# How to treat BBA in shrimp tank?



## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Tank size is 16 gallons, and is pretty heavily planted. BBA outbreak is pretty severe, along with patches of hair algae here and there.

Normally, I would add an SAE, but I'm hesitant in this case because it's a shrimp tank. I also don't want to add amano shrimps because I have good reasons to believe they prey on chili rasboras.

Any ideas?


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

solarz said:


> Tank size is 16 gallons, and is pretty heavily planted. BBA outbreak is pretty severe, along with patches of hair algae here and there.
> 
> Normally, I would add an SAE, but I'm hesitant in this case because it's a shrimp tank. I also don't want to add amano shrimps because I have good reasons to believe they prey on chili rasboras.
> 
> Any ideas?


I've found this to help when dealing with BBA; since you have shrimp some steps you may not be able to perform since you said you're hesitant with the SAE but it's worked for me every time removing 100% of the BBA.

1. Increase OR decrease your water movement (I've found BBA to grow well in very low flow tanks and very high flow tanks. 
2. Decrease amount of light via shade cloth (black door screen mesh) and/or amount of hours the lights are on.
3. Trim off any heavily infected leaves, take out any rocks, wood etc and boil it then scrub it clean.
4. Use Flourish Excel to kill any BBA on leaves you may want to keep and/or on hard to clean places like the glass (you don't want to just scrub BBA off the glass as it'll just break apart and latch onto other plants)
5. Complete black out for 4-7 days, I always check on the 4th day and if there is still no improvement or the result would be better, I'll wait the entire duration.
6. Add SAE temporarily; or permanently if you want but they are too aggressive IMO. I find it helps if you do not feed the SAE for a day or two prior to putting it in the infected tank, do not feed your tank either or feed the BARE MINIMUM just for the inhabitants to survive. You want to force the SAE to eat the BBA as quick as possible.
7. Continue to treat with Flourish Excel under any small areas the SAE might have missed.
8. Enjoy your clean new tank  

For your green thread algae try doing more frequent water changes, remove as much as you can manually, cut back on your feeding/dosing, and cut back on the amount of light you're using; there is too much extra nutrients in the water with too much light causing the algae.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

TorontoPlantMan said:


> I've found this to help when dealing with BBA; since you have shrimp some steps you may not be able to perform since you said you're hesitant with the SAE but it's worked for me every time removing 100% of the BBA.
> 
> 1. Increase OR decrease your water movement (I've found BBA to grow well in very low flow tanks and very high flow tanks.
> 2. Decrease amount of light via shade cloth (black door screen mesh) and/or amount of hours the lights are on.
> ...


Thanks!

I can't really change the water movement, as it's running a sponge filter.

I don't really want to spend money on Excel.  More importantly, I know I'm just not able to keep up with regular dosing, and I've read that irregular dosing will just lead to more algae problems. Plus, I don't like using chemicals in my tanks.

Complete blackout would be too extreme, IMO, especially since it would also affect my plants.

I have decreased the lighting period to 7 hours, hopefully it will help. If not, I may have to get an SAE after all... They're really difficult to find these days, it seems...


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

solarz said:


> Thanks!
> 
> I can't really change the water movement, as it's running a sponge filter.
> 
> ...


You can change the flow by either putting an adjustable tee valve on the sponge filter line, adding a 90 degree elbow + pvc to adjust output, or add a powerhead.

I would not consider Excel "dosing" as it's more so a CO2 reaction than anything else, there is no nutrients added when using CO2; and as I mentioned previously you only need to use it to treat small problem areas. 5-10ML will have zero effect on your shrimp tank so I really wouldn't be worried. I don't know what kinda shrimp you're keeping but I have some painted fire reds, cherries and some crystal reds that have no ill effect to me using excel or any other nutrients like micro or macro...

Decreasing your lighting period will have little to no effect IMO as algae can photosynthesize at a much lower LUX/PAR value than plants can; in turn not solving any algae issues.

I've found true SAE's at Menagerie and BA Brampton although I would never shop at a BA store again; they are not as uncommon as they seem and if you need to simply borrow one I can lend you one for the time being.

I've performed blackout's on all my tanks at one point or another and they have had no effect on the plants, unless you're keeping something very demanding like H.C, some Rotala Sp, or Eriocaulon Sp in your shrimp tanks then a blackout will be completely fine, especially if the plants already have strong root systems.

Keep in mind plants do go through "blackout" periods in the wild when other plants out shade them for competition of nutrients or when weather conditions change.


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## default (May 28, 2011)

What kind of plants are in the tank?

I found using hydrogen peroxide is safe for shrimp, but can be a little hard on mosses.
I spot treated a 29 long shrimp tank awhile ago, worked pretty well with no visible negative effects, only thing was the mini pellias in the tank were killed with the bba!

Using h2o2 would take 2-3 applications, but works. It's also much cheaper than excel, I use both, but see better results with h2o2. I used food grade then diluted it, but regular 3% works fine out of the bottle. Water changes are optional, as h2o2 quickly breaks down into h2o and o2 - your shrimps will go nuts during treatments (high from all the extra o2?!) and they eat the dead bba pretty quickly after as well. Make sure your filter is off, perhaps take the sponge out and have it in a bucket during the treatment (about half an hour), h2o2 will kill the bacteria in it if there's contact. Just make sure you fix the root cause, I find it's harder to do in a shrimp tank, so just cutting down on the lights is probably your only option.

Also, be careful with blackouts, works well with some algaes and bga, but it won't stop bba most of the time.if your outbreak is bad, chances are you'll starve your plants first. I've seen bba survive weeks with no light, sure it weakens them, but your plants will take the hit as well.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

default said:


> What kind of plants are in the tank?
> 
> I found using hydrogen peroxide is safe for shrimp, but can be a little hard on mosses.
> I spot treated a 29 long shrimp tank awhile ago, worked pretty well with no visible negative effects, only thing was the mini pellias in the tank were killed with the bba!
> ...


I have hemianthus micranthemoids in the tank.

How would you use h2o2? Do you just dump it in the tank?


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## default (May 28, 2011)

solarz said:


> I have hemianthus micranthemoids in the tank.
> 
> How would you use h2o2? Do you just dump it in the tank?


Oh you'll be fine.

Get a syringe or pipette and start spot treating. If you want to plant it safe, treat portions of the tank at a time instead of the whole tank. You can do 1ml, 2ml, or 3ml per gallon of water safety. I usually do 1.5ml - 2ml of h2o2.


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## penpal (Feb 20, 2009)

I've been using h2o2 to kill BBA, clado in my tanks some with shrimps in them. SAE's dont eat BBA (I've tried, neither do nerite snails)

I think bba is caused by high organics rather then a lack of co2, I've had tanks with no co2 and high light and gotten no BBA, I've also ran co2 24/7 to the point of suffocating the fish yet the tank was infested with BBA. I've noticed now that once my filter gets dirty and full of crap I start seeing BBA.

Of course if ur tank is overstock that doesn't help either.


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