Well guys, promised an update. Had a couple of months battling with bba and stringy black algae, which I've never suffered before. Its a new setup as per signature, fish moved from existing tank in May. All equipment from old tank, but added eheim UV and extra pro3 external. Spent nearly £300 on plants and substrate, so as you can image was gutted to se the picture perfect discus rank trashed by this plague of an algae. Very helpful input from members regarding fluctuations in co2, poor flow through tank, too much nutrients etc. None of these were found to be at fault, in fact playing around with the set up seemed to make matters worse. I was constantly scrubbing my plants trying to remove what I could, cutting away at my anubias trimming all bba from the edge of the leaves. It was a losing battle, spoilt my enjoyment of my fish, they weren't happy with my constant disturbance. In desperation even used eSHa anti algal treatment to no avail. One evening, staring into tank pondering the issue, I realised the ONLY thing that I hadn't considered had changed was my lighting. My other tank had twin t5 plant tubes with reflectors. On this setup I was using the tubes supplied with the tank. One white and one red spectrum t5. So, I changed both for plant tubes. The tank appeared noticeably "duller". Intriguingly, many of my shrimp which I rarely saw now put in regular appearances, as does my snowflake plec. Obviously the lights were far too intense as the algae has all but gone. A lesson learned, most advice was of the opinion that the type of light wouldn't be an issue, only to long a photo period. Mine were only ever on for 8 hrs. Hope this lengthy explanation may be of help to anyone else scratching their head trying to sort the cause of bba.
Bba Update......surprising
- Thread starter elmo666
- Start date
