RE: Aquatic Plants Digest V6 #86

[Rick Engstrom <rengstrom at shaw_ca>]

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Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 11:13:45 -0500 (EST)
From: "Richard J. Sexton" <richard at aquaria_net>
Subject: Black Brush algea

>   I have been battling BBA for over 1.5 yrs now.  I
>don't sse how I can win this battle.  It always
>attacks the slow growing plants.  My anubius, Crypt
>parva, java ferns, hair grass and now a fear for some
>Pellia I am pampering along.
>    I tried making friends with BBA but it is a
>tyrant.  You can't contain it.  It looked beautiful on
>a large peice of wood and my botia loved cuddling into
>it.  The stuff was 3/4 of an inch long carpet.  Now I
>have no wood in the tank and treated both wood and
>rocks in a chlorine bath.  But even after months the
>BBA is still a nuisance.
>     I have a 40 gal. breeder with:
>     I use DIY CO2 inserted at filter intake
>     pH of 6.5
>     dgH at about 8
>     Temp of 78
>     Use traces
>     The tank is loaded with plants, good water flow
>to maintain uniform temp and 100 watts of light. Baby
>Rams, cardinal tetras, a few corys, and one cranky
>discus.  I have tried blacking out the tanks for 3
>days but it only gives the BBA a rest.  I am tired of
>cutting tweezing, scraping, pruning and chlorinating
>away the Black Beast Algea!
>     I don't have trouble with other forms of algea.
>I would prefer the green algea accumulate on the wood
>but can't seem to get that to happen.  So can someone
>put into more plain English what Tom Barr is saying in
>his latest posts about algea and O2 and CO2.  Any
>other insights might be of help.


I had this in one of my tanks and tried to manually control it, tried
introducing SAE's, Mollies etc and I can tell you that in my case they
didn't touch the stuff or at least they might have picked at the new shoots
but anything established and growing they will not touch. Hate to say it but
I had to completely strip down the tank and bleach everything, including the
plants, gravel, filter etc and start all over again. That was 6 months ago,
most of the plants grew back and there is no BBA which I believe I
introduced from plant I purchased at the LFS.

Rick