Calling Houndour

[sif]

Houndour I know you were having trouble with black beard algae... just wondered if you have got on top of it with EI and/or pressurized CO2?

 

[houndour]

nope. still have it. It primarily grows on my heater and bogwood. And on some of the slow growing plants. Although I love BBA compared to bga!!

 

[zig]

Naw i think hondour is/was having trouble with bga not bba, if you have pressurised co2 whack it up as high as you can go without harming the fish (when they start gasping at the surface its to high) about 50ppm is good, this will stop the growth of any new bba and you just remove the old growth by hand.

Another method is to overdose with Seachem flourish excel, use 3x the recommended daily amount, again you have to be careful of your fish, you keep your co2 running when you use this method and the treatment lasts for 14 days.

The bba will turn red at first and then go white as it dies off, you can then increase the co2 into the 50ppm range and it wont come back.

SAE also eat it but that wont stop its growth.

Its mainly a co2 issue.

If you want to try the flourish excel method i will give you the correct dosage for your tank size, just let me know.

 

[sif]

Ahh there's the rub... I'm only running 2 nutrafin units on homebrew in a 50g and have 4ppm phosphate out of the tap... I am dosing some EI ferts (not phosphate!) and am literally being overrun with BBA. I have a bit of green hairalgae as well but that is OK as it feeds my Ottos/Mollies/Shrimp. Should have bought some SAEs by the sound of it.

I was thinking of trying a barr venturi reactor to get the best from the CO2 but fear a pressurised system is the only way to get a stable and controllable CO2 level... Just can't afford £150 at the moment. The flourish method sounds good - I have a bottle I'm using for macros(?) but only dose the suggested amount ie 2x10ml and 1x5ml alternate EI days.

Just wondered how houndours experience was given the investment in CO2 system.

 

[zig]

Seachem flourish EXCEL not just ordinary flourish, its a catch 22 i have some bba as well but im trying to organise pressurised co2 at the moment, i only have the nutrafins also, im not sure if its worth trying the flourish excel without pressurised co2, but the excel method works for nearly everybody, but if you have pressurised though you can up the amount of co2 you are useing and this stops the growth as well without the excell.

So yes a catch 22 unless you wanted to try the excel method and invest in a SAE for when it enevitably comes back and he will eat it, but not for me they get to big IMO.

Anyway thats how its done, have to get saving.

 

[houndour]

I've only had my pressurized co2 running for a week!! I've had the damn thing for about 3 weeks, but never had the plug. So its too early to say about the BBA.

If you could afford pressurized I'd recommend it purely for the fact of not having to change the CO2 mixtures. But otherwise I'd stick it out with DIY. If you can wait, I'll let you know how the BBA is in a month!

The other thing is...I don't think the solenoid was worth it after all that...you could keep an eye on ebay, I've seen the JBL set without the solenoid go for £80 (I think). Running co2 24 hours a day for me sees less of a swing in pH than turning it off at night. I guess it just depends on different tanks though.

 

[sif]

Thanks Houndour like to know how you get on as the algae problem would be almost the only reason to spend my hard earned cash!

Zig if you could give me the amount of Excel for a 190l (50us gal), I might try it . I was going to get some Excel anyway as I fancy trying a low tech approach to my 5g shrimp tank with no co2 injection.

Thanks

 

[George Farmer]

Should help - http/www.seachem.com/products/product_pa...urishExcel.html

 

[zig]

Thanks Houndour like to know how you get on as the algae problem would be almost the only reason to spend my hard earned cash!

Zig if you could give me the amount of Excel for a 190l (50us gal), I might try it . I was going to get some Excel anyway as I fancy trying a low tech approach to my 5g shrimp tank with no co2 injection.

Thanks

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Ok heres what i would do for a 50 US gallon

First of all if you have shrimp in the tank i probably wouldnt try it unless you could move them to another tank.

Just remember to watch your fish, fist signs of any distress stop the treatment, most people that do this seem to do ok and the fish dont seem to get stressed, obviously this is at your own risk im only passing on the info as i know it

You keep up all the regular routine, co2, ferts, water changes if following EI, just do everything as normal, the treatment will last normally 14 days, sometimes it clears up within 10 days others have had to go for 21 days to see results, but 14 usually does the trick, 21 days would be unusual.

The first day do a 50% water change and add 5ml for every 10 gallons = 25ml excel.

Each day after the normal dosage is 1ml per 10 gallons = 5ml so you want to overdose 3x = 15ml per day

So do a water change and add 25ml and each day after add 15ml, if you are following EI do your water change the following week and repeat the above dosage.

So for the whole treatment a 250ml bottle of excel will be enough.

Flourish Excel seems to be also affected by light in some way, so other than the initial dosing at water change time, the other dosages should be delivered in the evening near light off time, im not sure what difference this would make if you couldnt do this, but that seems to be the generally accepted thing to do, deliver the daily dose near or after lights out for the day.

Anyway if you give it a go report back in this thread as id be interested to know how you get on, or if you had a camera even better to see the changes, anyway hope that helps, best of luck with it.