# Black Brush Algae Breakout!



## Discofruit (Jul 13, 2009)

I've got a 26 gallon bowfront planted tank. In it I've got lots of driftwood, anubias, java moss, swords, lillys and a few miscellaneous species. For lighting, I've got a coralife fixture with an actinic bulb as well as a 10,000k daylight.
I use a small layer of laterite under 2 inches of gravel. I've got a nutrafin brand CO2 Natural Plant System.

And I've got a TON of black brush algae. It's on the glass, on the silicone, on the intake for the EHEIM filter, probably in the filter although I haven't checked. It's on the bubble ladder, the driftwood, it's on the flower pots I've got in there, the pumps, the heater, the gravel. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it started growing right on the fish!

So tonight I decided to try an H202 treatment. I set up a makeshift 10gal tank with all of my fish and my hornwart, because this I feared would either melt or rot in H202, and because it is a fast grower it isn't covered.
So my pearl gourami, my two kribensis, my common and bushynose plecos, my two SAEs, my three rummynose tetras, my two 'green stripe shark' rasboras and my bumble bee goby are all crammed in a tiny tank, along with a partridge, formerly the resident of a pear tree.

I put all the plants in a 5 gal bucket with clean water, and dumped in a bit of the peroxide. Let them sit for about 5 minutes and took em out. I put all ornaments, wood and mechanical bits that were covered in a bucket and I'm going to soak it overnight with the peroxide. I did a 100% water change, gravel vacuumed a little bit and put the tank to bed.

Tomorrow morning I hope to wake up, and find the BBA has turned pink on the plants and the ornaments. If this happened I would be elated! 

Once I get this under control with either the peroxide treatment or by using Flourish Excel, I'm going to buy four more SAEs and whatever else will eat BBA!

I hear some kinds of barbs to, but what about Amano shrimp? Cherry barbs? 


BBA is possibly the most obnoxious algae. I did not want to spend my day off from work on a full tank overhaul...:angryfire


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## sunfire99 (Apr 8, 2009)

In my experience it takes a day or two to see the BBA change color. Once it did, Oto's ate it readily. It sounds like you have a good approach, and I was worried about the affect of H202 on livestock as well, but did 3 day treatments of 1.5-2 mL per gallon to treat spyrogyra with no ill effects on fish or plants. For BBA, I just treat the affected areas with a baster and H202/Excel mixture which kills the BBA within a couple of days.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Address the root cause: Low CO2. 
Save the time and money from buying SAEs and get a proper injected CO2 system and/or reduce your photoperiod and/or raise your lighting fixture.


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## rhytemaker (May 29, 2008)

never underestimate the power of a good excel double dosing.


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## captain_bu (Oct 20, 2007)

macclellan said:


> Address the root cause: Low CO2.
> Save the time and money from buying SAEs and get a proper injected CO2 system and/or reduce your photoperiod and/or raise your lighting fixture.


x2..... I found SAEs to be useless at eating algae even when young... much better to spend time and effort balancing the needs of the tank. Excel does a great job of killing BBA when spot treated, from there concentrate on getting adequate CO2 into the tank and circulating it properly. Your nutrafin system is probably not going to be adequate though you didn't mention how many watts of light you have over the tank or what type of bulbs so it is hard to give advice.


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## Discofruit (Jul 13, 2009)

captain_bu said:


> x2..... I found SAEs to be useless at eating algae even when young... much better to spend time and effort balancing the needs of the tank. Excel does a great job of killing BBA when spot treated, from there concentrate on getting adequate CO2 into the tank and circulating it properly. Your nutrafin system is probably not going to be adequate though you didn't mention how many watts of light you have over the tank or what type of bulbs so it is hard to give advice.


I was thinking that the Nutrafin system was pretty inadequate, it doesn't seem to do much but I don't have enough cash right now for a new one. 
Anybody know some good DIY systems? If I could even just use an additional system to supplement the Nutrafin system, I think that would help.

The lighting is a Coralife 24" fixture with one actinic bulb and one daylight 10,000k. There are a few lunar light LEDs on it, it has fans... I'm trying to find it online to figure out the wattage but I'm not succeeding. The lighting is adequate, but the photo period too long? I have it so that the actinics are on for ten hours and the daylights are on for six, with a "dawn" and "dusk" at either end of the six hour period.

Meanwhile my livestock are all PO'd about being in such a small enclosure.. and with purple gravel too...


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## Discofruit (Jul 13, 2009)

So I did a second H202 treatment last night, dipping for about 15 seconds in a small bowl of concentrated solution. It took, and this afternoon I noticed some brilliant red color. 
It really would be a gorgeous algae if it was red, and didn't cover / smother everything.

We'll see how things work out tomorrow night.


