank. 

http://www.aquascapingworld.com/threads/what-algae-is-this-how-to-fix-it.1541/


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## discuspaul (Jul 27, 2010)

If it is in fact green dust algae, i.e. it's mostly on the glass of the tank and is easily wiped off - then a UV sterilizer will deal with all of it that you can get free-floating into the water column. I got rid of it by wiping it off daily for several days in a row, so that the bulk of it was into the water and the UV could pick it up & zap it. 
You still have to remedy the problem long term by determining the root causes & dealing with that, but the UV will kill off all the free-floating material it can take in via it's in-take filtering process.


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## Capsaicin_MFK (Nov 15, 2009)

I had no fish in my 10g and I had a bad infestation of BGA from a botched DSM, so I triple dosed EM with no affect to the BGA. I tried a 4 day blackout and it didn't work either. The only thing that worked was spot treating with H2o2. If oxidizing is an issue, you could always try Potassium permanganate.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

happi said:


> i just realize that it might be GDA,looks similar to cyno in my tank. this is not my pic but this is what exactly happening in my tank.
> 
> http://www.aquascapingworld.com/threads/what-algae-is-this-how-to-fix-it.1541/


Then EM will not work.
I had several folks try EM on GDA at Sewingsalot' report that it worked.
It did nothing for several aquariums with it when those folks tried it.

GDA is an oddity.

Lowering light, so called brown outs does effect it.
I tend to not like those and try other approaches 1st. Blackout for 3 days only works on BGA, Green algae might grow slower, but when you increase light back up, just like the plants, they take off again. Algaefix seems to have killed some folk's cases, but others report it had little effect.

If you lack a real dense amount of plant biomass and have a lot of light, this also seems to be asking for GDA ISSUES. Some folks go months with it. I suppose I've been very lucky as all the cases I had lasted only a 3-4 weeks.
But it made testing it problematic, and inoculation seems impossible in a well run tank near as I can tell.

If it's GDA, then you'll need a different approach for sure, BGA, easy to get rid, folks have spent months with GDA.

H2O2 etc will do nothing to GDA.


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