CO2 Level and BBA

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JDogg

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Sep 10, 2005
Messages
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Location
Rapid City, SD
Ok first off how should i read my AP KH test? when the blue water turn green or yellow? it turned yellow on drop 13 (13 degrees) and yellow on drop 14 (14 degrees)

PH is 6.8

either way my CO2 is 61.8 or 66.6 ppm

at what level should it start to kill my BBA.

it have been averaging around 50 ppm (depending on the KH reading) for the last 4 days... :D

BBA has remained unchanged :cry:
 
With Titrimetric tests you measure until the sample matches the color of the reagent that you are adding. My guess is that the reagent is bright yellow, so your result should be 14dKH.

Assuming that your testing is fairly accurate and your ferts are in line, you should see the algae cease spreading fairly soon. BBA will not necessarily go away on it's own. The existing BBA may have to be manually removed. This can be done with a dip or spot treatment. My personal favorite is to use Flourish Excel. You can also simply prune the affected leaves.
 
Purrbox said:
With Titrimetric tests you measure until the sample matches the color of the reagent that you are adding. My guess is that the reagent is bright yellow, so your result should be 14dKH.

Assuming that your testing is fairly accurate and your ferts are in line, you should see the algae cease spreading fairly soon. BBA will not necessarily go away on it's own. The existing BBA may have to be manually removed. This can be done with a dip or spot treatment. My personal favorite is to use Flourish Excel. You can also simply prune the affected leaves.
i am somewhat hesitant to use excel to treat because so of the worse affected plants are my elodea (which i have heard melt in excel) :?
 
Pruning the affected leaves is probably your best bet then, unless you wanted to give a bleach dip a try.
 
Go in and trim the BBA off, Blech equipment/Rocks etc, add dechlor and return.

The plants should really be growing well if you us eEI and add a lot of CO2 consistently.
This is a better way often if the test kit does not match what other folks find.
Use the plants and the algae to determine what is best.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Plantbrain said:
Go in and trim the BBA off, Blech equipment/Rocks etc, add dechlor and return.
that sounds like pretty much a tare down and clean of my whole tank 8O
don't have rocks, but do have driftwood, i assume i would bleach that too. how about substrate? my gravel probably holds 75% of the bba (if it really is bba)

i am including a pic, my camera sucks, but all the brown on top of the gravel is BBA stuck to gravel, how can i get it off (remove and bleach the gravel?)
 
You can bury the BBA on the gravel, it will not grow under 2" worth of gravel.

The othe roption is to add Excel at about 1.5x the suggested amount (initial), do a water change each day, for 3 days and crank the CO2.

Spot dosing will not do much for you, you have too much.

Good CO2 will not kill BBA, it will prevent new growth from appearing.

Once you stop new growth, you can beat any algae manually and prune it off, scrub etc.

Yes, it's work, and the method does work and does less harm to plants than other snake oils and wonky suggestions.

But it's a one time deal and when you see BBA in the future, you know to add more CO2.

Like any weed problem, the longer you wait tom correct it, the worse it'll get and more work you will have to do.
a lull in plant growth generally means time to do a water change and make sure you are adding enough CO2.
BBA defintitely means you need to add more CO2(or you can reduce the lighting also, or both).


regards,
Tom Barr
 
Plantbrain said:
You can bury the BBA on the gravel, it will not grow under 2" worth of gravel.

The othe roption is to add Excel at about 1.5x the suggested amount (initial), do a water change each day, for 3 days and crank the CO2.

Spot dosing will not do much for you, you have too much.

Good CO2 will not kill BBA, it will prevent new growth from appearing.

Once you stop new growth, you can beat any algae manually and prune it off, scrub etc.

Yes, it's work, and the method does work and does less harm to plants than other snake oils and wonky suggestions.

But it's a one time deal and when you see BBA in the future, you know to add more CO2.

Like any weed problem, the longer you wait tom correct it, the worse it'll get and more work you will have to do.
a lull in plant growth generally means time to do a water change and make sure you are adding enough CO2.
BBA defintitely means you need to add more CO2(or you can reduce the lighting also, or both).


regards,
Tom Barr
ok, i have never done this before, so i am little nervous. i will take out everything i can..driftwood, plants... and try a bleach dip.

what kind of ratio should i use? X bleach to Y Water?
 
1:20 is a commonly used concentration (that is 1 cup bleach to 19cups water or whatever volume you want to use). Make sure the bleach has no "scents" or anything else. Just plain old clorox works fine.

I did a 2minute bleach dip with good success, then rinse in water until it doesn't feel slimy, then into a bucket of water to soak for a minute or two, change it a couple times, then finally into a clean bucket of water with a triple dose of dechlor. I was a little paranoid about putting chlorine back into the tank so you might be able to do less steps, but to be safe more washes is always better. And try to keep the bleach off your skin or you could introduce it into the tank that way as well.

I've also had success with treating the tank with hydrogen peroxide. It might be worth a shot in your tank. You wouldn't have to remove anything, but for sure the bleach treatment will kill the BBA on contact, whereas the peroxide treatment takes a couple days and is not guaranteed to kill everything. It seems to be much more effective at spot treatment, but your tank is infested and so only whole tank treatment methods would work. Anyway you can remove the fish while leaving the plants in the tank? Then you could use a hefty dose of peroxide, kill everything, and not have to remove the plants (I'd take the filter inserts out during this just so your biological filter remains mainly unharmed).

