[APD] Connundrum - BBA and fast growing plants

["Graham Broadbridge" <graham at peachy_org>]

For a long, long time I've had a problem with BBA (the type that is
happy to put up little puffs from the gravel substrate, as well as
attaching to the edge of plants such as Amazon swords.

No matter how well the plants themselves are growing the BBA stays
ahead.  I am quite sure that there is no limiting factor to plant growth
other than light (around 3wpg).  Co2 is around 25-30ppm, Nitrates around
10-15ppm and phosphorus around .1-.5ppm

For the same amount of time, I've always kept some fast growing plants
around such as elodea.

As an experiment last weekend (I got tired of pruning 500 grams of
elodea weekly) I pulled the entire mass of that plant out of the tank.

All of a sudden, I have no algae growth at all!  The other plants are
happy and growing well.

Why would removing a fast growing (nitrate sucking) plant from the tank
make the tank less hospitable to BBA?   Nitrates were added to the tank
previously (in the form of KNO3) to keep the elodea happy.

Any and all analysis welcomed :-)

Regards
Graham.


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