grrrrrrr bga

[crazycat]

if it's not one thing, it's another!

i just discovered i have cyanobacteria, and i have a few questions...

so far i haven't seen it on the substrate, but now realized that i've seen patches of it between the glass and substrate for a while. it may have been there for quite some time; this is why some of my plants roots have rotted.

right now all i've seen is a greasy film at the top of my tank that smells sulphury and is bright bluegreen when scraped off (with all the duckweed).

can i wait the time it takes for bigals to ship erythromycin?
does it harm the fish? and how quickly?
how fast can it kill my plants?
will a diatom filter help?

if these are stupid questions, they are due to my poor knowledge of this particular bacteria. i'm starting to read up on it, but hope that someone can answer question #1 so i know how fast i have to move...

thanks,
cat

 

[Jchillin]

Sorry to hear about your troubles Cat. Here are a couple of good articles on it, both include the erythromycin treatment.

http://plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=9

http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com/aquainfo/algae_erythromycin.html

 

[crazycat]

thanks jchillin. i had read the plant geek one, but the other was VERY informative. do you think i can wait the week or so till i can get the erythro from bigals--or should i try to find it here in the city more quickly?

i'm going to start my diatom filter anyway, b/c i don't think it can hurt...

sigh.

 

[travis simonson]

Cat - a three day blackout will, in most cases, take care of your BGA without having to resort to Erythromycin. I've done it several times and it has always worked like a charm. Plus it's free

First do a 50% water change, add some extra filtration and/or bubblers if you've got them, cover the tank completely so no light gets in. Discontinue feeding and fertilization during the blackout. After three days remove the covers and do another 50% water change to remove the dead algae. Your fish will be oh so happy to see you and get some food. It should not unduly stress them or your plants and will almost certainly wipe out the BGA

 

[BrianNY]

Travis is soooooooo right cat. I hate the thought of using meds to cure a problem that can be fixed so easily without them. The blackout method WORKS.

 

[Simpte]

Cat - a three day blackout will, in most cases, take care of your BGA without having to resort to Erythromycin. I've done it several times and it has always worked like a charm. Plus it's free

First do a 50% water change, add some extra filtration and/or bubblers if you've got them, cover the tank completely so no light gets in. Discontinue feeding and fertilization during the blackout. After three days remove the covers and do another 50% water change to remove the dead algae. Your fish will be oh so happy to see you and get some food. It should not unduly stress them or your plants and will almost certainly wipe out the BGA

I have to agree also. Though it may take more than 3 days (may take 5). Manually remove what you can by scraping walls with filter off. Large gravel vac to remove bga, cover tank w/ light off. Wait 3-5 days. Cheapest method available.

 

[crazycat]

thanks for all the info guys.

the bga is currently just scummy film at the top of my tank, and luckily hasn't grown visibly on the surfaces of things.

i would love to try the blackout method, but am not sure it's actually practicable for me. my tank is right under a window (northern exposure, but still quite light), and it has a 6' x 2' footprint--i don't have anything that will cover a tank of that size AND make it light tight. i would probably need some kind of very heavy fabric (and a lot of it) and i would be worried about suffocating the fish.

generally i agree with not wanting to medicate, but in this case, i think it might be the fastest way and easiest way to address this problem. unless it's really bad for the fish or plants--please chime in if it is... i don't want to harm them--i just want the bga gone.

assuming that i use the erythromycin (which is actually on it's way)...

will a diatom filter help in any way?

will more frequent water changes help?

should i at least turn the lights off for now?

should i limit feeding?

i am actually so skeeved out by this, i don't even want to touch the water. i know i sound wimpy...but there you have it :? it's really gross (i'm SUCH a wimp!)

 

[An t-iasg]

I certainly agree with everyone that the blackout will work. I blacked out once for 5 days. I did use erythromycin also. I used it on days 1 and 4, I think (forgot to put it in on day three) and then I tore that tank down. I just wanted to kill all the cyano before I moved the plants and rocks to another tank. I found that the odor of the cyano was aggravating my allergies and asthma, so that's why I used the erythromycin to get rid of it. The erythromycin didn't hurt the fish or plants one bit. Actually, when I removed all the newspaper, some of my plants had new leaves!

Remember to check your ammonia level after the treatment. Erythromycin is not supposed to be as hard on the good bacteria as other antibiotics but it's still a good idea to check. I had an ammonia level of .25 ppm that cleared up in about 2 days.

