What Happens When You

[zig]

You get lovely pretty colours in your tank..........

and the bba is dead.............

 

[kjb66]

interesting im sure we can use this to our advantage?

 

[Qays]

is that dyed algae?! I never thought id see the day!!!

 

[zig]

is that dyed algae?! I never thought id see the day!!!

haha.........no the algae is not dyed, its died as in dead.

It is amazingly red i will give you that, the photo has not been manipulated in any way, i simply put it through Ifranview to resize it thats all i did with the image. bba goes this colour when you overdose with Flourish Excel to kill bba, thats whats interesting about what i did, its gone the same colour and i used Kno3, i presume its dead, over the next day or so hopefully it will go a greyish white, then it is definatly dead, this is what happens when you do it with Excel

The image is hugely magnified, the area of bba in question is only about 1/2 inch max in size.

Heres another full tank shot and you can just about see the red area beside the fish on the right hand side, its at the end of the driftwood stump.

If i can replicate it on another spot of bba i have in the tank i will be on to something, but im not due to dose any more Kno3 until monday so i will try it again and see if it works.

 

[Qays]

is that dyed algae?! I never thought id see the day!!!

haha.........no the algae is not dyed, its died as in dead.

It is amazingly red i will give you that, the photo has not been manipulated in any way, i simply put it through Ifranview to resize it thats all i did with the image. bba goes this colour when you overdose with Flourish Excel to kill bba, thats whats interesting about what i did, its gone the same colour and i used Kno3, i presume its dead, over the next day or so hopefully it will go a greyish white, then it is definatly dead, this is what happens when you do it with Excel

The image is hugely magnified, the area of bba in question is only about 1/2 inch max in size.

Heres another full tank shot and you can just about see the red area beside the fish on the right hand side, its at the end of the driftwood stump.

If i can replicate it on another spot of bba i have in the tank i will be on to something, but im not due to dose any more Kno3 until monday so i will try it again and see if it works.

lol, cool!

BTW your tank is jawbreakingly (thattaword?) beautiful!!

Good luck with the algae! Very interesting discovery! Sell it as a special freshwater anemone

 

[zig]

lol, cool!

BTW your tank is jawbreakingly (thattaword?) beautiful!!

Good luck with the algae! Very interesting discovery! Sell it as a special freshwater anemone

Thanks for the compliment.......

Basically what i did was.......today was water change day, after i had filled tank back up with water the filter was still turned off, so i had a syringe with which i dose the Kno3 (all my ferts are in liquid form that i make up myself for EI, i dont dose any dry) i always dose 10ppm Kno3 after a water change, so i got the syringe and filled it with the Kno3, i then squirted a couple of mls at a time at the infected bba area, i did this every minute or so over the course of about 5 minutes, now the filter was off and this is the important bit, so as i was dosing the kno3 it was pretty much very concentrated in the affected area, after i had finished, it immeaditaly went red, which surprised me, anyway like i say hopefully i can replicate it on monday when i dose more Kno3 and then i will know if it will work each time, although on monday im only due to dose 5ppm Kno3, but i will try it anyway.

So yes, it could be a good way to spot treat bba particularily on driftwood and things like that, the best way obviously is good CO2 levels and that will keep it at bay.

 

[lljdma06]

This could be very good, since I also dose liquid NO3 with a syringe! It could be kind of like using Joe's Juice on pest anemones in Marine tanks.

Keep us posted as to whether or not the algae actually dies.

 

[IovaykInD]

I think he said the bba is dead. I think he took a picture just to show us, but now the bba has died.

 

[Themuleous]

Nice one Zig, excellent find if it works!

 

[George Farmer]

Fascinating mate.

Did you discover this yourself? Have you shared your findings with any of the more specialized planted forums?

The tank is looking superb BTW.

 

[zig]

Fascinating mate.

Did you discover this yourself? Have you shared your findings with any of the more specialized planted forums?

The tank is looking superb BTW.

I discovered it accidentaly on purpose if you know what i mean, just as i was about to dose the Kno3 i said to myself lets see what happens if you dosed it like an excel spot treatment on the bba, would anything happen? so i dosed it as i described above, and it went red, which really surprised me, but i hadn't planned it or anything like that, it was just a spur of the moment experiment.

