# BBA attacking. Which plants are sensitive to Excel?



## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

I know vals are sensitive to it. You may want to consider pulling shrimp and fish too and that high of a dosage.

Have you consider a black out for a few days?


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

No, hadn't thought of a black out, but that may be my best option right now.

I have vals. And almost 40 Amanos in the tank. Pulling them out isn't a very good option.

Right now, I'm willing to sacrafice any plant necessary to stop the BBA before it has a chance to take over my tank. ALL of the anubias is out. If it dies, so be it. There are some leaves floating around that I need to remove so I'll try to get all of that cleaned out, as well. Even though it's not water change day, I may do one anyway.

I think I'll do a blackout once the hornwort is in and I know it's not going to turn into mush and pollute the entire tank.

How many days should I do the blackout? How do I dose ferts during that time? Is it okay to open the blackout just long enough for ferts and fish feeding?


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

He pulled the plants and is going to treat in separate 5g tanks. 

I'd just spray with hydrogen peroxide out of water, wait 1 minute, and then rinse. Works for me. Fissidens dies in that spot, but not a show stopper. 

You need to up your CO2.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Ninja'd. 3 day blackout. No need for ferts during that period. Fish will be just fine without food. Or just throw the food in, but don't turn on the light.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

I need to feed the fish or the torpedo barbs get snappy. Ditto with the Pelvicachromis. But I can do it very fast. Just dump it in, let the current push it around.

Do I do excel or H2O2 AND the blackout? I'm hoping like hell I'm getting this fast enough to stop it. If a blackout is potentially good for a complete kill out, I'd like to try that first.

How far do I up the CO2? I just installed the controller and am scared of getting it so high that it starts killing my fish at night. I know they're safe where it's set right now.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Also, what other plants are highly prone to catching BBA? It looks like all the other plants are safe, but it could be hiding where I can't see it yet. If there are any other plants known for getting BBA, I'd like to do a very close inspection of them before I begin the blackout. I can yank any plant I need.

I do have some kind of white growth on my recently introduced flame moss. The moss is doing well, but the base where it's died down looks like a white version of BBA. Is that possible?


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## jjp2 (May 24, 2008)

I know that anarcharis is sensitive to Excel. I suspect its because its more of a weed than a plant. 

I know that Anubias can tolerate a lot, no suprise. I've triple dosed Excel in an Anubias tank 3-4 days in a row to kill hair and bba before.


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## FrostyNYC (Nov 5, 2007)

BBA turns pink, grey, and white when it dies. It's possible theres dead BBA there.

I'd do a 3 day blackout, as previously suggested. You won't need ferts during that time, since the plants won't be actively photosynthesizing nor growing. You should have residual ferts in your water color anyway that would carry the plants over the 3 days in darkness.

If this is a severe BBA breakout, I'd do the excel, H202 and the blackout. H202 breaks down into H20 and 02 rapidly anyway, so that won't be in your tank for long. I'd spot treat the BBA with that. You can spot treat with the excel as well when you apply it. I'd turn off my filter when spot treating, to keep the algae in contact with the excel/H202 as long as possible. Light also breaks down H202, I should point out, so keeping the lights out benefits there as well. Of course, you don't want to stress all your plants to the point that you kill them.

Plants sensitive to excel tend to be plants without an emersed form. So plants like valisneria an anarcharis suffer from it. 

Regarding plants that tend to "catch" BBA, I'd say it's usually plants that grow very slowly. It would be rare to have BBA on a plant that's growing an inch a day. Mosses, in my experience, get covered in BBA fairly rapidly, and are very difficult to clean. Mosses are also sensitive to H202, I should add, in case you have any in your tank.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Okay, I knew about anacharis. I've intentionally stayed away from it for that reason. If the Fissidens fontanus does have BBA, then I'll nuke it. I have some left over that I can grow out if I need to.

The flame moss never did have any kind of black algae on it. The "growth" started out white. Seems odd to me. I'll try to get a picture of it later today.

The other slow growing plants in the tank are various types of Java Fern. I'll do an inspection on them to see if I can find any BBA on them.

What does BBA look like when it's first attached to a plant, but hasn't grown fuzzy yet? I had a couple of crypt leaves that had something dark on them. I cut them off, tried to wash off the black (in order to determine what kind of algae it is), and it wouldn't wash off. But it wasn't fuzzy either. And the black patches weren't along the edges as much as the middle of the leaf.

