[APD] RE: BGA

["Thomas Barr" <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

Richard, rather than using a general biocide (H2O2) and trying to see the
limits of plants ability to die and the algae, why not focus on a simple
removal and then correct the conditions that allowed the algae to appear in
the first place?

Getting rid of BGA algae is very easy and requires no harm to the
plants(actually the reverse, additions of KNO3).
Simply suck it out and do a water change or do a balckout without the
removal + add the KNO3 back and then after.

This does no harm to fish or ANY plant. 
Differences in organic load, plant species makes H2O2 dosing problematic.
It's fine if mild, some and most plants will grow back.

I don't suggest folks to use bleach for BBA removal either. It hurts the
Anubias leaves, often later they get holes and yellow. The new growth looks
good but you have to wait for that to occur.

Blackout is the best, cheapest thing and causes the least impact on other
non target organisms and it works and addresses the long term issue.
If you wish to use H2O2, applying it to something where a UV, Diatom,
Blackout, CO2 etc does NOT work might be more prudent.

Still, a good pruning and cleaning manually works quite well and re setting
the tank addresses the environmental issues. If not and the algae keeps
growing, then you still have an environmental issue and algae killers alone
will not solve that issue for the tank.

Ask yourself what is your goal and what are you trying to acheive here.
What's the focus of the goal? Doing all this work for what?
To get rid of algae?

H2O2 ain't the most friendly stuff, neither is bleach.
I'd rather have the algae die off over a week or two than one day due to
the environmental changes. Manual removal does no harm to plants and
targets the algae specifically or a blackout. This is much easier on the
system and the plants themselves. They really don't like H2O2 either. H2O2
has some uses, but like other algicidal things, they are not consistent and
often kill plants as much as algae not to mention fish/shrimps. 

Manual removal is the best overall method if you can get a handle on the
environmental issues. Only GW and BGA are tough but they both can be dealt
with using a UV/Blackout so that addresses about every algae problem there
is in planted tanks.

Cladophora is the genus you might want to go after, but the same old issues
will appear that apear with every selective herbicidial attempt.   

Regards, 
Tom Barr 

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