# Planted Tanks > Fertilisation and Algae >  Anyone successfully eradicate BBA from their tank?

## stream

Has anyone successfully eradicate BBA from their tank? Care to share your success story? 

I've read that insufficient CO2 can cause BBA to grow but my CO2 checker is usually yellow at the end of the week before I do water change. Which left me to suspect I'm injecting too much CO2 in the course of the week. It is set at 50 bubbles per minute for my 2ft tank(less than 1 bubble per sec). I'm using an external CO2 reactor with Eheim 2228 to fully dissolve the CO2 before it flow into the tank. I'm using Excel to spot dose on BBA building on my rocks. That is very successful after 1 week of dosing where the BBA turns to purple than white. However, I still have BBA on my glass pane and leaves of my mini AR and MC. I'm using EI method to dose NPK into my tank and ensuring the recommended starting PPM. I'm read that Yamato shrimps eat BBA. My cherry and fire red shrimps certaininly don't. The reason I'm not getting Yamato shrimps is because those at the LFS are so big compared to my cherry and fire red shrimps.

Is it possible to achieve a completely BBA free tank?

TIA.

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## milk_vanilla

Bba is the most tough algae that i could get rid on from my tank experience, i managed to slow it down and make them no longer growth/dormant, but not get rid them all. Sometime small thingy in the ornaments i don't really care anymore.

Shrimp will eat if they are dying by excel or h2o2, so does SAE. but if you not find the root cause ( which is still nothing written in stone so far) they will keep growing in other place.

From my experience , quantity of your co2 is not direct affect them, i believe your dying plants is releasing organic matter and it's triggering their bloom. But the main problem of this tank balance is not just contributed by dying plants, we have micro organism , fauna, soil, light, water chemistry that also play / affect the tank balance. 

Better co2, enough fertiliser, light and o2 are the main components that you may settle down before you touch the other component.

Good luck

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## Averagebro

From my humble research over the times and own experience, BBA is closely associated with dirty water aka high DOC (DISOLVED ORGANIC COMPOUND OR CARBON), to control bba, u should aim to have a big filter capacity to cope with ur fish bioload, and cleaning ur filter regularly (once a month) and pwc to remove doc in ur water (at least 20% weekly)

Ppl always said low co2 causes bba and high co2 will solve bba problem but the root cause is actually doc, high disolved organic in ur watet will promote bba (those disolved organic come from fishes wastes/hormone/rotten food/rotten leaves) which can only be remove by water change. High co2 will promote ur aquatic plan growth which will fight with bba over nutrient so bba growth will be slower but as long as u dont fix the root cause, u can only suppress bba at best with co2.

Testing for doc is out of reach for common hobbyists but high nitrates is definetely a tell tale sign.

Use purigen to help absorb doc, dont overfeed, weekly pwc and monthly canister maintenace would keep bba at bay

Check ur bioload/filter capacity/filter maintenance/pwc schedule

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## Averagebro

Just another quick point, ur nitrate can be in good range (below 10 or even close to 0) and ur water polish untill super clear doesnt mean doc in ur water is good .. heavily planted tank can absorb nitrates so it can maintain at low level but ur doc in ur tank can only be reset by ----- water change ---- no 2 ways about it . Cause it is a carbon cycle, just as important as nitogen cycle

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## popimac

I am also struggling with BBA but here are my current mature tank set up and situation:
1. 2ft tank, ph5, no co2 or ferts injection, temp 25-27 degree Celsius, 20+ rasboras, plants such as buceps fissidens etc about 70% densely planted, wc about 10% weekly. 
Situation - constantly growing BBA throughout the tank. Especially on slow growing plants like buceps and on air tubing and driftwood. 

2. 1ft tank, ph7, no co2 nor ferts, temp 25 - 30, cherry shrimp only as fauna, densely planted with Moss, wc 30% weekly. 
Situation - no BBA at all. When I transferred the heavily BBA infested items over from 2ft to this tank, the BBA will die off within 2-3 days. 

