# BBA...brown hair algae.



## gonathan85 (Sep 12, 2009)

I was previously fighting it by spot treating with Flourish Excel, but it has moved on to many other plants including the moss (ugh!). 

How do I get rid of this stuff overall?!


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## gonathan85 (Sep 12, 2009)

Edit: Apparently I am dealing with black/brown hair algae.


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## armedbiggiet (May 6, 2006)

What is your Hrs on lights?
PH?
What is your feeding like?
Water change?


Any how... Starting to remove/trimming where it cover with hair algae. Once you limited it down than start doing water change more than you normally do and lower your Hrs. on lights. I do daily cause the water are good in Seattle.


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## Lord Nibbler (Dec 22, 2005)

My 37 gallon has mysteriously developed a BBA infestation as well. 

What normally causes outbreaks?
Usually running something like nitrates 15-20, phosphate 1, PH 7.6. Nothing has changed that I can tell. Normally I only have green spot problems.
A blackout for a couple of days didn't seem to work too well on it like it has for green water/green dust problems I've had at other times.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Causes:
1. not enough CO2
2. too much light
3. inconsistent fertilizing


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## tbonedeluxe (Jun 29, 2009)

Have a look at this.
http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Do your plants grow well?

pH 7.6 sounds like a non-CO2 tank. If that's the case brace for a long fight with algae because everything in a non-CO2 tank is much slower.

If you have a fat tank full of Nitrate and Phosphate (15-20 and 1 in your case, if you can believe the test kits) any algae outbreak will kill you because there is so much food in the water for the algae to use. So if anything goes wrong the algae grows like crazy.

With 15-20N and 1P you must not have any algae, not even spot. Something has been off in your tank for some time.

Amano's tanks have 0 N and 0 P. Of course that is not really the case but the point is - he keeps the N and P very low. So if there is an algae outbreak the algae can't grow and spread that fast. Plants don't care if there is 15N or 1.5 N or 1 P or 0.1P as long as they are available. 

--Nikolay


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## Lord Nibbler (Dec 22, 2005)

Has anyone had luck treating it with a dip in a high Excel solution? I replanted my red ludwigia, and although I have enough for it to grow back, a lot of the bigger stems are infested with BBA. Most of the aquarium is planted with jungle vals though and I've had bad experiences with them melting even from low amounts of Excel.


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## Lord Nibbler (Dec 22, 2005)

Well, that didn't work, I just burned the really infested stuff along with the BBA.


So what next? I pruned a lot but the stuff is tenacious. Would a black-out for a few days help, or does this stuff come back from that? Change a ton of water until I get down to very low nutrients? I can't do a big Excel dose, the vals are what are infested the most and I have a lot of fish in that aquarium as well.


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