I'm Starting Again :(

[houndour]

Yesterday I was cleaning my tank and got so mad at the cyanobacteria that I syphoned all the sand out!!

Today I finally rook my crap interpet t5 light thing and tube back to the shop under it's guarantee and got £60 refund

With this I bought new gravel, new heater, thermometer, net, syphon and filter material.

I'm going to start over with my tank. If you have any other ideas of what I can do in addition to my plans to prevent re-intoducing the cyano bacteria let me know...

I'm a little concerned about the fish. I have 1 guppy, 1 cory, 3 botia striata and 9 cardinals. I have 2 small tanks. One is a 5 gallon and one is about 8 gallons. They will probably be in these tanks for about 6 weeks. The botia aren't very big - not more than 2 inches. I thought maybe the the guppy and the cory could go in the 5 gallon. And the rest in the 8 gallon. The 8 gallon provides much more swimming space for the botia and tetras and they swim on different levels.

I plan to move them tomorrow using the old tank water and filter material.

Then empty the old tank. Throw away all the wood and plants. Empty the tank and let it dry out.

The bloke in the shop said drying it out for 2 weeks will help kill the bga?? Is he making this up? Maybe I should bleach it?

I will bleach the filter and all the tubes and CO2 tubes etc.

Then after 2 weeks of everything being dry I'll start a fishless cycle.

Hopefully after 4 weeks or so of cycling I can put the fish back in. I'm not sure how my cardinals will survive this though However they've survived all the maracyn doses.

I need to think of a way to put the fish in the clean tank without contaminating it though. I've posted in the general chat forum for ideas on this.

Then after that I can bin everything - old syphon tubes/filter material, nets etc.

And then steralise my 2 little tanks.

And if that doesn't work. I give up

 

[danski]

great to hear your still giving it a go..i know youve been around here giving this thing a tough battle like me..i dont know much about that bacteria battle but i have had some good goes with other algaes..i would like to say if you go with more plants really really overload on stems and quick growers they really helped im my opinion to overcome all my headaches..then slowly remove what you dont want..to your liking..i also had a major outbreak after stupidly removing too many plants at once..my dwarf sag was exploding everywhere and i had to remove some..removed that and someothers and you have a good recipe for an outbreak..my tank is basically a jungle now..im waiting for things to settle then will slowly remove the plants to my liking..along with figuring out the nutrients your plants need of course,and dont forget the co2,and the root tabs for your stems and root feeders,
i know you will get it..
i will be glad to help any way i can also..even though im still figuring things out myself

 

[alanchown]

Yesterday I was cleaning my tank and got so mad at the cyanobacteria that I syphoned all the sand out!!

Did you try a blackout-that generally works, if not a dose of e-myacin (Maracym) will definately kill it off. I'm not sure that it's as simple as decontaminating everything and starting again. Most of this bacteria is just 'there' if conditions are right it will thrive, if not it won't.

A blackout didn't work for me-it was back within days, but Maracyn killed it off. I did have a filter problem, which probably allowed the right conditions for the bacteria to thrive.

ALan

 

[zig]

oh boy here we go again

 

[George Farmer]

Welcome back Sam! I thought we lost you.

All the best with new start, you deserve a break.

 

[houndour]

To those of you that don't know me...

I've tried 2 proper blackouts and I've dosed maracyn on 3 separate occassions now. They work, but not for long. After a treatment of maracyn, the bga comes back after a month or so.

I'm at my wits end so starting over seems to be the only thing to try!!

I'm considering not going planted for a while. I'm planning a wedding so just dont have the time to maintain stem plants at the mo.

At the moment I have only 1.5 watts of light and just anubias on loads of wood. All of which is to be chucked

At the most I may get some more anubias, but I want to see if I can run the tank for a few months bga free before wasting more money.

I'm also planning on moving house - hopefully at the end of the year so its seems pointless going fully planted just yet. But I would love to set up an anubias low maintenance tank with wood as I dreamed of a few months ago!! It did look good without the bga!

Any ideas of how I can transfer the fish from infected water to the new water with minimal contamination?