The Puffer Forum

Hi

i have a brackish set up - did have brown algae to start with but tank been set up for 6 months now and that has disappeared - but now i have a think carpet green like algae - is that BGA??? if so how do i get rid - i spend hours trying to clean it but think im making it worse.

tank peramiters: Amonia 0 nitrite 0.10 nitrate 5 PH 8 and Salinity 1.005

thanks

ali x

anyone please??? before i get scaper and bleach out????????? lol

Manual removal and increase of water movement is all I can suggest. Some people find Seachem Excel directed at remaining areas of bga after cleaning helps, but I don't know if there are any issues using it in brackish. I battled BGA for years in an otherwise very healthy planted fw tank and finally accepted that a half dose of erythromycin at the first sight of it was the only thing that worked in that tank...

Your parameters are really off for an established tank. What test kits are you using?

umm thought they were ok - what should they be - using nutrafin test kits (nitrate should read 0.1)

You shouldn't be showing any nitrite at all & nitrate is usually higher, unless that algae is eating it.

ill go test again - maybe i got them wrong way round

...ok re tested (please dont shout think i may have written results wrong way round in my book) - readings are Amonia 0, PH 8, Sal 1.005, nitite 0.1, nitrate 10 - still need some advise on how to remove algae please .......

Toothbrush & siphon, unless you can take everything out & bleach it in a 50/50 bleach/water solution. Or you can safely use Oxyclean.

oxiclean??? the laundry stain remover - how much do you use? do you have to remove puffies?

You take a scoop of it & put it in a bucket of water with your decor. Soak overnight & rinse. Not in the tank!

sorry just looked it up on internet - im not usually this thick - honest!!!! - thank you very much for your help

A comment to the nitrite reading: You can get such a reading (a small one) if you've got an internal filter where the water flow is too fast. The bacteria in the filter don't get enough time to process all the water that runs through the filter, and you get a small nitrite reading in the tank. It annoys me that web shops write about how much water flows through the filter to tell how good it is, in stead of writing how much filter media it's room for. It's the filter media that's the important part (more filter media gives room for more of the bacteria removing nitrite and ammonia), not the speed of the water. If you have an internal filter where you can turn down the water flow a bit, try that, and see if you can get the nitrites down to zero.

BGA can be a big pain in puffer tanks. It seems like it likes the kind of food we give our puffers. I have 28 tanks, and only get BGA in the puffer tanks. And there I just can't get rid of it, however good water change routines and other tricks to remove the BGA. This article about BGAis worth reading, and can explain some of the problem.

ive got an external filter - will that make a difference?will go read article thanks x

I have used over the counter Hydrogen peroxide to treat it too. Same theory as the Oxyclean but cheaper.