Or your could do a combination of both which would be the best IMO. Bleach treat the plants and dose small amounts of new hydrogen peroxide to weaken/kill the remaining algae in the tank (substrate, ornaments you missed, etc). 1 oz of 3-4% NEW peroxide (common store purchased stuff) per 10 gallons is a safe level.
 
i think i will try the bleach... it will be much easier IMO to take out the wood and plants then to try to catch my fish

can i do the 1 oz/gal peroxide dose without removing the fish?

1 oz = 6 teaspoons if i do the math right (correct)

thanks

EDIT: the bleach i currently have is Target brand and it says it is comparable to Ultra chlorox do you think this will be ok?
 
1oz is probably about 6 teaspoons. Frankly I just used a shot glass since a normal shot is ~1oz. I put it in the tank right at lights out so it has the maximum effect (light breaks it down quickly).

1oz per 10 gallons is fine with the fish in there. Some do 1 oz per 20 gallons just to be safe, but others have done 1 per 10 with very fragile inverts and seen no problems. The key is to use a new bottle of peroxide (same actually with your bleach). Generally about 30 days after opening a new bottle of bleach it expires, and peroxide is probably closer to a week. Any longer and they begin to lose their strength.

I am not sure of the bleach you are talking about. If Ultra is a concentrated form (ie more chlorine per amount), then it would be stronger than 1:20 dilution and might harm the plants. I'd either get a cheap bottle of normal bleach, or wait until someone else posts that they are sure the one you have is safe.
 
well bleach job is done and everything is back in the tank. looks better already IMO. still have BBA on gravel (tried to burry as much as possible. hopefully Peroxide treatment after dark tonight will work)
 
You need more plants, get some cheapy plants for now, then let the other's grow out.

More plants = less algae.
Better growth of plants= less algae


Regards,
Tom Barr
 
well i hope the peroxide killed the algae...it decimated my tank...otos gone, runny-nose tetra gone, mts and new snail that zezmo just gave me (yesterday) are laying on the gravel not sure if dead or not (will give them some time) nice angel (freshwater pic of the month) alive but not looking so good :(

will update after i get home from work and can assess more
 
Dang dude, sorry for your lose. I wish i would have read this thread yesterday. I have read many stories just like yours with dead fish and H2O2. I choose to remove the fish. Again sorry.
 
WHAT!?!?!?!?!

How much did you use and of what concentration? I have never heard of what happened to your tank using the concentration that you supposedly used. Ever. I've heard the stories where someone pours a cup of peroxide in a 10gallon tank and it kills everything but not such a small amount. 1oz per 10 gallons even at an 8% concentration shouldn't kill any fish, let alone all those you mentioned. That's horrible....

Do a large PWC right now. I don't know what happened but I cannot imagine it was due to the peroxide.

My best guess at this time was a chlorine poisoning. I would have expected to see chlorine affect the fish much faster (ie shortly after you put the plants back in, but its possible some was on the roots or something that was either buried and uncovered or slowly leeching into the water.

I would also do ammonia and nitrIte tests ASAP. If something killed your fish they very well could have taken out your biological filter as well.

8O 8O
 
7Enigma said:
WHAT!?!?!?!?!

How much did you use and of what concentration? I have never heard of what happened to your tank using the concentration that you supposedly used. Ever. I've heard the stories where someone pours a cup of peroxide in a 10gallon tank and it kills everything but not such a small amount. 1oz per 10 gallons even at an 8% concentration shouldn't kill any fish, let alone all those you mentioned. That's horrible....

Do a large PWC right now. I don't know what happened but I cannot imagine it was due to the peroxide.

My best guess at this time was a chlorine poisoning. I would have expected to see chlorine affect the fish much faster (ie shortly after you put the plants back in, but its possible some was on the roots or something that was either buried and uncovered or slowly leeching into the water.

I would also do ammonia and nitrIte tests ASAP. If something killed your fish they very well could have taken out your biological filter as well.

8O 8O
brand new bottle of target brand peroxid, unless my shot glass is more then an oz. i have 5 they are all "standard" shot glasses. will test and do PWC tonight tonight when i get home from work. might have chlorine, but i rinced everything good and then soach them in a buched of water with dechlorinator (4x "regular dose) for like 20 min before putting back in tank. even smelt them, no "bleach smell"
angel was doing better before i left to go to work (did not have time for pwc before work.) GBR and bolivians looked fine ( i was worried for them)

i think i will slap the filter hob from my 28 on for a few days just in case, to replace biofilter...
 
JDogg said:
well i hope the peroxide killed the algae...it decimated my tank...otos gone, runny-nose tetra gone, mts and new snail that zezmo just gave me (yesterday) are laying on the gravel not sure if dead or not (will give them some time) nice angel (freshwater pic of the month) alive but not looking so good :(

will update after i get home from work and can assess more

I did not tell you to use peroxide.
Bleaching is fine and adding dechlor after a good rinse and then return to tank and then add some more dchlor to the tank as well.

Quite a few folks have killed fish with peroxide.

Most are careful with bleach as it has a smell and we can add dechlor.
If no smell was there and you added dechlor after, nothing will occur.


Does not seem like the Chlorine if the fish died afterward, chlorine will kill them pretty quick, so will Peroxide.





Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Quite a few folks have killed fish with bleach as well. Probably more than with peroxide.

I have read enough anecdotal stories where people have used the 1oz per 10gallon rule and not harmed inverts such as shrimp/snails/clams. These are generally quite suceptable to harsh conditions (not all snails obviously).

I am still very confident that it was not the peroxide that caused the death of the fish unless the peroxide was poured directly on the fish that died. At that concentration it just doesn't add up.
 
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