blue green algae AKA cyanobacteria

[happi]

this S$%% been pissing me off since i setup my new tank, it will not go away, doesn't matter what i dose. some sources says to dose more nitrate and some says its excess Nitrate and Phosphate that causes it. well in both cases blue green algae did not give up, it continue to thrive and taking over everything, i have tried reducing and increasing the nitrate and no results. last thing i can think of is phosphate which could be excess because this is only one month old ADA aqua soil setup and i think soil still might be releasing some nutrients to the water (mostly phosphate).

am going to perform big water changes to see if that will help and this time not dose any Phosphate, normally i dose 1ppm Phosphate 3x week.

i know for sure its not co2 related issue, am not newbie and i know what am doing. if you have suggestion please do share.

[Sethjohnson30]

How much flow do you have? A lack of
Flow will cause bga problems.

Here's what I do
1. Dose maracyn
2. Black out the tank while dosing the maracyn
3. Keep nitrates around 10-20 at all times.
4.Make sure you have at Least 5x the flow rate of your tank sized(personally I have 10x but that is not an option for everyone) so if you
Have a 10g tank you want 50gallons per an hour(unless your me then you have 100gph)
5. At the end of this do a large wc an clean out your filter.

If you follow these steps I guarantee your bga will go away. It always works for me.

[Monster Fish]

I had a little bit of BGA after I filled up my DSM. After I started my EI regimen, the nitrates alone made it disappear. I didn't have to dose erythromycin or do a blackout.

[happi]

Originally Posted by Sethjohnson30

How much flow do you have? A lack of
Flow will cause bga problems.

Here's what I do
1. Dose maracyn
2. Black out the tank while dosing the maracyn
3. Keep nitrates around 10-20 at all times.
4.Make sure you have at Least 5x the flow rate of your tank sized(personally I have 10x but that is not an option for everyone) so if you
Have a 10g tank you want 50gallons per an hour(unless your me then you have 100gph)
5. At the end of this do a large wc an clean out your filter.

If you follow these steps I guarantee your bga will go away. It always works for me.

maracyn use to work, but it doesnt work for me anymore, black out doesn't work either. flow is good IMO, 10times the flow. like i said keeping the nitrate high doesn't work either. i was dosing EI and my own fert, in both cases cynobacteria is still there. i will try to increase the flow further, but i don't think its going to help either.

[chunkychun]

yeah i tried changing parameters and all and just gave up and dosed erythomycin and it cleared up and hasn't come back!

oops too slow in my reply...

[AlyeskaGirl]

Common causes I've heard of are:

*High organics.
*Poor Water Circulation
*Old Light tubes
*Inadequate fertilization, which could be due to the new substrate like you said.

How to remove or suggestions:

*3-5 day blackout
*Fast growing stem plants to outcompete for nutrients
*maintain proper nutrients; which you do
*Excel or Hydrogen Peroxcide spot treatment, wait 30 minutes and remove bacteria
*Erythromycin or Maracyn as the last resort

Since you tried all that, I'm so sorry.

[Sethjohnson30]

If none of that works I would say bleach.....time to tear down and restart, sounds like a super strong strand of bga

[happi]

Originally Posted by Sethjohnson30

If none of that works I would say bleach.....time to tear down and restart, sounds like a super strong strand of bga

not an option, done this in the past and cyno will still come back.

[HD Blazingwolf]

at this point, turn off filter. spray it will h202. 1ml per gallon of tank volume
let sit for 5-10 minutes

[frogmanjared]

When I had an issue, more flow, manual removal, and extra K made it finally kick the bucket.

[BruceF]

Have you tried cutting out the urea?

[happi]

Originally Posted by BruceF

Have you tried cutting out the urea?

not related to Urea IMO, otherwise all the tpn, sechem dossers should have cyno in their tanks. like i said cyno is still there doesn't matter if i dose urea or EI dosing.

[happi]

Originally Posted by HD Blazingwolf

at this point, turn off filter. spray it will h202. 1ml per gallon of tank volume
let sit for 5-10 minutes

i have done this in the past, but its an temporally solution, it will kill it but it will return again within days. plus this method also killed some plants when i tried it, unless i did something wrong when dosing the H2O2.

[HD Blazingwolf]

don't dose the tank, spray the cyano

shoudn't kill any plants.. there are a few sensitive plants that it can hurt some leaves but wont kill the whole plant

cyano is 99.9% of the time related to oxygen levels. i think ur pretty good about having decent agitation so i won't guess that but it is an anaerobic bacteria. doesn't do well with much oxygen

[happi]

Originally Posted by HD Blazingwolf

don't dose the tank, spray the cyano

shoudn't kill any plants.. there are a few sensitive plants that it can hurt some leaves but wont kill the whole plant

cyano is 99.9% of the time related to oxygen levels. i think ur pretty good about having decent agitation so i won't guess that but it is an anaerobic bacteria. doesn't do well with much oxygen

ok i guess i will try the H2O2.

maybe add an air stone when lights goes out. i do dose allot of co2 during the day, everything pearls within couple of minutes including the cyno.