In my planted tank, or my first attempt on a planted tank, I got an infection of BGA (blue-green algea) or cyanobacteria. I used aquabotanic.com's boards to ask questions and learn a bit about this bactria. But as of a few minutes ago i read an article on it right here in the articles section which would have been very useful if i had read it before my vacation. What i wanted to do was balance out my nutrients and such so i wouldnt have this BGA problem again. So I found out that my C02 wasnt doing much of anything so i resealed it since it had a leak and made a new batch of C02 mix using cold/warm water, since i was using hot water which was making the yeast inactive or useless. So my new batch was actually producing C02 at a nice steady rate and i removed the biowheel to see if it would help(This was my first bad mistake). Then after i did a water change and the C02 was producing i rinsed off the filter pad and put in half a tablet of Maracyn, a medication that kills off BGA. Then i fed the 6 Glowlights a frozen cube of mosquito larvea. And left on my vacation for 5 days. What i didnt read that was VERY important was that when the BGA dies off it floats and starts to decay and thus produce Ammonia,N02, and N03.
So i left for my vacation thinking i would come back to healthy fish and a tank without a BGA. Well as of my return i came back to find my 10g planted with no BGA or live fish. I was shocked when i saw them all dead, a few floating and a few laying on the bottom all with no signs of life. The tank was very still current wise so as i opened the filter it was clogged up and overflowing. So i rinsed the pad which was appartenly coated in slime which i just found out was BGA after reading Robert H's article on BGA. So my mistakes were, removing the biowheel and adding Maracyn during my vacation. So i killed my fish and if i just did a little more reading and found Roberts article i could of avoided this all. So I guess i learned the hard way on treating a tank of BGA. If anyone else has a problem with BGA dont follow my mistakes and read Roberts article on Blue- Green Algea here : http://myfishtank.net/articles/bga.php
- depthC
So i left for my vacation thinking i would come back to healthy fish and a tank without a BGA. Well as of my return i came back to find my 10g planted with no BGA or live fish. I was shocked when i saw them all dead, a few floating and a few laying on the bottom all with no signs of life. The tank was very still current wise so as i opened the filter it was clogged up and overflowing. So i rinsed the pad which was appartenly coated in slime which i just found out was BGA after reading Robert H's article on BGA. So my mistakes were, removing the biowheel and adding Maracyn during my vacation. So i killed my fish and if i just did a little more reading and found Roberts article i could of avoided this all. So I guess i learned the hard way on treating a tank of BGA. If anyone else has a problem with BGA dont follow my mistakes and read Roberts article on Blue- Green Algea here : http://myfishtank.net/articles/bga.php
- depthC
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