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## comatoast (Mar 11, 2009)

I'm certainly no expert at this, and I've been having BBA and staghorn issues also. I run DIY CO2 off of one two liter bottle I change about every 15 days or so. I just wanted to tell you that most of the experienced folks here wouldn't use the actinic bulbs for a planted tank- my understanding is that they are mostly for reef tanks. You might want to only run the daylight (10000K) bulb. As for the algae, I've been spot treating with excel, which works alright, but my tank is small (16 gal.) and I haven't been brave enough to overdose (as many recommend), so I only have a small amount in my syringe to spot treat on a daily basis. I have a moss covered piece of driftwood which is eaten up with the stuff and I've only managed to turn a small portion of it red with excel. I may try the H2O2 dip on it this weekend. Good luck-

VP


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

What concentration h202 solution you using?

I've had success spot treating with an eyedropper like excel. 2mL per gallon spot treated with pumps off followed by a water change just in case.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

macclellan said:


> Address the root cause: Low CO2.
> Save the time and money from buying SAEs and get a proper injected CO2 system and/or reduce your photoperiod and/or raise your lighting fixture.


This is good advise. Although I don't think low co2 by itsellf necessarily causes BBA if you use a multi-prong approach like increasing co2 and decreasing light duration this is usually all you need.


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## Discofruit (Jul 13, 2009)

macclellan said:


> What concentration h202 solution you using?
> 
> I've had success spot treating with an eyedropper like excel. 2mL per gallon spot treated with pumps off followed by a water change just in case.


Well, let's see.
I poured a lot of H202...

...in to a little H20. 
Seemed to work out okay.
Probably somewhere around 1:10 ratio, H202:H20.
But I just did a concentrated dip that way for about 30 seconds/plant, didn't dose the whole tank. 

Comatoast: I never thought about turning out the actinics. I bought the fixture ten months ago and haven't replaced the bulbs yet, which could also be part of the issue. I'll look in to this further.

So I see that most of the BBA has turned red on the plants which, after a full tank scrub and water change, are floating in the water as we speak. Tomorrow is my day off, so I'm planning to spend the evening working on the tank, re-aquascaping and such. I'm going to treat all the driftwood, brush it down and soak it in the tub, get all the dead BBA off of it. 
Anyone tried bleach on driftwood? 
I'm also going to spend some quality time de-BBA-ing the rhizome on my anubias. Should be easier with dead algae than living algae.

I have not posted any pictures yet, but maybe after I fix it up tomorrow I'll be less embarrassed by it, and willing to show you guys. I'm also going to do a full chemical test panel, all that fun stuff.

Right now I've got time for my FW tanks cause my SW tank is on hold. :icon_mrgr


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## Discofruit (Jul 13, 2009)

Long evening...
I took all the plants out tonight, not that there are very many at the moment, and pulled off all of the BBA I could manage. I plucked the leaves that were too damaged to salvage and edited down the rhizome. 

I've got the surviving plant list here:
Anubias nana and barteri, amazon sword, a few misc plants, java moss and a misc. bulb I got last summer. It's leaves are pink, thin and somewhat arrow shaped. It grows, dies down, grows again. Also, hornwart for the guppy babies. Nothing beats self sustaining live food.

So anyway, all went well, until...

I did a test panel. The pH started at a neat 7, but the water was very soft. We're talking 40ppm or less. So I decided to add some buffer. But, that buffer was for african cichlids. Took my pH up to 9!!
I panicked, added some buffer down. Nothing.
I panicked more, added some Wardley's Bullseye 7.0. Still only down to 8.
I panicked again, and poured in some vinegar.
Then I walked away.

If all the trauma didn't nuke the system, I'd be surprised.

Either way, I'm going to check in the AM but I'd imagine that I'll wake to find the pH has leveled out around 8. I'm going to give this tank the week to cycle out, as I feel I've upset it way too much for now and the four year old bacteria colonies in the filter may be mad at me. 

All my fish are in quarantine, doing alright, but getting a little crowded for comfort IMO.


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## Discofruit (Jul 13, 2009)

So the pH is at a stable 7, and the beard algae is pink and almost gone. I caught my snails eating up the dead stuff this morning.

I'm going to be getting more plants to try to eat up more nutrients, I'm going to put together a DIY C02 system, and I'm going to get an apple snail or two.


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## Discofruit (Jul 13, 2009)

The water went cloudy after everything, but all the parameters were good.
I'm running carbon in a HOB filter for now and it's clearing up.


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## [email protected] (Jul 17, 2008)

Carbon and your photo period are giving you problems. 
Cut the photo period to eight hours when you'll be looking at the tank. The lights on mine don't come on until noon. 

There are cheaper alternatives to Excel. Use the search feature. One is a medical cleaner that runs about $13.00 a gallon. 

For DIY CO2, consider three two liter bottles in series. Swap out the oldest one each week. Good luck. 

For DIY


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## fibertech (Apr 29, 2009)

[email protected] said:


> Carbon and your photo period are giving you problems.
> Cut the photo period to eight hours when you'll be looking at the tank. The lights on mine don't come on until noon.
> 
> There are cheaper alternatives to Excel. Use the search feature. One is a medical cleaner that runs about $13.00 a gallon.
> ...


Not to hijack the thread but thanks for the info. I think I will try the MetriCide 28 when I get low on the Excel that I have :thumbsup:


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## Mr. Fisher (Mar 24, 2009)

increase C02


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