Just sharing my experience. Still finding the root cause in my 2ft tank. 

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## stream

I think Averagebro might have a point. I have not been doing any maintenance with my Eheim 2228 external filter since September last year. There might been lots of DOC in there. I better do something about it this weekend.

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## Ivan Choo

@popimac your tanks' situation seems to back up @Averagebro's theory.

2ft tank's bioload is much higher, produces more waste, hence higher DOC2ft tank's plant mass is higher too, and plants do produce waste, contributing to DOC2ft tank has less water changes, hence sustaining higher DOC
I doubt the temperature and PH difference is a contributing factor.

Food for thought! Thanks for sharing.

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## popimac

> @popimac your tanks' situation seems to back up @Averagebro's theory.
> 
> 2ft tank's bioload is much higher, produces more waste, hence higher DOC2ft tank's plant mass is higher too, and plants do produce waste, contributing to DOC2ft tank has less water changes, hence sustaining higher DOC
> I doubt the temperature and PH difference is a contributing factor.
> 
> Food for thought! Thanks for sharing.


Good point! Let me test the nitrate level for both tanks tonight and update here. Been lazy to test the parameters since the tanks had matured. 

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## Ingen

I too notice co2 and flow has little influence on BBA. I find them at high flow area just as much as low flow area. I managed to slow it down by doing excel spot treatment whenever I find new bundle of joy surfacing. It has worked so far, I don't see them much anymore.

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## Sudipto

I have a 2-feet heavily planted tank with pressurised CO2 and two T5 HO lights. I have just 4 otos and four black mollies. I do not feed them anything whatsoever. Since my bio-load is so low and there is no external artificial food in the system I doubt if I have any significant DOC in my tank. I have an Eheim 2217 which is operated at about half the capacity. 

I got BBA on my anubias and HM leaves once. I immediately increased CO2 and increased water flow a little. The increased flow almost worked like magic on the HM, where due to the arrangment of the tank the effect of higher flow was immediately visible. On anubias I had to physically remove the BBA but once removed it has not come back, touch wood. I must say, I had reacted very early and took these two steps. Almost at the first hint of BBA. If things go out of control, these strategies may not be enough.

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## stream

That's very encouraging. I hope others will share their success story. 


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## greenie

I believe for me, I manage to eradicate BBA. But it was an extreme measure. Firstly, I remove all my fishes, 50+ fishes from my 2ftx2ftx2.5ft tank. Next I thoroughly clean my Eheim 2017 filter and replace all hoses, also clean my Hailea chiller by flushing it. The main idea is to remove as much muck from my filtration loop. Add a UV filter in the loop.

Next, I drain empty the tank of water and remove any muck on substrate, plants. Add 50/50 water/flourish excel to bottle spray and spray the whole tank. While leaving it to kill the bba, I use the same solution and cloth to wipe the external surface of the tank to prevent any BBA spores that might be reintroduce to the tank. Leave it to dry while I fill up my tank again and restart filtration. I also switch on the inline UV filter and chiller.

Restart lighting and CO2 injection. I then add twice the dosage of Algaexit for further treatment. Next thing is to sit back and relax for next few days. Some HC, Java fern and mini anubias melted but recovered. BBA turn white and slowly disappear. If any spots of BBA still exist within 3 days, empty water again and do spot treatment but for me all BBA dead during first treatment until now (8 months later).

For my fishes, I treat them with algaexit dose according to instruction for 1 week, doing daily 50% wc before treatment. I also add some excel to further destroy any BBA spores harbouring in the quarantine tank.

Following all these treatment, reintroduce the fishes. Having learnt the hard way of eliminating BBA, from then onwards, any plants or fishes I add, I will quarantine it for at least a week before introducing, this includes shrimps.

