Long-term overdosing of Excel = Excel resistant BBA! (UPDATE: hypothesis disproven)

[ghotifish]

Interesting! We get the 2 liter bottles, which last for 6 months. If there is variation, or if the solution deteriorates with time, that could be an explanation. Hmm... I just swore off Excel but now I'm curious again... Hmm

[ua hua]

[QUOTE=plantbrain;1624140]I add lots of ferts to this tank and have not visible algae anywhere. 30-45ppm NO3, 10-15ppm of PO4, 1-2 ppm Fe added weekly.



BBA has never entered this tank.



Tom, I'm curious to your statement that you have no algae issues in this tank nor have you ever had any BBA in this tank but in your journal thread you stated this.

Originally Posted by plantbrain

Light, CO2 and ferts, it's in ADA aqua soil amazonia(see AFA or ADG for sales in the USA for ADA products)

I have lots of shrimp, and you will often see it covered with BBA or cladophora infested in the middle of the spikey ball, hard to remove, I take great pains removing any such leaves, algae from them. Bladderwort also can be an issue, or even the moss, like Fissidens.

Fragments get into nice plants like these, or downoi, or ruin a nice stand of Hairgrass belem etc.

Plant weeds in planted tanks are a real serious problem for me, I'm very aggressive about removal and checking plants before and after I add them to my tanks.

I would like to do a Iwagumi with only Erio cinreum.

So what I would like to know is do you or have you had any BBA issues in this tank? I feel that it would be helpful to the rest of the people here to let them know that even you have to deal with some of these algae problems also rather than making it seem like you never get any algae. I get tired of hearing people say the same ol' same ol' response to BBA that it is always TOO MUCH LIGHT, NOT ENOUGHT CO2. I have been battling some BBA on my driftwood the last 2 months and this all came about after I reduced my lighting to half of what I was running. I know my CO2 can't be turned up without risk to my livestock as I cranked it up to the point where I gassed a few fish then I dialed it back down. The last 2 1/2 weeks I turned the lighting back to what I was running and the BBA seems to be less than it was. I have came to my own conclusion that there is more to BBA than the too much light, not enough co2.

[plantbrain]

Originally Posted by ghotifish

Everything you are saying about prevention makes a lot of sense and is consistent with what I am attempting to do. Unfortunately, the BBA is already there. It entered the tank three years ago when we were brand new to aquascaping and it has been present to some extent ever since.

I really was hoping that there would be some way for me to avoid the constant trimming affected leaves, spot treating and scraping hardscape, picking out affected pieces of substrate, and generally being pissed off. I can handle some of this, but I doing it constantly gets depressing.

I really hope that there is something I can do to help suppress it a bit...

I dealt with BBA for 3 years straight. No help, not one to ask etc. Amano? He spent a decade dealing with algae plagues. That's a VERY long time to suffer. I likely would have tossed the towel in. CO2 was the light bulb that went off when I managed to fix it.

Dan Quackenbush had popularized the 19:1 water/bleach dip for Anubias and other commonly infested with BBA fur type plants in the mid 1990's. That was about the time I had the CO2 realization.

SAE's are extremely aggressive also towards BBA. One of the very few.

To root it out good, I attack it manually and do all those things, Amano does as well. Most folks that are good at dealing with algae tend to do a lot to prevent it, but go after the issue aggressively when it does appear till it's beaten down. I have no algae eaters in the 180, I have a horde of the shrimp in the other tank however.

So they do help and keep it at bay.
I see BBA, I know I still have a s/light CO2 issue as far as the environmental tweaks I need to do. the rest is manual labor, etc, and maybe adding some algae eaters. There is a lot more work involved to get the tank back to snuff once algae takes hold.

I've torn entire tank displays, some quite large if I was not happy to address Caldophora and other species including Riccia which is a weedy plant.

[plantbrain]

[QUOTE=ua hua;1625047]

Originally Posted by plantbrain

I add lots of ferts to this tank and have not visible algae anywhere. 30-45ppm NO3, 10-15ppm of PO4, 1-2 ppm Fe added weekly.



BBA has never entered this tank.



Tom, I'm curious to your statement that you have no algae issues in this tank nor have you ever had any BBA in this tank but in your journal thread you stated this.


