Came Home To A Tank Full Of Bga Today...

[Curiosity101]

I've just moved to Uni so my parents are looking after my tank. It's been two weeks since I did a water change.

Came home today to find my tank covered in BGA...checked my nitrates... 7ppm!
It seems they keep forgetting to add my ferts, so I'm in the position now where I can't think of any alternatives other than getting more fish.

Would anyone see anything wrong with this? Obviously I have kept an eye on my water chemistry and have a filter designed for a tank 3x the size as mine, then on top of that it is densely planted.
So 'chemically', IE. in the sense of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. I can't see a problem with introducing more fish.

But does anyone else see any problems? My stocking is in my sig, and the tank is 125l
My plan tomorrow was to add perhaps 5 rummy nose tetra (I am re-homing my neons in the near future so please bear that in mind when commenting)
And then possibly (I haven't made up my mind yet),
2 x Honey Gourami and 1 x Leopard Peckoltia
So overall (Ie. long term, so after the neons are re-homed), I'll only have the gouramis and plecs waste more than I had before. Hopefully enough to stabilise nitrates, but not too many fish to stress out current inhabitants.

Please keep in mind that although that may be a 'large' amount of fish to add in one go to most tanks, the current bioload of my tank is roughly 6x the size of what is too be added, it is also very mature. So the amount of stock being added (so long as it's roughly the bioload I'm suggesting) shouldn't be a problem in one go.

I just want to know what people think long term? I need to do something to beat this BGA...

And what other suggestions can you think of? My current plan is to simply go along to the shop and see what takes my fancy. I will only be buying fish I know are compatible with my tank and it's inhabitants, but as I haven't 100% made my mind up yet then some suggestions would be nice.

 

[Truck]

black outs are normally quite effective for BGA algae, can you not set an alarm on a phone or item that will remind them each day?

 

[Curiosity101]

Been there, tried that. And I cant really do a black out...I'm only home for one day. Although my parents are great when it comes to feeding n such (took alot of training), that's about as far as it goes 'maintenance' wise.

Taking into account my time restraints, any other suggestions aside from upping the fish?

Would the black out effect my plants by the way? I guess I could always do that to get rid of it for now, though when I said covered...I meant mainly on the sand and on trimmable plants. So it wasn't too bad, just unsightly.

It's the long term cure I'm looking for.

 

[Truck]

Been there, tried that. And I cant really do a black out...I'm only home for one day. Although my parents are great when it comes to feeding n such (took alot of training), that's about as far as it goes 'maintenance' wise.

Taking into account my time restraints, any other suggestions aside from upping the fish?

Would the black out effect my plants by the way? I guess I could always do that to get rid of it for now, though when I said covered...I meant mainly on the sand and on trimmable plants. So it wasn't too bad, just unsightly.

It's the long term cure I'm looking for.

BGA is actually a bacteria believe it or not, normally caused by low nitrates, if you can manually remove as much as possible and get nitrates up with the aid of fish i do believe will help.

i would be inclined to add a pleco or two (bristle noses) as theyll feed nitrates into the water column quite effectively. just make sure theyre fed properly.

i would half your lighting time, if i recall correctly the plants your keeping are crypts, vallis and others that are tollerant of low light?

 

[Curiosity101]

I'd forgotten it was a bacteria...lol. If you think my plants shouldn't be affected by the blackout then I can give that a go tomorrow, I can phone home on Tuesday to tell them to remove the coverings and resume normal lighting etc.
Although after a black out don't you have to start lighting in shorter bursts? They complain about things like that , I wanted to put a timer on before I left so things remained 'stable' but they just said they'd only switch the lights on again if they wanted to look at the fish. So that put an end to that idea.

I probably wont add bristlenoses...sorry to all keepers but I'm not a fan. Two leopard peckoltias wouldn't be a bad idea though. And I can easily add the new foods to the feeding regime, that's not a problem. Only reason I've stayed away from plecs this long is that many I see require wood in their diet, and I didn't want them eating my centerpiece.

Edit: Most plants are low light, but I now have some Blyxa japonica. It's still settling in, roots have been put down but the leaves aren't great yet. Am I right in thinking that they're quite high light plants?

 

[Truck]

I'd forgotten it was a bacteria...lol. If you think my plants shouldn't be affected by the blackout then I can give that a go tomorrow, I can phone home on Tuesday to tell them to remove the coverings and resume normal lighting etc.
Although after a black out don't you have to start lighting in shorter bursts? They complain about things like that , I wanted to put a timer on before I left so things remained 'stable' but they just said they'd only switch the lights on again if they wanted to look at the fish. So that put an end to that idea.

I probably wont add bristlenoses...sorry to all keepers but I'm not a fan. Two leopard peckoltias wouldn't be a bad idea though. And I can easily add the new foods to the feeding regime, that's not a problem. Only reason I've stayed away from plecs this long is that many I see require wood in their diet, and I didn't want them eating my centerpiece.

after a black out just half your normal lighting, a 4 hour photo period is fine anyway for things like crypts and vallis. just put them on a timer if possible.

i read an interesting article on plecs and wood last month, i must dig it out, because it proved that plecs cannot digest wood

the blyxa is a high demanding CO2 plant IME ive had it growing in a nano with easy carbo though, its difficult to get everything spot on for it to grow, ive never had much luck with it in my rio

 

[Curiosity101]

So far I'm quite impressed with the Blyxa...It's recovering nicely from being posted. I was dosing AE Carbon and TPN+ until I left.

I will definitely install a timer, worse they can do is unplug it again, and if I remember correctly it's only... £5 or something from argos?

 

[Truck]

So far I'm quite impressed with the Blyxa...It's recovering nicely from being posted. I was dosing AE Carbon and TPN+ until I left.

I will definitely install a timer, worse they can do is unplug it again, and if I remember correctly it's only... £5 or something from argos?

i think you can get them for a quid from ikea, but my ikea one shifts by 10 mins each day
if you know of something your parents do every morning when they get up, like have a bowl of cereal, you could stick a note to the box saying, please dose fertilisers into my tank.

 

[JenCliBee]

i read an interesting article on plecs and wood last month, i must dig it out, because it proved that plecs cannot digest wood

Will be an interesting read, most plecs agree dont digest wood, as far as im aware wood eating species have to ie panaque species.

 

[Curiosity101]

Lol, considering how long I can be gone for (up to 2 weeks), I could do with a timer that's slightly more accurate than that. Oh and if you're wondering why I'm even keeping my fish, it's cause I'm attached and they're coming into private rented accommodation with me next year. Unless I get accepted for a year abroad to a uni in canada...in that case they will have to be re-homed).

Anyhoo, timer is on my shopping list.

And I'll think for any daily happenings that mean I can leave a note.

But just to triple check, so long as I'm sensible you can't see any problems with adding one or two more fish? I'm thinking mainly O2, growth hormones, general stress etc?

 

[mixmaster jay]

i read an interesting article on plecs and wood last month, i must dig it out, because it proved that plecs cannot digest wood

Will be an interesting read, most plecs agree dont digest wood, as far as im aware wood eating species have to ie panaque species.

panaque species need wood to munch on

 

[Truck]

aye but the thing is they can't actually digest the fructose in the wood. ill find that article this morning and quote some of it

 

[dave_oddballs]

as far as i know, it is not said that panaques digest wood. They use it to aid the digestion of other foods their diet consists of.