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## Ryan Peh

Hello! If I'm running a canister filter with an external co2 reactor, how do I add a power head to increase my flowrate? Or will the external reactor slow down everything no matter the power head?

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## aquaticlover

> Hello! If I'm running a canister filter with an external co2 reactor, how do I add a power head to increase my flowrate? Or will the external reactor slow down everything no matter the power head?


I believe you just need to install the power head inside the tank. External reactor will really slow down the flow.

Or what you want to know is how to increase the flow rate of your existing Canister filter?

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## Ryan Peh

I think I managed to reduce my BBA. My BBA was only growing cuz of the rotting leaves of all my transition plants. The BBA wasn't persistent. when I change water and put the siphon hose above the BBA, they just went in easily and now my tank is really clean. There's still some BBA inside but I cleaned my canister, changed the water and now I'm just waiting to see if there'll be anymore BBA growth. 
Also, during the week, I tilted my lily pipe outlet so it slants towards the front glass and I guess it created greater flow?

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## Clamence

Spot dosing of excel almost daily for a week. Off filter when spot dosing, u might lose some plants but i manage to clear all bba like this. You will also have to remove leaves that are infested with bba. Also reduced lighting after that and bba never appeared again 

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## ZIr

Seems like quite a number of people having problems with BBA. I just went to C328/ C325, all 5 LFS out of stock for SAE  :Shocked: . Is it true that Mollies also feed on BBA?

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## Ryan Peh

> Seems like quite a number of people having problems with BBA. I just went to C328/ C325, all 5 LFS out of stock for SAE . Is it true that Mollies also feed on BBA?


I doubt any living creature actually eats BBA unless you starve them to bones. Molly eats hair algae if I'm not wrong, but they'll pick fish food over it anytime.

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## milk_vanilla

Sae still available at nature aquarium, petmart or seaview, last week. You may give a call to them before you make a visit

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## Realcaster

I have successfully eradicate BBA from one of my 2 ft tank using Api Algaefix. It is into its 4 week now and I am still dosing it as per recommended for maintanence. Please note, all my Malayan shrimps and snail died but the BBA is gone. Very potent. But the fishes and plant is perfectly intact. 

If if you want to treat your tank with Algaefix, please transfer out your shrimps and snails.

BTW, Algaexit don't really work for me.

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## Realcaster

Pretty nice scape  :Grin:  :Grin:

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## ZIr

Is that's the green variant of BBA? Nice!

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## Realcaster

Saw this in of Seaview nano tank. BBA everywhere lol

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## Sleepy_lancs

I have. Over time. CO2 and light control is important. But once a while I will still get a small turf. Nothing major


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## madhav96001

I got mine fixed by increasing the water circulation, added a wave maker of 2000lph capacity to eheim 2075 and 2080 for my 5ft densly planted. All disappeared in a week surprisingly. Algae eaters are useless, may be its too much for them to consume. Now no traces of BBA. Reduced lighting period from 12 hrs to 7 hrs.

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## aza

Excel spot treatment + constant CO2 injections + good flow with powerful powerhead focused on dead spots = little tiny spots BBA at inlet pipes and CO2 diffuser.

Better a tiny manageable spot than an uncontrollable outbreak.

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## stream

> Excel spot treatment + constant CO2 injections + good flow with powerful powerhead focused on dead spots = little tiny spots BBA at inlet pipes and CO2 diffuser.
> 
> Better a tiny manageable spot than an uncontrollable outbreak.


I fully agree with AZA. Since my CO2 solenoid died on me. I have decided to just let the CO2 be injected continuously into my external turbo CO2 reactor. I have also increased my dosage of Nitrogen using CaNO3.(I using EI method of dosing with Dry Fertilizers from ECOCity Hydroponics). I'm using a Eheim 2228 for my 2 feet tank and definitely no issue with water flow. While the BBA is not completely eradicated. I've notice that it is getting much less. My MC is getting less affected and so is my Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini'. One more thing, monthly cleaning of the Eheim filter system and clearing away DOC helps.