I have another plant which I think is Hygrophila corymbosa. It has the same black smudgy stuff on a couple of its leaves, as well. But it's in the middle of the leaves, not the edges.

I'm not at my apartment right now so I can't take any pictures. I'm at my house waiting for the hornwort to be delivered. Then I'll go back to the apartment to do a water change, add the hornwort, and then set up the blackout. So if anyone needs any pictures, I can get them at that time.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

FrostyNYC said:


> If this is a severe BBA breakout...


I should clarify that it's not a sever BBA breakout. That's what I'm working to avoid. The BBA had begun to grow back along the edges of some of the anubias leaves and was spreading to attack some of the other anubias in the tank. That's why I pulled all of the anubias out. Besides, the anubias was melting for some reason so it needed to be removed anyway.

Otherwise, I don't see any BBA. But that's no guarantee it's not there. I'll do a close inspection on the Java Ferns to see if it's starting to grow around the base of the plants. This is why I'm asking what plants to check the closest so I will know which ones to thoroughly scrutinize.


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## mott (Nov 23, 2006)

Every time I have BBA I do the H202 spot treating and it works GREAT!

What I do is turn my filters off for one half hour, spot treat while letting sit for 15 minutes or so then I do a massive waterchange and turn the filters back on after the WC.

This method has worked for me better than anything I have tried.
Give it a shot before the blackout, I bet it will work for you too.
Ps. don't worry about od'ing with the Hydro if you are going to do a WC after spot treating.
Good luck.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

I have checked thoroughly, and I am getting the first beginning of BBA in the Java Fern. Mostly on the roots of plantlets, but from there, it's getting on the actual leaves. I'm talking about a little tuft here and there. Nothing bad... YET.

I confirmed that the Fissidens fontanus is riddled with BBA. And I'm pretty sure the flame moss has BBA even though the color is off. It has the exact shape and character so it has to be BBA. Damn.

Overall, I'm in good shape, but if I don't catch this now, it's going to explode all over my tank.

I'm going to clean my Rena XP4 in a few minutes. I usually don't do water changes and filter cleaning on the same day, but the Rena needs to be cleaned. I can see trash on the sides of the baskets inside the filter. 

My hornwort came in. It's in good shape. I'll be adding that into the tank once I get it cleaned up.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

mott said:


> Every time I have BBA I do the H202 spot treating and it works GREAT!
> 
> What I do is turn my filters off for one half hour, spot treat while letting sit for 15 minutes or so then I do a massive waterchange and turn the filters back on after the WC.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately, I _just_ finished doing a 50% water change. So I can't do this idea right now. My poor fish are stressed enough with me making so many changes all the time so I don't want to do another water change back to back. 

I'm going to go ahead with the blackout since I'm going to be spending more time at my house the next few days anyway. I'll only be coming in to check on things.

After the blackout, I can spot treat any places I see that didn't die out.

What are the odds that the BBA in the Fissidens fontanus will be killed during the blackout? Should I cut it off and toss it? I don't want to, but if it's going to keep BBA alive in my tank, then it has to go. However, if it really can be saved, that would be great.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Change of plans! Since I found one of my fish with an ich spot, it would not be a good idea to do a 3 day blackout right now since I need to keep a very close eye on the other fish to see if this is just a minor outbreak that I caught early or if it's the first warning of a major breakout.

So... it looks like I'd be better off doing the H2O2 idea with water changes. The H2O2 can kill out at least a tiny bit of free swimming ich while the water changes can help reduce the ich population and maintain excellent water conditions for the fish.

If it looks like the BBA is starting to take over the Java Ferns, I'll yank them out and put them in my 10g H/T with my apisto. I'm not using any medicine for him so they'd be safe there where I can eventually do a full H2O2 treatment on them (once my apisto is moved).

Dang, it seems I'm doing a whole lot of shuffling around of stuff between tanks! Thank goodness I have so many empty 5g tanks running right now. They were all intended to be Q/T for new fish, but since I'm not wanting to add anything new, they work well for these other issues.

Let's see... I have an injured apisto, BBA and ich. I don't even want to think about what might happen next! :icon_eek:


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## @[email protected] (Oct 24, 2007)

i would get your CO2 to 25-30 ppm. i would also OD on excel and spot treat with excel and/or h2o2. after your ich is gone for good, i would get a SAE, as most of them will eat the stuff if you get them young (like 2" or less) and dont give them algae waffers and other food except once every few weeks for some protein. another thing that would help is manual removal (remove leaves of plants that have BBA, as long as the plant has enough healthy leaves).