Originally Posted by plantbrain View Post
"Light, CO2 and ferts, it's in ADA aqua soil amazonia(see AFA or ADG for sales in the USA for ADA products)

I have lots of shrimp, and you will often see it covered with BBA or cladophora infested in the middle of the spikey ball, hard to remove, I take great pains removing any such leaves, algae from them. Bladderwort also can be an issue, or even the moss, like Fissidens.

Fragments get into nice plants like these, or downoi, or ruin a nice stand of Hairgrass belem etc.

Plant weeds in planted tanks are a real serious problem for me, I'm very aggressive about removal and checking plants before and after I add them to my tanks.

I would like to do a Iwagumi with only Erio cinreum."


So what I would like to know is do you or have you had any BBA issues in this tank?

Answer is no, not in the 120 Gal tank. The above statement is taken out of context. I'm discussing prevention: getting rid of algae, moss, Riccia before it comes in from other folks you buy plants from.

Sometimes you miss some, so you get the tweezers and pull it out ASAP!
This does not say or imply that I have/had an algae bloom.

It I take a rock covered with BBA from one tank and add it to the 120, this does not suggest the 120 has BBA or an issue with it. Same thing here in the above text you quoted. Once I remove the few small frags that I did not get before putting it into the tank, end of story. As stated, I've never had any algae issue, this is due to keeping up on the cleaning, algae eaters and keeping good environmentals.

The only algae issue I've seen was cleaning the glass much more often once I bumped the light up 2x.

This is still manageable but I have to clean the glass weekly vs once every 2 months.

Pretty big difference.
But more labor= more growth= more light.

I have seen BBA on flourite grains etc, and on ADA AS grains in some tanks.
the BBA only appears on the old 1/2 dead leaves that will be covered with new growth after I mow the beejesus out of the Starougyne in that tank, but I'm removing nearly 50% of the entire plant biomass. Then there are few/no algae eaters, maybe a few Amanos, but not enough to do anything.

that tank got ick bad and wiped out most of the Cards, so the plants also melted after I jacked the temp to 90F for 3 weeks to help(it did not help), the regrowth got some light BBA, and a little on the wood.

Otherwise, if I simply added say 100 Amano shrimps, or SAE's, or trimmed differently, I could remove 100% of all visual amounts, but it's quite tolerable in my case for that tank.

My non CO2 60p has also never had an algae issue, it grew some nice Cladophora which was welcomed. A little glass algae that was cleaned once every 1-2 months.

I feel that it would be helpful to the rest of the people here to let them know that even you have to deal with some of these algae problems also rather than making it seem like you never get any algae.

I've never once made it seem like I never get algae, folks might read into some piece meal comments and assumed that, but if they want some clarification and ask a follow up, I'm quite honest about it and the solutions.
Always have been.

Still, you can tell folks the solution 1000 times and some will still have algae, statistically, that's bound to occur. I thought folks where not honest also when I started and had issues. Took me awhile.

I get tired of hearing people say the same ol' same ol' response to BBA that it is always TOO MUCH LIGHT, NOT ENOUGHT CO2. I have been battling some BBA on my driftwood the last 2 months and this all came about after I reduced my lighting to half of what I was running. I know my CO2 can't be turned up without risk to my livestock as I cranked it up to the point where I gassed a few fish then I dialed it back down. The last 2 1/2 weeks I turned the lighting back to what I was running and the BBA seems to be less than it was. I have came to my own conclusion that there is more to BBA than the too much light, not enough co2.

Could be, but every time I've cured a tank in person, every time, I'm talking perhaps 50 tanks over the years for other people, it's been CO2 as the main environmental. But you are correct, it's not just CO2..........(light is mostly independent, but can help CO2 issues indirectly) it;'s also things like algae eaters, the SAE etc........Amano shrimps, manual picking and removal(which was what that quoted text was all about), water changes, beating it back with many small hammers.

Once you get to that stage and it's fairly well eradicated at the macroscopic level, then you back track and see if you can INDUCE it by changing the CO2 and removing it.

I've had CO2 tanks run out mid week, not an issue, if they ran out for 1-2 weeks, then I start to see little tufts. 3-4 weeks, I have some nice fur.

This does not say every reason for BBA or it's bloom/spore germination........but it is likely one and one I've seen many times.
Clients and fellow hobbyists I've helped in person have had 100% success. Recently one in FL had some annoying BBA and he did the work and made the adjustments. CO2 was part of it, not all of it.

But you cannot address the rest of the labor and work without also addressing the CO2, it'll just come back. Maybe the filter got clogged and poor circulation? There's many ways to louse a tank up, so I try and go through everything, often some simple stuff folks over look. Done plenty of that myself.

