How do you get rid of black brush algae? I am really getting tired of looking at my tank, it looks like a mess. My anubias are covered in it, so i guess its time to throw them away. They are 20" long and used to look very nice, but not anymore. So how do i get rid of the algae? can i bleach the tank?What do i do about the fish? if i move them to any other tanks, im afraid they may spread the algae if any of it is in their digestive tracts. So i dunno what to do, and it looks like it might be spreading in another one of my tanks. so what can i do to get rid of it?
getting rid of BBA
- Thread starter Fishyfan
- Start date
I don't even know if bleach will kill that stuff I had to wipe my whole tank clean to kill it off GL man
I gave in and switched to saltwater which seemed to kill it rather quickly 
But I am back to fresh after my trip to the dark side of fish keeping
But I am back to fresh after my trip to the dark side of fish keeping
Pleco's don't help very much with Algae, they do when they are really small but as they grow all they do is poop, poop, and more poop. I have one in my oscar tank and he messes up that tank bad. You probably are going to have to take everything out and clean it with bleach, and make sure you rinse it very, very, very well before adding your fish back to the tank. I have not dealt with this type of Algae before but I get the green stuff in my other oscar tank because it sits by a window, but i leave the lights off all the time now and the window shades pulled and I have not had a problem with it so far.
do you dose any fertilizers? also what is you lighting? flourish exel has been known to kill this stuff>>
There are a couple things you can do without breaking down the tank. You can do spot treatments with Flurish Excel or H202. Both will kill it and if and when it appears again nuke it quick before it gets bad. I have used both of these in my planted tank with no problems but the Excel can get expensive. Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) works just fine and if you want to try this then lets start here...
#1 you need a medicine syringe and a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide.
#2 Turn of all filtration and water movement.
#3 Suck up a syringe full of H202 and spot treat the bad areas. You should be able to use about 1ml per gallon of tank water without any problems. This should make the BBA start to bubble. After a day or 2 of treatments it should start to turn red/purple and start to die off. After you do a treatment wait about 5 minutes before turning pumps and filters back on.
#4 Wouldn't hurt to throw in a few small water changes while this treatment is going on.
#5 when BBA shows it ugly head hit it with a shot of H202 as soon as you see it and you can keep it at bay.
#1 you need a medicine syringe and a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide.
#2 Turn of all filtration and water movement.
#3 Suck up a syringe full of H202 and spot treat the bad areas. You should be able to use about 1ml per gallon of tank water without any problems. This should make the BBA start to bubble. After a day or 2 of treatments it should start to turn red/purple and start to die off. After you do a treatment wait about 5 minutes before turning pumps and filters back on.
#4 Wouldn't hurt to throw in a few small water changes while this treatment is going on.
#5 when BBA shows it ugly head hit it with a shot of H202 as soon as you see it and you can keep it at bay.
H2O2 is a quick temp fix. it WILL come back and it comes back angry. i did it to my one tank several times and its good for a few months but soon comes back.
TO solve it for good go get a bottle of Flourish Excel and overdose with it. it says use 1 cap per 10 galls on for first treatment them every couple of days add one cap for 50 gallons. well do the 1 per 10 for like 3-4 days and watch it go bye bye.
TO solve it for good go get a bottle of Flourish Excel and overdose with it. it says use 1 cap per 10 galls on for first treatment them every couple of days add one cap for 50 gallons. well do the 1 per 10 for like 3-4 days and watch it go bye bye.
What is the longest (physically) you have seen BBA. About 10 yrs ago I was at a customers that had a 30g tank with a couple of small fish and this beautiful flowing carpet-like plant about an inch long on most everything. They had no idea what it was, just said the tank had been there for a long time (yrs). I thought it might be BBA but never saw it that long before. Our local Petland just got over a severe case of it in all their tanks. They took everything out of each tank one at a time and scrubbed everything, water is run thru a UV to kill anything floating.