24 hours later and its still very red, just not sure if its dead or not, in an excel overdose treatment bba will go this colour before it goes a white grey colour when it is dead, i will keep an eye on the fish and see if they will start eating it, the platys usually start picking at dead bba, but wont go near live bba.

No i haven't posted it anywhere else, just here for the moment, i will do a few more experiments and see where they lead, i dont even know why it would work tbh.

This tank had bad bba when i ran DIY CO2 but i got rid of it when i overdosed with excel, i then switched to pressurised, after that i didnt have a problem with it until i started to run the pressurised CO2 up the filter intake as a diffuser, and whatever happened my CO2 levels went all over the place, but i ran it like that for about a month and then the bba started to reappear (i was getting hair algae as well) but its not a problem, nowhere near as bad as it was, i have since switched back to the Hagen ladder for the moment to diffuse the CO2, and no more algae problems..........i think the CO2 bubbles were getting caught in the cannister filter and not diffusing properly and it gave me very uneven results, also the buildup to reach 30ppm took an absolute age, so i gave up on it, and am back to the tried and trusted ladder method for the moment.

I will try it again on monday on another spot of bba and report back the results, the photos are just exactly as you see the bba in the tank, the red really stands out as you walk past the tank.

Anyway good to see you found internet access.......hope all is well!

 

[simonbrown403]

Sounds interesting zig keep us posted, i have a few spots that i have to scrub regular to keep clean, maybe this could be a way to win the battle out right

 

[zig]

Just an update on this little experiment 5 days later.

My wood now looks like this, this is the exact same spot

So its pretty conclusive that it works and the bba was dead

Now i just have to explain a little about the above, last night i checked the area of bba and it was still very fluffy, and today to my surprise it is practically all gone! well i figure the fish have eaten it, it hasn't just melted or anything like that, thats what i figure but i cant be entirely sure as i didnt see them eating it, but i bet they did.

Basically after about 2 days from the initial shots the bba went a dark greyish colour, the intense red disappeared entirely after about 3 days, i wasnt convinced it was dead but it obviously was, the platys will not eat bba when its alive, hardly any fish will eat live bba, but they will definatly eat it when it is dead as this is what happened the last time when i ODed with the excel.

I tried this experiment on the other spot of bba in the tank, this time only using 5ml of KNO3, the concentration of the KNO3 is just the normal dilution that i use 1ml = 1ppm, it worked on this as well, it went red also but took a bit longer (couple of hours later) i couldn't get a shot of it, it was in a really awkard position.

Anyway it does work if anybody else wants to try it, if you have a lot of bba though, its not going to be much use to you, as you can only dose so much nitrate each week, so you will really need to OD with the excel to get rid of it, but as a spot treatment for small amounts it works really well and could be useful.

Just as last note on this, i have not tried this directly on a plant leaf, so i do not know what effect it will have, if any, on the auctual plant itself, i have only tried this on some bba affected driftwood, so proceed with caution, but there again you have little to lose by trying it, if the plant is covered in bba.

 

[pseud]

Just as last note on this, i have not tried this directly on a plant leaf, so i do not know what effect it will have, if any, on the auctual plant itself, i have only tried this on some bba affected driftwood, so proceed with caution, but there again you have little to lose by trying it, if the plant is covered in bba.

I was going to ask this. I have Anubias that has some BBA on the older leaves... might have to give test it.

 

[zig]

Just as last note on this, i have not tried this directly on a plant leaf, so i do not know what effect it will have, if any, on the auctual plant itself, i have only tried this on some bba affected driftwood, so proceed with caution, but there again you have little to lose by trying it, if the plant is covered in bba.

I was going to ask this. I have Anubias that has some BBA on the older leaves... might have to give test it.

Cool i would be interested to know how it works.

Just knock off the filter when you try it (and remember to turn it back on again, like i didnt on the second experiment until the next day i was wondering why all the fish were at the surface next morning) i had the syringe right above the bba and dosed it out slowly over a few minutes, easy as that, report back if you try it or even better a pic

cheers mate