So I agree, less light/more CO2 is not the only answer. But CO2 is often the root issue, the rest are more methods to get in there and spray, scrape, etc, and algae eaters etc. Folks also use Excel way too much as a cure all as well, you could say the same thing when it comes to advice, many say add Excel.

There's no silver bullet. And that's what many expect and seek when it comes to algae. The only thing I've seen and learned that's been really consistent is to focus on good plant growth. That's the best algae prevention tool.

[ghotifish]

Thanks Tom-
I appreciate hearing that even experts, like yourself, have to battle algae from time to time!

A couple more quick questions, if you don't mind:

What do you think about the role of DOC? Is there anything more to that than keeping a tidy tank and maintaing your filter? I think that I can see a relationship between the cleanliness of my tank in terms of decaying plant matter/detritus and algae growth. I wonder if I should be doing more to reduce DOC, and if so, what? It seems like 2x/wk water changes would mess up my ei dosing.

Do you know if BBA is impacted by temp, pH, water hardness, or mineral concentrations?

Also, it.seems like when my plants are pearling more, the algae is decreased. Is the amount of pearling related more to the growth rate or to the amount of dissolved O2?

Also, since I got you here, I've been wondering: does the amount of CO2 dissolved in the water impact the amount of dissolved O2 and vice versa?

Thanks!

[florini]

I am likely the least experienced aquarist posting in this thread, but here's my experience with excel vs BBA:

I have a small (12g) tank which about 3 months ago got a BBa infestation. It grew on the lower leaves of all the plants, on all the leaves of slow growing plants and changed my UG into a horrible tangled mess of plant and algae. UG and a bush of stauro seemed suffocated by the algae and couldn't grow.

I reduced fishload (from about 1cm fish / liter of water to about 0.6 cm of fish / liter of water), increased aeration and started overdosing excel at 2x. I did not physically remove BBA for the purpose of observing it. In about 2 weeks I noticed that BBA changed color and the shrimp (both Amano and red cherry) had started eating it. In about a month, most of the algae was eaten (starting from the lower leaves upwards). The UG and stauro were cleaned completely and look very healthy (stauro is growing aggresively, it is now a pest in itself ). The old BBA-infested leaves were permanently damaged (they have discoloration, thinning and little holes) but they are alive and the new growth is healthy.

About a month ago I dialed back the excel to the recommended dose and so far there is no BBA to be seen. The overall growth dynamic of all the plants is better, I have to trim a lot. I did get some GDA but I clean it weekly and it's dying off too.

[ghotifish]

Hi florini,

Thanks for the reply.

What you describe is exactly what is supposed to happen. I'm so happy it worked for you. That's consistent with my experience in the early days of my excel use. That's what I expected when I hit it with the big dose but alas, in my case, no such luck. The moral of my story is not to overdose excel indefinitely.

[ghotifish]

I tested my GH and kh and found high kh (12-13) and low gh (<1). Could that be an issue? I'm unsure what to make of those results.

[sewingalot]

Originally Posted by willknowitall

i have had this happen several times and im sure its because excel batches are a not consistent in strength

i had 1 bottle that i double dosed for weeks and hardly did anything
got a different bottle and all the bba turned red in four days
that was with a break in between the different bottles

Originally Posted by ghotifish

Interesting! We get the 2 liter bottles, which last for 6 months. If there is variation, or if the solution deteriorates with time, that could be an explanation. Hmm... I just swore off Excel but now I'm curious again... Hmm

Can you get another bottle and try it out? Seriously, I was stumped on this. I didn't know why it wasn't working, especially given it was a brand new bottle. If you are interested, here are my experiments on it that proved to be it was not only a bad batch, but it was still growing in my petri dish in minimal lighting bathed in excel: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1452633-post538.html

[Rhaethe]

Originally Posted by ghotifish

I tested my GH and kh and found high kh (12-13) and low gh (<1). Could that be an issue? I'm unsure what to make of those results.

If your water contains more sodium bicarbonate and/or potassium bicarbonate than total calcium and magnesium, than kh will be higher than gh.

Another possible is you are using water softener. Using water softeners will produce water that is most likely to have a kh that is higher than the gh. Water softeners exchange sodium or potassium ions for calcium, magnesium, and other hard water minerals.

