What are the reason to invite BBA?

Originally Posted by aquascaping1982

Hmmm I also a member of AQ & I read that link before but correct me if I am wrong, excess nutrients does not cause algae to boom right? As for the lushgro-aqua I might not dose it & will see the differences

You're right. Excess doesn't cause algae. But if you don't do WC (as advocated by the articles) and you bring in too much, it can cause problems. Fauna are stressed by pretty extreme ppms of the nutrients and though it might not happen overnight, without WC it may post a problem. E.I and normal methods uses WC to "reset" the parameters so they don't have this problem.

Anyway, if its really in excess, all you are doing is wasting it, right? Let the fish play the bigger role here and you sit back and relax.

Oh, personally I will trade the Lilaeopsis brasilienis for E. Tennellus. They work better (and much easier) in your type of tank and they spread in good pace to help in increasing your plant mass.

-Calvin

Originally Posted by the_r0ck

You're right. Excess doesn't cause algae. But if you don't do WC (as advocated by the articles) and you bring in too much, it can cause problems. Fauna are stressed by pretty extreme ppms of the nutrients and though it might not happen overnight, without WC it may post a problem. E.I and normal methods uses WC to "reset" the parameters so they don't have this problem.

-Calvin

So to conlude, for a low-tech tank does that mean I should dose kno3 & kh2p04 every weekly & seachem flourish but no water changes at all? Am I right to say that?

Originally Posted by aquascaping1982

So to conlude, for a low-tech tank does that mean I should dose kno3 & kh2p04 every weekly & seachem flourish but no water changes at all? Am I right to say that?

Yup. Just monitor because ultimately every tank is still different and have deviating levels of requirements but it should be fine. Just try to expand the plant mass on the left side of your tank.

-Calvin

Originally Posted by the_r0ck

Yup. Just monitor because ultimately every tank is still different and have deviating levels of requirements but it should be fine. Just try to expand the plant mass on the left side of your tank.

-Calvin

As for the left side of my tank, why I would not plant it because the red tiger lotus can grown until way big. That's the reason I left some space for it to grown within 1 or 2 months & I read from other forums that seachem excel can deal with BBA huh.. So have you tried it before?

I used Excel before and it works. I guess its due to the ingredient of Glutaraldehyde present in Excel.

Use 2x the recommended dosage and have a syringe to inject directly over the thicker bunches of BBA. Do it everyday until the BBA is gone. If you see cloudiness in the water, stop as the BB in the filter is affected. Wait for a few days until the water is clear before trying again. You might want to do a minor water change (15%) during those few days.

Along the way, just remove manually all you can.

Its best to remove all fauna from the tank though I left my yamatos and otos inside with no problems. But on paper, I recommend you to evacuate all of them if you are going chemical.

The thing is that the plants are severely weakened by it. The affected leaves and the more affected plants will turn glassy and brittle.

-Calvin

[Ah_ZhaN]

BBA is related to stable CO2. Read the below link for more understanding...
http://www.barrreport.com/estimative...s-even-ei.html

It has been posted by Tom Barr in AQ, but I'll forward the link here for the benefits of AF members.

I don't really understand what Tom barr means.. Can someone make it short & sweet please..

It's very scientific I understand, so I will try and make it digestible for you:

Compared to plants, algae can live in harsher conditions, like fluctuating levels of CO2, and require much lower lighting conditions to be able to grow.

Plants prefer stability in the environment. So we say maintain CO2 as high and stable as possible, to maximise plant growth.

For example, you inject CO2 into a tank for 3 days, and for the next 3 days you do not inject CO2, then you inject CO2 again suddenly. The plants will keep adjusting their biological processes to match the level of CO2 in the water. However, algae can do it much faster than plants because they are a primitive, lower life form than plants.

Therefore algae can grow faster than plants, and you see algae!

I believe none of us have ever actually tried fluctuating CO2 levels in your tanks before, but perhaps you can try it and see for yourself how you can induce BBA, BGA, and various other algae in your tank to be convinced. (I'm not saying threadstarter disbelieves anything )

Tom has made it easier for all hobbyists by actually experimenting with tanks and coming up with scientifically sound explanations on why algae happens and things that go on in a planted tank. No amount of thanks can compensate him for all that effort

Thanks Squee for making the article much more digestible, so does it made sense if I put it this way..for my case a 2 footer tank with high plantmass & a average in fish bio-load & I never inject any co2 does that actually means co2 level is fluctuating & inviting BBA?

Sorry to trouble you guys, cos I keen to learn & tackle algae.

Erm, nope. I didn't know you didn't inject CO2!

If it's non-CO2, Tom also has a "method" for that. (He has everything man)
http://www.barrreport.com/articles/4...2-methods.html

In a nutshell you must have slightly lower light, and not change water, just water top ups. If you do water changes the CO2 level never stabilises and you induce BBA. I have a 2ft tank that's on this regime now and all the algae I have is staghorn for some unknown reason.

I used to have BBA in that tank, and this time it was due to too much light. I have 36W over that tank, and the BBA were growing on the java fern placed directly below the light.

Tom's answer to me was: More light = more growth = more CO2 absorbed. So you could say that there was CO2 fluctuation in that particular area and I thus had BBA.

True enough, I placed some floating plants and no more new BBA.

I also had BGA in that non-CO2 tank, along the substrate line. I was advised to improve water circulation in the tank, which I tried and found a configuration in the end. You can actually see the BGA disappearing with streaks in the patch.

No trouble at all! That's why we're all here in this forum