# cleaning bba off fluorite and driftwood



## alan j t (Feb 13, 2008)

for the substrate i would do a blackout with excel.
same with the wood or pull it ,dry and then scrub it.


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## GlassCat594 (Mar 20, 2009)

Sounds like you are break down your tank and starting over, If you are not trying to save any good bateria from your gravel you can use a little bleach and water and it will be as good as new.


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## Arakkis (Dec 7, 2007)

5% bleach soak should remove it


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## aschaal03 (Feb 2, 2009)

Siamese Algae Eaters will remove it, too. 

Just had a massive outbreak of BBA on my fluorite and driftwood. It looked like they had grown fur. Got 4 SAE and there is no more BBA in sight. They've been in there for almost 2 weeks.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

I had great success removing BBA from "driftwood", actually African bog wood, by pressure washing it after soaking it with bleach water to kill it. It was hard to keep from blasting the wood clear off of my deck, but I found if I only directed the spray directly down on it, it worked very well. Killing BBA is easy, but removing even dead BBA isn't.

I have no good idea how to remove it from Flourite.


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## paulrw (Apr 14, 2009)

thanks for all the great ideas everybody. alan j t ; i ordered a bottle of excel today, last resort before i break it down. glasscat and arakkis; how much should i rinse after the bleach soak? do i have to worry about the driftwood and fluorite absorbing bleach or is a 5% solution mild enough were i shouldn't worry. ashcaal03; i got 2 sae's i lost 1 to a horrible diy co2 diffuser accident the other one could care less about the bba lol just my luck. hoppy;i never thought of pressure washing the drift wood but i can see it now me chasing a log around my back yard with a pressure washer cursing up a storm haha! but willing to give it a try after spending 2 hours in my bath tub scrubbing it with a electric tooth brush until i thought i got it all! 2 days in the tank and it looked like the bba was on steroids and took the whole thing over now i have what looks like green bba? but i digress. thanks for the great tips everyone!


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## cah925 (May 18, 2007)

I ordered 3 red neon gobies for my 125 gal from Inverts Factory. They have cleared the vast majority of the BBA and BGA in less than 2 weeks. Here's a link to the thread.


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## GlassCat594 (Mar 20, 2009)

If you go with the 5% bleach solution, you can rinse the items as much as you feel is 'enough', Until there is No smell or anything. 

Just make sure to use extre chlorine/chloramine remover when you do one final Soak/Rinse before it goes in the tank.


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## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

Hoppy said:


> Killing BBA is easy, but removing even dead BBA isn't.


white ex BBA i sure hard to remove even with toothbrush. i'm pretty sure starved SAE will eat those.


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## paulrw (Apr 14, 2009)

holy crap! sorry i have been offline for a while i got my bottle of excel about 6 days ago and started triple dosing within 3 days i noticed the bba turning red and in a few more days it seamed to be disappearing! not sure if its permanent but it i like the looks so far my fish act wacky for about 10 min after dosing but return to normal? after. anyone want to chime in on this my fish kind of act high? but so far so good thanks everybody!


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## dj2005 (Apr 23, 2009)

paulrw said:


> holy crap! sorry i have been offline for a while i got my bottle of excel about 6 days ago and started triple dosing within 3 days i noticed the bba turning red and in a few more days it seamed to be disappearing! not sure if its permanent but it i like the looks so far my fish act wacky for about 10 min after dosing but return to normal? after. anyone want to chime in on this my fish kind of act high? but so far so good thanks everybody!


If the fish are in the same tank then it is because of the overdose of excel.


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## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

hey, don't get to use that overdose thingy with excel. i know it's easy to solve with overdosing excel but you must fix your CO2 so that BBA won't come again.


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## paulrw (Apr 14, 2009)

ikuzo, i bought a crappy hydor regulator its the green nrg advanced i have it hooked to a 35lb tank i "stole" from work , I'm a chef and the club i work at still uses 35lb tanks i got everything for 60$. i have it diffusing into my canister filter my drop checker goes from bluish green to bright yellow in about 40min i have been gassing like this for months sometimes I'll let it run full blast for days i have a little surface agitation so my fish seemed fine i dose ferts sort of ei with out as much water changes i have good plant growth but i couldn't shake the bba. bye and bye it came in on a banana plant i got from lfs when i was a green noob i thought it looked cool duh! so my question is can you overdose the plants with co2 i hear people talking about dialing in their co2 is running co2 full blast bad for plants good for algae? should i lest en the surface agitation ? should i be doing bigger water changes? i do about 20% weekly. thanks again everyone for the great feed back!


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