What Happens When You

[zig]

I just gently squirted flourish excel on the effected algae area when overdosing with exel and it turns it red almost instantly and then turns white and is gone within a couple of days

This is called "spot treating" with excel and its a widely known technique, turn your filter off when you do it for best results, switch it back on after about 10 minutes or so to let the excel have a chance to really penetrate the affected area of algae, this method is very effective with bba algae, works every time.

 

[mrjezzi]

I don't get it, I came across this topic earlier today and thought "Brilliant! I've got powered kno3 and I need to dose today". I made a liquid solution and squirted it onto my BBA... No red at all! It still seems fine! I'm not sure if the kno3 I bought is labelled right - it came from http/www.aquaessentials.co.uk/ so I doubt it is mis-labelled. Is this not BBA?

 

[Themuleous]

If you got it from AE then it'll be the right stuff.

Two things - did you turn your filter off when dosing it? Also, I've used this method and it's not worked for me either.

Your best bet is to get some seachem excel and OD that. I find a single dose, 3x the suggested dose rate works. It's killed my shaghorn within a day or two, also works for BBA just takes longer to die.

BTW think we decided that your algae is staghorn not BBA, my bad.

Sam

 

[mrjezzi]

If you got it from AE then it'll be the right stuff.

Two things - did you turn your filter off when dosing it? Also, I've used this method and it's not worked for me either.

Your best bet is to get some seachem excel and OD that. I find a single dose, 3x the suggested dose rate works. It's killed my shaghorn within a day or two, also works for BBA just takes longer to die.

BTW think we decided that your algae is staghorn not BBA, my bad.

Sam

Still waiting for the pressurised co2 kit to turn up (bloody ebay!) and this algae is spreading. I took the plants out yesterday and made up a very concentrated KNO3 solution (2 teaspoons in 200ml of water) and dunked the plants that were most effected for about 30 seconds each. Some of the algae has turned red but not all... I should add that as it has spread it looks more like BBA than staghorn! I just hope the co2 kit turns up soon and I can get this sorted before it kills my plants!

 

[aaronc]

Sorry to bring a thread back from the dead...

What doses are people using to get this effect? Would be worth a go in my tank - got a bit of a BBA infestation. Caused by unstable Co2 - waiting on a pressurised co2 system to sort that out.

Cheers
Aaron