The only issue I have now is with BGA or Cyanobacterial. I'm using Hydrogen Peroxide to contain it by first removing it using my net during water change and then squirting H2O2 into affected areas; mostly near gravel areas. Any tips to avoid BGA altogether?

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## aza

> I fully agree with AZA. Since my CO2 solenoid died on me. I have decided to just let the CO2 be injected continuously into my external turbo CO2 reactor. I have also increased my dosage of Nitrogen using CaNO3.(I using EI method of dosing with Dry Fertilizers from ECOCity Hydroponics). I'm using a Eheim 2228 for my 2 feet tank and definitely no issue with water flow. While the BBA is not completely eradicated. I've notice that it is getting much less. My MC is getting less affected and so is my Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini'. One more thing, monthly cleaning of the Eheim filter system and clearing away DOC helps.
> 
> The only issue I have now is with BGA or Cyanobacterial. I'm using Hydrogen Peroxide to contain it by first removing it using my net during water change and then squirting H2O2 into affected areas; mostly near gravel areas. Any tips to avoid BGA altogether?


AR mini is one BBA magnet boy. I just trim infected leaves and leave healthy ones behind.

On top of your H2O2 treatment, try adding bacteria pills like Nitrozyme. I read somewhere that cyanobacteria thrives when native beneficial bacteria is compromised.

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## greenie

I tore down my tank due to months battling bga. Also and excuse to rescape my tank.
I read Red Slime Remover from Chemiclean works to eradicate BGA safely. Realise this after tore down my tank.
H2O2 works but I cannot find root cause. My tank has been running for 4 years so my thinking rescape is best option. I do nuke everything in my tank after tear down with PP, Bleach and H2O2. Now recycling filter after rescape.

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## jackychun

Finding the balance point between CO2, fertilizer and lighting will have no place for algae. When the plant healthy, algae also gone. 

I got some minor BBA when changing light to brighter lighting. Luckily, it is dimmable and I tried to reduce the period and also intensity of light (i.e.from 10 hours to 7hours). At the same time, I also try to ripoff as much affected leaves/plants which has BBA in the tank; clean the filter and pipes/hoses. CO2 also increase and keep at stable bps. I did not try to adjust CO2 too much since fluctuations of CO2 might also cause BBA. So just let it injection at high level (bright green of drop checker). 

After all that steps, BBA slowly reduce spreading around. Whichever place it appeared, rip it off. If lily pipe got it, I cleaned it with salt rubbing. After kind of no sign of new BBA, I slowly increase the lighting period and intensity, very slowly like 15 mins every 4-5 days, so the plants can adjust accordingly. 

Now lighting is back at 8.5 hours a day and intensity is almost to the max (80%). No sign / very minimal sign of BBA can be seen. 

Cutting and trimming and water change more frequently also good to help tank have good water circulation and clean. 

Fighting BBA needs patience and hardwork, too. But it is possible! 


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## greenie

For me, I have better success eliminating BBA as compare to BGA. Mostly beacuse BBA is an algae but BGA is more similar to bacteria.

The first thing one need to do is to quarantine any new plants bought at LFS to prevent BBA infestation to be introduced. Proper C02, fertilization and light is important but if these algae is not introduce in the first place, less problem will arise later if you have lapse in aquarium housekeeping in the future.

I've read UA's write up on plant quarantine somewhere here.

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## jackychun

> For me, I have better success eliminating BBA as compare to BGA. Mostly beacuse BBA is an algae but BGA is more similar to bacteria.
> 
> The first thing one need to do is to quarantine any new plants bought at LFS to prevent BBA infestation to be introduced. Proper C02, fertilization and light is important but if these algae is not introduce in the first place, less problem will arise later if you have lapse in aquarium housekeeping in the future.
> 
> I've read UA's write up on plant quarantine somewhere here.


That's right, greenie! 


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