[Rhaethe]

I have an uncorroborated suspicion that water that has higher sodium content is preferable for BBA. BBA is a red algae, which normally only thrives in saltwater ... but BBA is a type that has adapted to fresh. That does not mean, though, that maybe it still requires a certain amount of sodium in the water.

Perhaps there is a reaction/exchange that occurs with the CO2 and Excel (as an aldehyde base, which oxidizes) that decreases the amount of sodium or somesuch.

I am not as well versed with the chemistry ... but, it seems to me that if that is what occurs (removes sodium which the BBA needs) then if you have a high amount of sodium in the water to begin with (as possibly evidenced by the higher kh than gh), your current CO2 / Excel approach isn't removing enough, still allowing the BBA to thrive.

Again ... this is just me brainstorming with NO evidence to back anything up. I have been on a non-aquarium related war against sodium lately ... so I am a bit biased

[m00se]

Originally Posted by sewingalot

Can you get another bottle and try it out? Seriously, I was stumped on this. I didn't know why it wasn't working, especially given it was a brand new bottle. If you are interested, here are my experiments on it that proved to be it was not only a bad batch, but it was still growing in my petri dish in minimal lighting bathed in excel: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1452633-post538.html

Ok, this is purely from 6 month old memory and I probably have some of this wrong, but here it is anyway.

When I wanted glutaraldehyde, I looked for a concentrated source and wound up buying 25% EM purity glute from a medical research supplier. I hadn't discovered Metricide as a source yet. This little 100 ml bottle cost me $18. Not bad I thought. I could make a large batch of 1.5% with that 100 ml. However, the shipping was a whopping $45, which they billed through invoice so I didn't realize until I got the package with my MC charges on it! Of course none of this was explained on their website because who buys EM research glutaraldehyde that doesn't know that right? They charged me for overnight UPS even though their facility was 200 miles from me. They sure wanted to make sure I got it right away. Well what I got was a styrofoam box with a bottle of glute and a freezer pack in it and warning stickers all over it telling me to get it into the freezer ASAP. Being a complete n00b I didn't realize that EM meant Electron Microscope. They use this stuff for fixing specimens.

Ok, so now I have this stuff and have to dilute it for use. I did so. The forums all mentioned how it stunk and how not to breathe glute because it would rot your brain and your kids would be born with horns and eyes sticking out of their arms etc etc etc. Well, this stuff didn't smell. At all. So I was a bit concerned. Come to find out that the esters that are in Excel and Metricide are actually impurities and those are what you smell.. Ok, so what right? Well, Seachem has always said their version of glute is "proprietary" and they use the term "polycycloglutaracetal". I believe (and this is just my hypothesis and not to be taken as anything more than that!) that this is the impurities that the folks I bought my EM purity glute were warning about. This company warns that storing EM glute at any temp about -10f will allow it to deteriorate into these various esters and even taking it out of the freezer long enough to get the product onto the slide (or whatever they use in EM's) will eventually render it unusable. So, extrapolating that to your experience that some bottles of Excel work better than others makes sense, somehow. Not sure exactly how, but somehow. This stuff deteriorates. Maybe there's a window where it loses it's long chain carbon attributes and becomes less available to the plants. I don't know.

I also never ended up using this stuff. I decided that CO2 was a better way to go. This being said, the glute I mixed up DID eventually start smelling something like plastic and if I open that bottle right now I can definitely smell it very well. It took about a month before it did. Which is right about the correct time period I was told it would take for the EM purity stuff to become unusable.

Don't know if any of this info helps, but you may use it in the spirit in which it was given.

[ghotifish]

Originally Posted by sewingalot

Can you get another bottle and try it out? Seriously, I was stumped on this. I didn't know why it wasn't working, especially given it was a brand new bottle. If you are interested, here are my experiments on it that proved to be it was not only a bad batch, but it was still growing in my petri dish in minimal lighting bathed in excel: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1452633-post538.html

What a cool experiment! I'm after reading that, I'm thinking I've probably got a degraded bottle of Excel rather than a new strain of resistant super-algae!

Originally Posted by m00se

This company warns that storing EM glute at any temp about -10f will allow it to deteriorate into these various esters and even taking it out of the freezer long enough to get the product onto the slide (or whatever they use in EM's) will eventually render it unusable. So, extrapolating that to your experience that some bottles of Excel work better than others makes sense, somehow. Not sure exactly how, but somehow. This stuff deteriorates. Maybe there's a window where it loses it's long chain carbon attributes and becomes less available to the plants. I don't know.

