Water Storage For Water Change System

[waterdrop]

Once I read over at James's planted algae page that CO2 swings are the main cause of BBA (and I've got some BBA in the higher flow regions of my tank, in front of my Koralia for instance)

I`m not sure of your tank specs, WD, but there is the possibility that the CO2 is a limiting factor, which could cause a BBA bloom. If you have lower light levels, this will be unlikely. I have been involved in one or two chats elsewhere where it has been noticed that alga that are specifically CO2 induced appear directly in the path of highest flow areas, particularly where there are plants involved. Plants are probably not able to sequester carbon when the flow is too high. Pointing a power head in the right direction can be a bit tricky, and the direction needs changing as plant mass changes and influences flow around the tank.

I assumed that if I ever bothered to store up a 50% water change worth and let the CO2 gas off, that my BBA problem would be lessened or go away. Does anybody think that would happen or not happen? WD

It would most likely be lessened because you will have removed the cause. The BBA you have in your tank will be there to stay, unless you physically remove it, or start dosing a liquid carbon supplement such as Excel. Spot dosing the algae will certainly do the trick. You could always consider injecting CO2. Either method would show an increase in plant health.

Dave.

Hi Dave, ...well, moving at my usual glacial speed with my tiny plant experiments, I've indeed bought a whole box of disposable plastic pipettes from a lab supplier, supposedly with the intent of spot dosing my Excel directly on the algae. But I haven't quite figured out how to do this. A given amount of Excel I'd want to squirt on one tiny BBA spot would not fill up the pipette and I'd have to plunge the entire pipette and my hand and arm in the tank and reach down to the leaf. I guess the Excel and a bunch of air bubbles would come out. Does this make sense? On my anubia thats tied to a rock I could just pull it out onto a tray and squirt Excel directly on the BBA spots. I assume this would work better?

You are of course correct about the carbon. Nothing has changed. I assume my plants are starved for it. I currently dose 1 full capful of Excel into the spraybar stream each morning (106L/28G - this is Oliver's tank) My red/brown Wendtii is particularly haggard lately and I wonder if the Excel dose (which may be 2x for this tanksize per Seachem's numbers) is too high. Light is a little over 1w/g at 30w (two 15 watt (T8 I think)) and the strips are over a year old at least. 3hr-AM, 5hr-PM exposure. Koralia Nano on lower back left pointing across an open area towards center of tank, stream hits a bank of java fern and my anubia. Just a few tufts of BBA here and there on the anubia. Brown diatom algae (have always assumed this is lack of CO2 and the fact that I'm dosing ferts & only excel) has been fairly mild but persistent on my java ferns, wendtii and amazon sword. I plan to post a lighting question soon in planted section. (I'll hope you see both this post and the planned one.)

WD