Fed up with BBA; Doing a complete tank tear down and rebuild - Need Advice

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Atl300zx

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jan 27, 2007
Messages
487
Location
Marietta, GA
These past couple months ive been battling bad cases of staghorn algae and Black Brush Algae (BBA). The major changes in my tank recently that may have led to this outbreak are the following:

- Removed all Fast growth plants due to the trimming requirements (added a few back recently to see if this would help and it hasnt)
- Light bulbs are ~ 1 yr old (will be replaced during rebuild)
- Still dosing the same EI blindly even tho I removed the fast growers, however, my Nitrates test kit hasn't read above 30 ppm for any of my test.
- Removed several large fish from the tank (7" bala shark; 5" SAE, and 6" Silver Dollar) however the platys are now reproducing beyond control. I probably have 35 fish in the tank now (almost all small platys).

Tank Stats:
- 55 Gallon; 260 watt CF; pressurized c02; Daily EI dosing; Rena XP3 filter
-Nitrates are 10-30 ppm
-Nitrites & Ammonia are 0 ppm

Here is where i need advice. I was planning on removing all of the fish and placing them in a 40 gallon rubbermaid container with the canister filter running on it. Then i would remove all the plants, cutting off badly infected leaves, and dipping remainder of in a 1:20 water to bleach solution. I will also do the same dip for heaters, thermometers, driftwood, intake and outtake for the filter.

What do I do about cleaning the gravel and the filter contents? Do i worry about algae spores and growth there? I do have some BBA growing on the gravel.

Any advice from people who have gone through a tear down and rebuild will be greatly appreciated.

THANKS!!
 
I just tore apart my tank and dipped all my plants Saturday. It's a lot of work, but it was worth it.

I'd think really hard about bleach-dipping driftwood. I'm afraid it would soak up the bleach and leach it into the tank. Be sure to rinse everything in a bucket with a lot of dechlorinator after you're done.

I'd scoop up the gravel with the BBA on it and clean it or dispose of it.
 
I`ve started over a few times but it eventually keeps coming back. Sometimes I think it`s just better to find out the reason and treat. Starting over didnt help in my situation.
 
SAEs are supposed to eat BBA, assuming they're not fed too much to want the naturally-occuring food. I've seen mine nibble at it a bit, but I don't know if he's really making any progress on it. Only thing I've done to get ahead of BBA is trim bad parts of plants and dose with Excel.
 
ive tried the dosing of excel and trimming and it just comes back. I fear there are spores in my filter/gravel.

My tank was algae free with this setup for years. I dont know happened. Here are some before pics:
fulltanksoctober2007.JPG


fishtank2.jpg
 
SERIOUSLY, There is NO way to kill this stuff. It has gotten so bad in my tank that it is clogging my filter. O man i am gonna have to completely break down my tank. This sucks. :mad:
 
im thinking if it can grow in my filter spraybar, a black out might not work.

Admin - can you move this Planted Tank forum?...Didnt realize i posted in aquascaping
 
Me, no. the think is it is EVERYWHERE. I mean growing on all walls of the tank. I could dip my plants and my decor but not my whole tank. Besides, all it takes is 1 hair to survive and it can start again. Besides, whats h202?
 
ive tried the dosing of excel and trimming and it just comes back. I fear there are spores in my filter/gravel.

bba is definately a pain. just dosing excel wont get you anywhere. what you have to do is turn off the filters and all water circulation. once all of the water isnt moving anymore, spot treat excel very slowly. you can kinda see the excel float in the water. you want it to kinda hover where the bba is. 5 ml will dose a 10 gallon tank, if the tank is somewhat moderately planted i would use about 15 ml per day. once you have spot treated keep the filters off for another 5-10 minutes. soon you'll see it start to turn reddish and die. just repeat the process every day.

h2o2 works real well and its much cheaper. what i've done is buy a spray trigger and a 32 ounce bottle of h202 from cvs.
000_0014.jpg
i pull the plants or decor out and spray it and then rinse it off after a couple minutes and replant. it usually dies pretty quickly after that
 
ill give the h202 thing a try.

and to answer the earlier question, i have pressurized co2 injection.

Anybody else have a suggestion for cleansing teh gravel and filter media without killing all the beneficial bacteria??
 
i would manually remove the affected gravel and throw it away. the media you should be able to change out. i would disconnect the filter and carry it to the bathtub and spray it down with h2o2 and scrub it and rinse it down. if your tank is moderately planted and you dont have a huge bioload you can probably get by without any beneficial bacteria. ammonia is the direct by product of your bioload. plants prefer ammonia over nitrite and nitrate. so if you have enough plants to match your bioload, your plants will suck up the ammonia
 
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