I also never ended up using this stuff. I decided that CO2 was a better way to go. This being said, the glute I mixed up DID eventually start smelling something like plastic and if I open that bottle right now I can definitely smell it very well. It took about a month before it did. Which is right about the correct time period I was told it would take for the EM purity stuff to become unusable.

Thanks for the interesting story! Your experiences plus sewingalot's experiences pretty much have me convinced that the Excel that I've been using is the problem. I've noticed several times that some bottles smell way worse than other bottles. Given your experience, I'm guessing that stinkier=more degraded. I don't even know how old the bottle I've been using is. I know it comprised of two partially used 2 liter bottles pour together.

I'm going to have to get another bottle and try it out. Fortunately, All my other attempts at algae control have been pretty effective and the BBA is not turning out to be the catastrophic infestation that I feared! I'm going to hold off on the excel for a bit, unless the algae advances again.

Originally Posted by Rhaethe

Another possible is you are using water softener. Using water softeners will produce water that is most likely to have a kh that is higher than the gh. Water softeners exchange sodium or potassium ions for calcium, magnesium, and other hard water minerals.

Yep, I have a water softener. I wish that I did not but my well water has extremely high levels of iron (0.03ppm is considered high, ours is 6.0ppm!) and cannot be used in its untreated form. I'm now adding gh booster to see if that will be good for the tank. So far, the only effect has been that I put in too much and 3 of my shrimp died!

I'm considering ditching the water softener and switching to a Greensand water filter that claims to remove iron, manganese, and hydrogen sulfide (all of which are present in our well water) without adding anything to the water.

The other option is RO, but storing all that water seems crazy!

What a pain!

Originally Posted by Rhaethe

I have an uncorroborated suspicion that water that has higher sodium content is preferable for BBA. BBA is a red algae, which normally only thrives in saltwater ... but BBA is a type that has adapted to fresh. That does not mean, though, that maybe it still requires a certain amount of sodium in the water.

Perhaps there is a reaction/exchange that occurs with the CO2 and Excel (as an aldehyde base, which oxidizes) that decreases the amount of sodium or somesuch.

I am not as well versed with the chemistry ... but, it seems to me that if that is what occurs (removes sodium which the BBA needs) then if you have a high amount of sodium in the water to begin with (as possibly evidenced by the higher kh than gh), your current CO2 / Excel approach isn't removing enough, still allowing the BBA to thrive.

Again ... this is just me brainstorming with NO evidence to back anything up. I have been on a non-aquarium related war against sodium lately ... so I am a bit biased

I don't know much about chemistry either. I've read the Excel is a reducing agent and can remove oxygen from the water. I'm not sure that really matters in this case... I'm guessing that Excel degradation is a bigger factor.

If BBA likes sodium, that may explain why it's so hard to totally get rid of despite having just about everything else in the tank perfect... If that's the case, then I'm a mere $500 to 3000 dollars away from a solution. Unfortunately, my cat is in the pet hospital right now with a urinary obstruction and I'm pretty sure they line the litter boxes with crisp $100 dollar bills in that place! No major purchases any time soon for us!


I'll post what happens when I get a fresh bottle of excel.

[Jeffww]

Gluteraldehyde has a shelf life you know...

"Glutaraldehyde and formaldehyde are volatile, and toxic by both skin contact and inhalation. Glutaraldehyde has a short shelf life (<2 weeks), and is expensive. Formaldehyde is less expensive and has a much longer shelf life if some methanol is added to inhibit polymerization to paraformaldehyde, but is much more volatile"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterili...icrobiology%29


Although the fixative properties of glut will fade quickly; its use as a carbon source will not disappear. I think this is what's happening. Sodium has nothing to do with it. Glut won't do anything to dissolved Na+ in the water. It's a protein cross linker meaning it changes the configuration of the proteins within the organism (in this case algae) rendering them useless and possibly toxic. I would say you just need a new bottle or need to switch to something more reliable such as non-chemical prevention after a spot treating with H2O2 3%.

But I wouldn't discount Excel reisistant bba at all. If you do find this to be true I suggest not trading plants with anyone out of that tank anymore. Spreading something like that would spell bad news.

[ghotifish]

Good News!

I ordered a fresh bottle of excel and added 30ml. The BBA started turning red and dying off within 12 hours. It's a Christmas miracle! Now I'm keeping my excel in the freezer!

Thanks so much for all the help!