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

I like that plan of action, Marko, thanks.

How can I tell what ppm of CO2 I'm injecting?


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Complexity said:


> How can I tell what ppm of CO2 I'm injecting?


Get a drop checker.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

I have one. It's one of the double-check drop checkers. The colors of the two liquids match perfectly.


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## captain_bu (Oct 20, 2007)

Complexity said:


> How can I tell what ppm of CO2 I'm injecting?


Unless you have a very expensive piece of test equipment you can only estimate the ppm. If you are using 4 dKH water in your drop checker a green color means you have between 25 and 40 ppm CO2.


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## @[email protected] (Oct 24, 2007)

this doesnt work for everyone, but it sure works for me:









chart is not mine, btw.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

That's the chart I used to figure out what pH to set on my controller.

My kH is 10. So I set the controller for pH 7.2. That should be the higher green color on the chart (19). Does this mean I'm adding 19ppm?

For some reason, I'm having a hard time getting the pH below 7.2. I've adjusted the knob on my controller, but the pH reading won't go down any further. I'm afraid to turn it too far because of the fish so I've been adjusting it down very slowly.

Since I now have to remove all of my fish (to H/Ts for ich), this gives me a chance to turn the knob on the pH controller much further to see if I can bring the pH down further. I think I may have hit a ceiling due to the amount of CO2 I'm letting out. So I may have to increase the number of bubbles in order to get the pH down further which will indicate a higher CO2 level.

I'll work to see if I can get the drop checker a green color.


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## DaveS (Mar 2, 2008)

If you plan on using the OD Excel or H2O2 treatments for the BBA, I would do that while the fish are out of the tank. Either method has the chance of killing more fish, especially the H2O2 treatment if you get too much in the tank. You can also spot treat with the recommended Excel dosage by using a syringe.

Dave


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Yes, all fish and inverts will be out of the tank before I begin overdosing with Excel or H2O2.


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## captain_bu (Oct 20, 2007)

Still don't recommend relying on the chart. Here are two quotes about why it is not usually accurate, the first from a post on the Barr Report. The second from a post of Tom's on these forums. 

"Second, the pH/KH relationship. The charts of ppm of CO2 vs pH and KH are good only if you know that nothing in your water affects the pH except the CO2, and nothing affects the KH except carbonates. Very rarely will our tank water meet those requirements. That means the table is worthless for measuring CO2 in a tank of typical aquarium water."


"Since we use the pH/KH relationship to determine the CO2, adding something that alters normal pH or KH will make the chart no longer valid.

You cannot weasel your way around by manipulating pH or KH.
A cup of water with a pH of 4 and a KH of say 1 vs a cup of water with a pH 8 and KH of 20 sitting out on a table for 2 days both have the extact same CO2 concentrations.

One might have some tannins(the pH of 4), but if you measure them against the chart, they will have much different CO2 levels.

The chart assumes that the effect on pH is due to solely CO2 gas additions and that the KH is entirely bicarbonate.

In the real world, that is often not the case.
Tannins and non bicarbonate alkalinity are often present.

This will skew the CO2 to a higher concentration than many assume they have and thereby add too little CO2 and that often results in algae."

As you already have noticed the pH controller can't be set to keep the pH lower if you aren't pumping in enough CO2. It is the gas that lowers the pH not the controller. The controller is only used to turn off the CO2 when the pH hits the level you have it set at and turn it on again if the pH starts to rise. I don't use a controller but if I did I would turn it off until I was adding enough CO2 to turn my drop checker a green to yellowish green color, monitor my fish and when I felt I had maximum safe CO2 saturation would test the pH and then use the results to set my controller. I am not sure that you can determine maximum safe CO2 levels for your tank if there are no fish in it but playing around with your bubble rate, drop checker color and controller to learn the relationship between the three would certainly be safer to do without livestock. Of course without livestock you can't be entirely certain that the levels won't be too high for the fish once you add them back since different species of fish are going to react differently to the same concentration of CO2. My cardinals for instance seem to be able to take a higher level than my pelvicachromis and my bristlenose ancistrus seems to be affected the most of anything in the tank.


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