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BBA gone!
I've been trying to get rid of BBA in my 49 gal tank unsuccessfully for a couple of years. Then a couple of months ago I decided to seriously grow plants in that tank, and changed it accordingly: BBA is gone.
Conditions of the tank before the change:
-1 36" Perfecto light with a 20W Life-Glo fluorescent bulb
-2 Biowheel hang-on filters that agitated the water surface a lot. The filters had charcoal bags and ammonia-removing zeolite.
-High fish load:
-1 3.5" firemouth cichlid
-2 4" cigar fish
-1 6" silver shark
-2 2" African tetras
-1 8" albino pleco
-Several Anubias barely growing
-Several rocks for decoration and refuge
-Regular plain gravel as substrate (no additives)
-No CO2
-No fertilizers
-pH=7.8
BBA was a plague. It was covering the whole surface of every stone decoration, the Anubia leaves, the filter intake pipe, the side glass panes of the tank.
After the change:
Before assembling everything back, I soaked all the BBA-infected stones in water with bleach for about 1 hr until all the BBA was white. Then I tried to remove it mechanically by brushing the rocks with a brush with hard bristles, and I soaked them in water with chlorine remover for 4 hours, changing the water twice. I removed the BBA from the glass surfaces using a blade. I tried to remove BBA as much as I could from the Anubia leaves, but it was almost impossible, so I left them like that (no bleaching).
-Same tap water and same periodical water changes (25% every 2 weeks)
-Same Perfecto light, retrofitted with a 96W 6700K kit from AH Supply
-1 2250 EHEIM canister filter, loaded with their EHFIMECH and EHFILAV porous substrate, topped with EHFIX. Got rid of the Biowheel filters altogether.
-Same fish, being fed the same way as before.
-Same still BBA-infected anubias. Added:
-3 big Echinodorus bleheri
-several Ludwigia repens
-several Rotala macrandra
-java moss attached to a piece of driftwood using black polyester sewing thread
-Same rocks. Added a piece of driftwood
-Added a layer of Terralite mixed with some gravel and covered it with ca 3.5" of the same regular gravel
-1 bubble per second CO2 injection, from a 20lb CO2 bottle. I don't have a reactor, so I decided to bubble it trough the intake pipe of the EHEIM filter. The intake hose is long and transparent; I can see the bubbles get totally dissolved on their way to the filter input nozzle.
-Tropica Master Grow added according to directions on package.
-pH=6.7
The tank has been going on for about 2 months after the change. The BBA on the Anubia leaves disappeared on the first 2 weeks and it hasn't come back. The plants are bubbling O2 and growing fast. The Rotala macrandra is huge and deep red. I'm pretty happy with it.
Alex
Washington, DC