Black beard algae (BBA) removal
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 3:30 pm
My 3 feeter in Bangalore had an outbreak of BBA. I have different varieties of anubias in the tank, and since this is a slow growing plant, it is fairly prone to algae. I use RO water for the tank, given the very sad state of water quality in the city. Inspite of that, the BBA kept growing, till I decided to do something about it. So here is what I did...
1) Removed all plants and rocks out of the tank. Siphoned out 30% of the water with all the debris etc.
2) Prepared a 10% solution of bleach. Its fairly simple - take household bleach, a 10ml syringe and proceed to pour the bleach in a mug. Pour water in the mug and fill it up. You have a solution which smells of chlorine, but the smell is not very strong.
3) Took each plant and dipped all the leaves in the mug for exactly 2 minutes (stopwatch on mobile). Took the plants out and washed them in a bucket of plain water.
4)Next , proceeded to wash each plant in running water till I could not smell any chlorine.
5) Prepared a strong bleach solution in a bucket of water. This was a solution which smelt strongly of chlorine. Dipped the driftwood and stones in this solution for 10 minutes or so, used a toothbrush to clean the driftwood branch by branch.
6) Washed all driftwood and stones with running water. The BBA had melted away, no sign at all. Its like sterilisation.
Put everything back in the tank. A week has gone by, the anubias leaves are looking happy, green and cheerful. The driftwood is also appearing clean.
Mosses get very badly affected whenever there is a BBA outbreak, but thankfully the java moss in the tank is also looking clean. Here are some pictures.
1) Removed all plants and rocks out of the tank. Siphoned out 30% of the water with all the debris etc.
2) Prepared a 10% solution of bleach. Its fairly simple - take household bleach, a 10ml syringe and proceed to pour the bleach in a mug. Pour water in the mug and fill it up. You have a solution which smells of chlorine, but the smell is not very strong.
3) Took each plant and dipped all the leaves in the mug for exactly 2 minutes (stopwatch on mobile). Took the plants out and washed them in a bucket of plain water.
4)Next , proceeded to wash each plant in running water till I could not smell any chlorine.
5) Prepared a strong bleach solution in a bucket of water. This was a solution which smelt strongly of chlorine. Dipped the driftwood and stones in this solution for 10 minutes or so, used a toothbrush to clean the driftwood branch by branch.
6) Washed all driftwood and stones with running water. The BBA had melted away, no sign at all. Its like sterilisation.
Put everything back in the tank. A week has gone by, the anubias leaves are looking happy, green and cheerful. The driftwood is also appearing clean.
Mosses get very badly affected whenever there is a BBA outbreak, but thankfully the java moss in the tank is also looking clean. Here are some pictures.
