Bga Genocide

[riverman444]

About four days ago, my air conditioning unit took a crap. My landlord came over and said that it would be about 4 days before he could get a new "part". Great, I thought. I'm going to have to sweat my ass off.

After the first few hours being without A/C, the temp in my tanks slowly began to rise. I turned on every fan I have, turned off the tank heaters, and doused the lights. Temps hovered right abound 82-84 degrees. Tolerable, I said.

I have been plagued with BGA in one of my 30 gallon tanks for some time now. I noticed that after about a day and a half with no light, the BGA started to disappear!!!! Sweet.

To make a long story short, I turned the lights back on after almost a 4 day blackout, and Voila!!!

NO MORE BGA!!! All the fish are alive and healthy.

Conclusion: Ya, I fried and sweated my ass off but at least the BGA is gone.

 

[netcode]

thats great to hear! BGA is always a nasty thing to have in your tank. I would think getting rid of it is worth a little bit of sweat

 

[bUcky]

whats bga? some kind of algae?

 

[riverman444]

BGA=BlueGreen Algae. It's some nasty, nasty stuff. Once it takes hold, it's darn near impossible to get rid of. The only way I know of to completely rid your tank of it is to strip it down and clean EVERYTHING. The stuff looks like green snot and covers everything in a sheet of slime. It smells, too.

I've heard that a large and consistent dose of Maracyn will kill it but I don't feel like breaking the bank to buy the stuff. I learned (by accident) that a 3 day blackout will kill it. But, I'm sure it will be back.

 

[chameleongeekgrl]

May i ask how do you get it? I'm glad to hear it got better. I hope that it doesn't come back sounds nasty.

 

[Liam]

Glad its gone, horrible stuff, I did a three-day blackout on it once and it was gone for a couple of months, then back it came. I know for many it doesn’t come back and I hope that’s the case with you. I think now that its gone, a big water change 50% with a thorough gravel vac would be useful. It can lie dormant, dry out and still live, it usually starts in the substrate, comes up with the light and then floats about looking for new places to coat, I know it all too well. I eventually learned to live with it, lots of current and vacuuming kept it in check. It can be killed by antibiotics. As long as the plants managed to grow and not get smothered in it the tank was fine with me. It can make nitrate out of nitrogen so low nitrates like in the discus tank were ideal for it and it loves phosphate I believe, my water is high in phosphates.

It can come from anywhere I think, it’s a bacteria so it’s around just waiting for favourable conditions, I read that it was kept dormant for over forty years and then grown again. My favourite lfs has some in most of its tanks.

It’s a real pain, great that you are rid of it.

 

[Themuleous]

Glad its gone, I would reitterate giving the tank a good clean and also the filter.

Just so people who don't know, know, its not an algae but a bacteria, hence why antibiotics work.

chameleongeekgrl - it probably gets into a tank via new fish or plants. All tanks have algae, its just that most cant be seen. Its only when something in the tank changes that the algae gets a change to take hold and it grows enough for you to be able to see it.

Sam