# Is this bba?



## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

Been keeping my lights low and doing twice a week water changes and trimming leaves. Doesn't seem to be getting any better. I have seen a lot on peroxide treatments but I am worried about the tank mates; ghost shrimp, nerite snail, platys, and danios.

Any advice welcome and appreciated


























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## Stone (Jan 6, 2013)

yes it is


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## Stone (Jan 6, 2013)

spot treat with h2o2 and if you have excel follow up with it, just cut fown photo period as well


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

Stone said:


> spot treat with h2o2 and if you have excel follow up with it, just cut fown photo period as well


I don't have excel but lots of h2o2. We have two kids. Forgot to mention light was on just for the pictures. I only have the blue lights on lowest setting for about 8-10 hours a day and off at night. Light is a finnex planned+ 24/7. Do I need to go full dark for a while?

Should I do spot treatments or full tank treatment? If so at what amount? Also will the snail and shrimp be OK?

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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

I don't know anything about BBA, but here is a video I have found helpful from Aqarium Co-op. He talks about all the algaes, treatments, and fish that eat them.


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## Stone (Jan 6, 2013)

bba is a rough fight, you can turn filter off and use a Syringe to blast it right where it needs to go, following up with excel kills it pretty fast butit can work on its on, you can go up to about 2ml per gallon with no ill effects on fish/shrimp/snails turn filter vack on after 2o minutes or so i would use the 24/7 on cloudy/moonlight for no more than about 6 hours a day once the bba is gone you can try more or less light, you can spot treat daily vut id do a water change like every 3 days of 3o percent or so


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

CollegeBettas said:


> I don't know anything about BBA, but here is a video I have found helpful from Aqarium Co-op. He talks about all the algaes, treatments, and fish that eat them.
> Aquarium Algae Problems, Algae Eaters - Aquarium Plants 101 - YouTube


Thanks. I'll give it a watch later tonight

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## fernielou (May 19, 2015)

what is BBA?


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

Stone said:


> bba is a rough fight, you can turn filter off and use a Syringe to blast it right where it needs to go, following up with excel kills it pretty fast butit can work on its on, you can go up to about 2ml per gallon with no ill effects on fish/shrimp/snails turn filter vack on after 2o minutes or so i would use the 24/7 on cloudy/moonlight for no more than about 6 hours a day once the bba is gone you can try more or less light, you can spot treat daily vut id do a water change like every 3 days of 3o percent or so


Since I don't have excel I will just be using the h2o2. I have bba all over the tank bottom and it's probably in the filter too. Can I just turn off the filter and do a mass dose at 2ml/gallon all over since it's in multiple shots?

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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

fernielou said:


> what is BBA?


Black beard algae. It is tough stuff to get rid of

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## Stone (Jan 6, 2013)

Yeah you can, but I would spot treat the bad areas, just keep track of how muxh you are blasting in there


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

I used peroxide to treat a small amount. It turned the BBA pink and the Amano shrimp went crazy for it. Fingers crossed that was two or three years ago and it hasn't come back.


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## kanped (Jul 4, 2016)

BBA has appeared in my 5g tank (no fish in there but a lot of plants) over the last few days, too. Been dosing daily with liquid carbon; going to step it up if I don't see an improvement soon. Race you?


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

I dosed a few days in a row last week and didn't see any improvement. I dosed at 2ml per gallon and have a 20 gallon tank. So I decided to wait until WC night to try and spot treat.

After removing 25% and shutting the filter off I tried to spot treat with 40ml of h2o2. Nothing really happened on my anubias leaves but the bottom of the tank was showing tiny bubbles. After 30 minutes I topped off the tank and turned the filter on. I cut two leaves from the anubias and submerged them in h2o2 to see what happens in the morning.

If this doesn't work out or at least knock it down does anyone have any other ideas to try?

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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

I lost two shrimp from last night's treatment and one from the previous. I may look into blacking out the tank and seeing if that helps. I can also up my WC to every other day or even daily if needed

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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

Still losing the battle and looking for ideas

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## kanped (Jul 4, 2016)

I found the most effective treatment to be manually removing it all with tweezers, a turkey baster and a big water change afterwards. Really fiddly and time consuming, though, and no real guarantee it won't come back...


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

I will see what I can remove manually. I may still try and spot treat anything that I can't remove from the tank

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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

Did my first dose of Excel. Lets see if that helps. Also ordered a API phosphate test kit and Seachem PhosGaurd just in case 

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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

Phosphates have been coming down since I started to do 2 gallon water changes in between my weekly 8 gallon changes. Also Excel has made all the BBA turn grey and I was able to get a lot of it off the substrate. I will keep every one posted

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