# Why won't it go away...



## soyadude (Dec 17, 2005)

I'm having a pretty massive BGA problem with my outdoor tank. Everyday, i'd be plunging my hand in and getting the stuff off my plants and terrifying my platies, mollies, SAEs and clown loaches I have in there. That tank is a little overstocked. I put the loaches in to eat up the snails (had a massive snail problem). They've eaten the snails to extinction and now instead of hair-like algae, I get BGA instead. It used to be my nursery tank for my tuxedo platy and black molly fry, but they've all grown up and now it's overstocked. I'm setting up a 90 gallon tank to remedy this, but you can read about the disaster in the general discussoin forum. That tank burst and I just fixed it today with epoxy and silicone.

Anyway, the bluish green stuff is covering EVERYTHING. There was a thick layer on the glass this morning. I've read Tom Barr's post in another forum regarding the 3-day blackout treatment, a water change and dosing of KNO3 to rid the tank of BGA. Not exactly a chem whiz, I had to do a little homework to find out that KNO3 is potassium nitrate. First of all, where do I get my hand on KNO3. Second of all, isn't nitrates a little less toxic to fish than ammonia? Will my fish die?


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## ja__ (Oct 14, 2005)

try sprinkle the bga with tablesalt it usually works


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## soyadude (Dec 17, 2005)

THe BGA is all over my tank though, wouldn't it mean a really large sprinkling of salt? I'll try a little bit in the morning. Mollies might like it, dunno about the clown loaches though..


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## JaySilverman (Jun 19, 2005)

lol the salt wont do anything. And if you don't fix the imbalance in the tank it will just grow right back. Have you tested the water for No3, Po4? Are you adding co2?

You say its an out door tank, these are known for being very difficult to maintain algae free. Mostly because of the sun and temp swings.


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## soyadude (Dec 17, 2005)

Don't have a nitrate or phosphate test kit . But i'm guessing nitrates took a plunge lately (which probably triggered the outbreak) probably attributed to the addition of filter media lately, more bacteria to break it down. I just mixed a fresh batch of yeast and sugar this evening. I think the yeast was all killed when I ditched the alchoholic stuff which means it could've gone without Co2 for a couple of days now. Plants usually grow pretty well in that tank, espescially the vallis which has all but conquered the tank. But the outbreak of BGA is choking the life out of everything, the bolbitis, anubias, wisteria and vallis. Plants are starting to turn brown even though i'm clearing the algae close to everyday. There's a fair bit of sediment on substrate though. The tank is getting crowded as I mentioned. I'm doing water changes but it doesn't seem to be helping.


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## ja__ (Oct 14, 2005)

JaySilverman said:


> lol the salt wont do anything. And if you don't fix the imbalance in the tank it will just grow right back. Have you tested the water for No3, Po4? Are you adding co2?
> 
> You say its an out door tank, these are known for being very difficult to maintain algae free. Mostly because of the sun and temp swings.


worked for me


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## DonaldmBoyer (Aug 18, 2005)

Yeah...outdoor tanks....it is impossible to get rid of algae...their spores are everywhere, in the air mostly!


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Obviously, the snails were keeping the BGA under control. Kick out the loach and bring back the snails!


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## soyadude (Dec 17, 2005)

The snails were eating the plants though. At least the flat shelled ones were. The round shelled ones only eat rotten leaves. Apparently the rounded ones were more tasty to the loaches..

There are the nasty ones:









These are the nice ones:










The algae went out of control after the snails were gone...

As soon as the 90G has finished cycling, i'll bring the loaches over and reintroduce snails in the tank outside.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

The first pic is a Ramshorn snail the second pic is of Pond snails. I've never had a problem with either one eating healthy plants. However they will eat dieing plants and plant debris, which is a good thing.


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## Chya (Dec 25, 2005)

Evil snails. I have had about every type of snail eat plants at one time or another, some will eat plants all the time, some only if they run out of other food.

Even mts (malasian trumpet snails). One time I came back from vacation and all the fish in a tank wiped out (still don't quite know what happened). Tank was empty except for plants, shrimp and mts, left it empty for a bit till I got paid again, and all of the sudden snails are covering all the plants. In their norm they are always buried in the sand and never on the plants. It was quite astonishing to see how many I really had, because you only see 30 or so at a time normally.

Figured it was a food thing, so fed them fish food as if there were still fish. Didn't help. Soon as I got fish again, bam they are back in the gravel. Hypothesis: eat fish poop?


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