I don't know if a diatom filter will help. If you have one, I can't imagine that it would hurt; although it removes minute physical particles and maybe not bacteria, it may help remove those fuzzy little slimy pieces that float around the tank.

More frequent water changes will not help to get rid of the cyano if you don't know what's causing it to form in the first place. I found that I had inadequate filtration and water movement, along with an imbalance of nutrients in my planted tank. My other two planted tanks were fine, but this particular one got a bad outbreak of the cyano.

 

[travis simonson]

An-t-iasg is dead on right. You can kill the BGA/cyanobacteria with a blackout or erythromycin but it wll just come back if you don't address the root cause of the algae.

My advice, quit being a sissy and put your hand in tank Cat Let's get this nasty stuff over with. Black it out for a few days. Use the Erythromycin if you have to. Just do what it takes. It's better than living with the nasty gunk, isn't it?

 

[An t-iasg]

Thanks, Travis and I should clarify, LOL - when I said I blacked out for 5 days, I meant my TANK, of course!

 

[malkore]

And speaking of causes...the few BGA blooms I had to deal with were caused by a lack of nitrates. We're talking 0ppm, and if I dosed 5ppm worth into the tank, the next day it still read 0ppm because the plants were so starved.

A combination of blackout and NO3 dosing may terminate the BGA. The fact that your tank gets a lot of sunlight makes me suspect that the plants are consuming nutrients very quickly because of that extra light.

 

[crazycat]

that's why i would have thought too malkore, however, when i test my nitrate levels (before weekly water change and midweek to see if i need to dose), they always read around 20ppm. i'm going to get another brand of test today to make sure my tetratest is working. yesterday i checked ALL my parameters after a 50% water change on sunday and another one last night.

after the water change last night they were:

kh: 6dkh (which i found surprising since it has always been at 9 or 10--i have a basketfull of cc in one of my filters--i will give it a few days, test it again--maybe it's time to renew the cc)

ph: 7.0

no2/nh3: 0 (tested nh3 with 2 diff tests)

no3: 12.5 (due to both water changes i presume)

po4: 2.0

i dosed about 7ppm nitrates last night--b/c i understand that not enough may encourage the bga to grow.

the only thing i can think of is that it's been a while since i cleaned my filters (fluval 304 and 404), and perhaps they need a good cleaning. i also have prefilters on both that i rinse out 1-2 times/week, since they get SO gunked up they restrict flow. perhaps i'm not gettinng adequat filtration/ water movement. i have an additional powerhead as well to help provide current. i could also be overfeeding--i'm not sure--my fish always seem hungry though...

anything i might be missing? i don't want this to be a recurring problem, and would like to address the root causes (filtration and ferts, i think).

and travis, i AM considering putting my hands back in the tank, but it really IS icky--it's like a slimy pea soup at the surface--could the duckweed be helping to promote the bga? call me sissy again, and it might just impel me to do it

 

[crazycat]

ps MALKORE, do you have any ideas as to why my nitrates would be consistently 20ppm, even though i don't dose? i always figured it was my bioload (see my profile). could it be something else? am i overfeeding possibly?

 

[malkore]

Well, I rarely have to dose nitrates due to my messy cichlids. I really need to follow Travis's advice and only feed them every other day.

As for the BGA, there's actually about 1,000 species of cyanobacteria. That's why zero nitrates isn't always a symptom, or why sometimes it grows thickest in the heaviest current in the tank (when its normally found in dead current areas)...or why some don't respond to the blackout...and even a couple strains are supposed to be resistant to Eurythromycin.

your filtration seems good...but is there enough current? sometimes on one of my 20gal's with little current, the plants that break the waters surface will start to get a thin 'skin' of BGA like slime that sits there, translucent, but it sticks to your hands and then becomes quite visible.

mine kinda cleared up on its own though.

 

[crazycat]

that's EXACTLY what mine looks like. but it's not clearing up! and that's why i don't want to put my hands in (i can hear travis now: sissy sissy sissy )

i think i may add another powerhead. and clean my filters! if i clean my filters, i should do one, wait a while (like a week or what?) and do the other right? and clean them in tank water? if i do this, will it still harm the bacterial colony?

 

[Hara]

use a piece of airline tubing with a rigid plastic tube at the end. Then you won't have to get your hands in the mess. You might also want to pick up a small roll of black plastic sheeting to do a blackout. (it is easy to cut holes in it for the filtration and air needs.