[APD] RE: BGA

["Thomas Barr" <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

>I always seem to have a question...
>I have just completed an antibiotic treatment for BGA (I didn't know what
>else to do as pH is somewhat acidic, phosphates non-existant, and Nitrates
>extremely scarce, too).  I used Maracyn. 

Well your problem is poor plant growth, not BGA really.
BGA is the result of poor plant growth.
Grow the plant well and you do not get algae.
So the focus should always be on the plants.

Do plants grow on algaecide? Do plants need antibiotics to grow?

No.

No NO3 will allow BGA to appear, no PO4, what do you think the plants are
suppose to grow on?
Look at a fertilizer bag, it's got PO4 and NO3 and K etc in there.
Algae have far less growth needs than plants.

You can easily kill BGA with a simple 3 day blackout, dosing KNO3 at 1/4
teaspoon per 20 gal of tank the day of the water change(50%+), blackout the
tank for 3 days(trash bags, towels etc), turn off CO2, make sure no light
gets in, remove all the BGA you can. 
Wait 3 days, remove bags, do water change, add the same amount of KNO3 back
and then thereafter 2x a week or so(more with higher light). 

No antibiotic is going to do that for you nor remove the organic matter,
waste, toxins from the BGA. It'll kill it but that is __all__ it will do
and antibiotics are not available in many places, cost money, and do not
grow plants.

> By day 4 of the treatment the
>water had begun to turn cloudy and now, the final day, it is quite hazy.
>It's not green, either.  All I can think is two possibilities, but I want
to
>double check to be sure: either it's
>A) just dead BGA (though it doesn't look like BGA, whatever that means, and
>my other tank didn't have this problem), or

Check.

>B) it's a bacterial bloom.  This, of course, strikes me as odd as the
>antibiotic treatment is not quite over.

Unlikely a bacterial bloom.

Did you remove as much BGa as you could first, do a water change and then
add the antibiotic?
If not, then it's leftovers. Also, some bacterial decomposers help process
smaller waste products and the EM might have killed those off, producing
turbid conditions.

>I've read that blooms should be monitored, but left alone as they are
>indicative of a recycling and will sort themselves out.  Of course, I've
>learned not to trust everything I read, and this one has me a bit puzzled.
>Any thoughts?
>Thanks!
>Ben H.

I'd do a water change to remove it, then start adding things that make
plants grow. Add KNO3, add KH2PO4.
Your tank will grow much better as a result.

Regards, 
Tom Barr




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