F8 X erythromycin - Safe to use?

[RTR]

Guppy grass is a great and easy nutrient sponge. I have masses of Anubias myself, mainly A. b. nana but more A, nana petite all the time. To me, those are more decor items - carpets mostly - than useful nutrient uptake devices. They are quite slow growing,so nutrient eating is not that big a deal for them. An they are great silt-catchers.

[Nick]

YES! Nothing else in my small planted apple snail tank has a bit of silt other than the A. b. nana and A. b. ? plants in there, which collect nice layers.

[Pufferpunk]

I'd try manual control first

That's what I've been doing. I'm not breeding them. I've actually lost 2 of them recently to wasting away. I treated them all with prazi (from my local discus breeder) but it didn't help.

[Nick]

Might be time to invest in some Wormer Plus - it's designed specifically for discus, and it's much more broad spectrum than prazi.

I've also heard some parasites become immune to prazi, as it kills by forcing muscle contractions, and some tapeworms will regrow from a lodged front piece over and over until essentially immune to the stuff. I have no idea if it's true or not, but I do know that I've not had flubendazole fail on any kind of internal parasite.

[Flutter]

What is the dosage for erythromycin to treat BGA? Do you use the usual dose with puffers?

[Pufferpunk]

I have masses of Anubias myself, mainly A. b. nana but more A, nana petite all the time. To me, those are more decor items - carpets mostly - than useful nutrient uptake devices. They are quite slow growing,so nutrient eating is not that big a deal for them.

Mine grow like weeds. I have tons of it in all my FW tanks now.

[RTR]

Compared to pygmy chain sword and any stem plant, they are glacial - especially the A. b. nana petite which may or may not be a cultivar of nana. I suspect it is is a different species. It is super-slow. To me that is an advantage - it is a tighter carpet, but takes forever to get enough plants to serve.

PP-you duplicated posts.-

[By_a_coo]

Welll, here I am again with some news.

A couple of months ago I started to treat the tank with erythromycin, I don't remember the dosage but I guess I tried a little bit more than recommended.
I checked the water parameters everyday. No signs of ammonia/nitrite.
The treatment lasted seven days.
Then I started the WCs: first one was 80% and the others was my regular weekly 50%.

The bad news: BGA started to appear again, even though I keep the filter floss cleaned and change 50% of water weekly. Besides BGA, there are some diatoms but the latter doesn't bother me.

[RTR]

Diatoms are unaffected by erythromycin, just like the nitrification bacteria are not hit.

How is the substrate-level current in the tank? Dead spots are especially prone to BGA.

How deep is your substrate?

Are you full-depth vacuuming with each water change?

What is your substrate?

Is it fine-grained or coarse?

You pH is rather low. What is the reading before and after water changes?

How many hours per day is the light on?

Stability matters.

[By_a_coo]

Diatoms are unaffected by erythromycin, just like the nitrification bacteria are not hit.
I didn't expect diatoms to be affected by erythromycin, since they are not bacteria.

How is the substrate-level current in the tank? Dead spots are especially prone to BGA.
I can't measure that, but I see that the F8s need strength to remain standing at the same place, at the bottom of the tank. By the way, BGA spots are located where the current seems stronger (on bogwoods, sand etc)

How deep is your substrate?
It varies too much: less than .5" in the foreground and maybe 1.5" in the background.

Are you full-depth vacuuming with each water change?
Nope, because IF I'd do that I'd vacuum all the fine sand. I just vacuum debris, feces...

What is your substrate?
Is it fine-grained or coarse?
It's pool filter sand.

You pH is rather low. What is the reading before and after water changes?
I changed the water yesterday and I tested the water right now my pH is 7.6 and KH is 2º I guess I should add a calcareous material into the tank, right? I only have fine calcite sand and halimeda sand (I would love to buy some aragonite tomorrow but I can't afford it at this moment )

How many hours per day is the light on?

11 hours a day, the tank (53G long) is illuminated by 40W of CP bulb (which is pretty low light for me, but my F8s loves darken areas)

Stability matters.

I'm trying that!

[Pufferpunk]

I highly suggest changing your substrate to aragonite sand. How often do you stir the sand in there now?

[RTR]

Second PP's suggestion.

Pool filter sand is pretty coarse - it generally can be vacuumed if you cut the flow down a bit. But to me it does not help support the alkalinity needed in light BW.

Do you have a spare filter? A mesh bag of aragonite or coral rubble in such could help your alkalinity without changing the substrate. Having two such bags, rotated out every 2-4 weeks for rinsing and drying can help significantly. It is not as good as an aragonite substrate, but it does help.

Your sand depth is not bad, that should not be any issue.

Uneven-surface materials do cut current and shadow it - you do not get laminar flow over them. The downstream side of such objects are ideal BGA sites. But such objects are also among the best decor for F-8/GSP/other hunter-predator tanks.

Either your water parameters are off (more than just alkalinity being a bit low) or they are fluctuating too much between partials - the latter is the most likely. BGA is not at all very light-demanding. Try reducing the light a few hours or substituting a white moonlight at one end or the other of the light cycle to get the same total hours without as much intensity.

HTH