# bba algae



## tom g (Jan 2, 2010)

hey there i was at a local fish store today and i was talking to the store owner and i questioned her about having gold fish in some of her tanks and she told me 
that she puts them in there cause they are the only ones who will eat bba algae that she has in her tanks has anyone ever had any experience with this 
is this a true fact is it worth doing it , any ideas on it let me know cause i had simease algae eaters but i was not impressed on how aggressive they got in my fish tank let me know would appreciate it 
thanks 
tom


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## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, maintaining close to ideal conditions is how you keep BBA away.
Nothing else will work.

If you are not injecting C02 into your tank and you have BBA, you have to much light getting into the tank by either natural/sunlight and/or artificial light.


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## tom g (Jan 2, 2010)

*bba*

I know that's how it started as I had too much lightin 
Now I pretty much leave lighting on for approc 
5 hours I had co2 running at approx 3 bps
But just recently had a malfunction with
My regulator so currently no c02 at this time
I have been dosing with flourish once a week 
Any ideas 
Cheers 
Tom


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## they call me bruce (Feb 13, 2011)

I was never one for beleiving that to much light causes BBA when I had it my light was on for 10 hours a day I never changed it only raised it up to 8 inches off the water
I just love to watch the tank and didnt want to limit my self
Sudden changes of any of your chemistry will cause it to pop up.
You diffenetly need to get the co2 cooking and defuse it closer to the bottom of the tank
try it below your filter outlet. Get some fast growing plants like wisteria to compete for the nutrients and make small changes over a long period--be paitent it will go away Bruce


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## tom g (Jan 2, 2010)

hey there i just did a manual scrape of most of the bba i could get at while doing a water change i used th ecredit card method to scrape the green algae off the 
walls of the glass worked friggin awsome i think better than the pads and no scratches to boot . when i had the water level down i treated the bba with some hydrogen peroxide like i have read in some post the algae went kind of red 
just waiting to see if the fish will clean up the algae . i want to try to get rid of this cause its making my tank look icky , any ideas on how often i should do a water change on a 55 gal should i bump it up to twice a week or is once a week 
fair and how much should i do i usually do 30% but i did a big one prob 40-50%
sorry for all the questions 
and i still do not have my c02 reg 
cheers 
tom


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

once a week is good, technically less is better unless you are controlling a nuissance like algae. i dont dose EI or PMDD. i've found what my system likes and stick too it, but it is a limiting formula. if my plants get too crowded and i dont trim i will start growing algae. that being said while my tank is balanced i've stopped changing my water based off something another member tried out(due to high silicate) and my bacteria handles everything combined with the plants. a standard suggestion is once a week though 25-30%


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## Higher Thinking (Mar 16, 2011)

Were you accurate in acquiring a SAE verse a Flying Fox. Note that the FF has an obvious gold band above the black stripe and usually has slight coloring of the fins. The SAE will have no fin coloring and no additional strip above the black one. Although every individual is different, SAEs as a species are characterized by non aggressive behavior, adequate algae eating abilities, and almost always do well in community tanks, albeit they can get large. The FF on the other hand is very much known to grow out of eating algae and into aggressive behavior.


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## tom g (Jan 2, 2010)

*bba*

hey there , well today i tried the hydrogen peroxide i did a massive water change , i shut my filters off but when i finished dosing the bba with hydrogen peroxide i think i over dosed the tank cause i chkd my tank after i filled it back up and i lost three of my bushynose plecos and one of my clown loaches , now the loach i am sure i may have hurt when i sprayed the hydrogen peroxide on the driftwood that hey burrow in to but now sure about the plecos maybe they were hiding in the wood as well , well that bloody sucks i did have the filters off for almost about an hour as i did a massive cleaning and tidyin up things that i have been putting off for weeks any ideas gang did i over do it with the peroxide 
bummers 
tom


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## ChadKruger (Mar 27, 2013)

I'm not even close to an expert in algae control but hydrogen peroxide seems excessively hash to the tank environment and fish. I would want to say find what's out of balance and fix that. Plants heal as regrow and fish don't care about algae so much. Like I said I'm new to planted tanks so don't take me for gospel but I've had fish tanks for years and years and algea issue I've had previously ive cured by lowering feedings changing water or lowering light intensity. Plants add a new dynamic I'm just learning but can't be to far off.


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## jester56 (Oct 28, 2012)

tom g said:


> hey there , well today i tried the hydrogen peroxide i did a massive water change , i shut my filters off but when i finished dosing the bba with hydrogen peroxide i think i over dosed the tank cause i chkd my tank after i filled it back up and i lost three of my bushynose plecos and one of my clown loaches , now the loach i am sure i may have hurt when i sprayed the hydrogen peroxide on the driftwood that hey burrow in to but now sure about the plecos maybe they were hiding in the wood as well , well that bloody sucks i did have the filters off for almost about an hour as i did a massive cleaning and tidyin up things that i have been putting off for weeks any ideas gang did i over do it with the peroxide
> bummers
> tom


Check out Dark Cobra's thread on the "1-2 Punch" for algae. It says that water circulation is paramount when using H2O2. Take the media out of the filters and run it while dosing the peroxide. Leave power heads on. The revised dose is 2 tbsp per 10 gal of water, not including substrate. But read it if you're interested. Theres more details. I did the treatment yesterday and it took out most of the BBA. Might have to re-treat. All my fauna did fine and the only plant that got stupid was one of my Crypts. But then they only look for an excuse to melt. Good luck!


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