is the slimy thingy looks like soaked sushi seaweed?, if yes, I am 90% sure you have bga. Can you check your ph?, generally bad out break of bga will cause ph to rise.

BGA is actually one type of bacteria that thrives on breaking down waste material, that is why, when the water flow is slow and the waste build up is high, you get them easily. BGA's career started off as free floating bacteria that creates surface film (P1), on it's second stage of life, it becomes aquatic (P2) and start chowing down the waste material. Adding N will prevent P1 to P2 conversion, once you reach P2, it is a different war.

It is actually poisonous, in bright light, they will photosynthesis, and it's cousin is spirulina

I am not too sure how serious is your outbreak, but the following steps have been used in super ultra outbreak, e.g. 80% infected
What you can do is follows

Phase 1
a. clearout as much as those slimy stuff as possible
b. clearout all the waste material

Phase 2. add bacter ball, because the bacteria strain in bacterball do what bga does best but more effective. it will out perform the bga
a. add 1 bacterball per 10G as close as possible to the bga
b. results varies from 1 day to 1 week
concern - none, and tried before in nanotank

Phase 2a (results is either immediate or within days) bga hates acidic water
a. fight with Ph, , either you increase co2 (which will help plants to photosyntesis more to eat up more nutrients and makes water more acidic)
b. add vinegar, it works for my nanotank, at ph 4.5 the bga dissapeared overnight (do it at own risk)
concern - low ph also kills good bacteria

Phase 2b (fight with darkness) bga love light but sensitive to darkness
a. wrap the tank with garbage bag, not even 1 cm of hole is permitted 100% darkness is needed
b. shut off all light
c. leave it for 3 days
concern - light sensitive plants don't like it

Phase 2c (fight with chemicals)
a. get myracyn (so far I have yet to find any shop selling this)
b. get erythromycin (this is a human antibiotic which some doctors or pharmacist might sell to you) half tablet per 10G twice daily, for 5 days
concern - you might create super bga, tried before, it works like magic but ended up replanting after 9 months

Phase 3c - remove the antibiotic
a. add carbon and
b. do a 30% water change twice within 1 week
c. re-cycle the tank (means add new friendly bacteria) - nutrafin have an excellent product for this

Phase 3d (if the tank got taken over)
a. replant

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Added on August 15, 2010, 5:29 pmrecmd you try seachem excel (2x the recmd dose - but some plants can't handle it) and seachem pottasium (K), i think is bba - seachem excel destroys bba

This post has been edited by Monsterjin: Aug 15 2010, 05:32 PM

Hi all, here is my one & only 2.5ft tank. I think it's > 5 yrs old already. It's bit messy. Any suggestions for improvements?

picture of my diy project...
lousy phone camera...

I wonder y my pic did not come out ... reposting ...



Attached thumbnail(s)

hey as long as it works!

@moe,
1st trim. i usually trim as low as i can.. maybe leave just 1 inch + left? but its risky if you don't know what you're doing as I dont replant..

I usually let the bottom stem part to stay healthy as well so it bushes itself automatically without the need to replant.

as you know once you trim, one stem turns into 2 /3 stemmed plants. the second trim, just trim those 2/3 nodes, then youll end up with 6+ stems , all from a single stalk! (means youre trimming upwards per trim.)

I hope you understood as I also have a hard time explaining on how to trim

Drew

Hmmm, finally but the quality is not so good as it seems I couldn't upload a larger/better quality image...

Guys,

I'm looking into starting an aquarium over here. As I don't have a car I cannot drive back and forth an lfs all the time.

Is there a good enough lfs in 1) Bukit Bintang area and 2) at MidValley?

What's the best area to buy a tank? I once walked around in Pudu area; and saw so many stores selling tanks (and fish).

I actually want a 1mtr tank (guess that's around 3 to 4 feet right?), but not the conventional size to keep it manageable.

I was actually looking for a tank for tiny fish (groupfish) only. The small tetra's sound nice for this (the really small version, not the regular 2cm or more....

Is it possible to buy a tank with the following size: 100cmx30cmx30cm (so long but not that high and deep), or perhaps even 100x25x25?

Any input would be great!

Ilya

p.s. this was my old tank back in the Netherlands



This post has been edited by DikkieD: Aug 15 2010, 10:08 PM

Hi, I'm a newbie with planted tanks.

One question, will shrimps mess up the HC? or eat them?

Also any idea what's the local common name for HC?

Thanks!!

@pak, more picture pls !

@ otobot, ghost shrimp will eat anything. ghost shrimp is those rm1 one pack shrimp.

what about cherry shrimps? Will they mess up the HC as well?

nope. cherry is "enviroment friendly" !

Thanks monster jin..

this is what i did... please follow through and do let me know if i did anythin wrong or, if there's a better way to tackle certain issue.

first of all.. i tested the PH... as was hoping and keeping my fingers crossed, the PH wasn't basic(base/alkaline).. it was actually 6.0.. that was slightly acidic..

at this point i had 2 options to slighly increase the PH(to about 6.5-6.8). 1) i cud reduce the CO2. 2) i cud use the cabonate hardness buffer.

sisnce my CO2 level was only about 2bps, i figured reducing it further my deprive my plants. coz 4 feet tank and quite heavily planted. so, i used the cobonate hardness buffer half a spoon to increase the PH to 0.5.. u think i did ok? let me know if i did anything wrong.. only after doin this recall somethin from the back of my mind that somebody in here said it's not good to use the carbonate buffer..

then, since the PH wasn't high, i thot i cud get some algae eating specimens to tackle this prob.. i bought 5 ottos, 5 snails and, 15 RCS..

do u think my choice of action may improve the dillema i'm facing? please advice..



thanks drew.. i perfectly understnd what u're saying..

but, what u mean by this 'I usually let the bottom stem part to stay healthy as well' ? is there aspecific way to keep the bottom stem healthy..

coz from my observation, the bottom part kinda look a lil unhealthy with decaying leaves.. please do advice..



thanks guys for all the support and the time to answer my miserable queries..


p.s. once i get this algae problem sorted i'll be trimming my rotalas.. so, i'll have quite a bit of rotalas in hand to give away.. mosterjin, u said u'd want some right?

yes they (the leaves ) will decay. but as long as it is still rooted down and not melting then it's good enough.

I've seen some peoples rotala bottom part of botak stems actually melting off.

Drew

@fongzai92.. no other picture la...

I would like some too if you have loads to give away. Think michanz said he would like some too!!

I suspect your problem is only 1 spot but not the whole tank, right?

Don't cut your Co2, at 6 is OK, bga will only make things more alkali, the way you should handle this is as follows,

a. try to maintain the photosynthesis level as consistent as possible, you can have more but not less

b. work on elements that the algae don't like (bga hates acidity)

c. work on removing the algae

If your condition is only on 1 sellected area, item "a" is very important, and if it is only 1 small area, I suggest that you do some sacrifices, because my method is meant for major outbreak (just like carpet bombing), e.g. you are on a streak of busy projects and the tank was left unattended or etc.

well, I am out of clorox at the moment, otherwise I am OK, btw, there is another method which I have never used before because it is expensive, use the ADA anti bacterial solution (will check out the name later), anyone have rm 90 to experiment?

nice nice... got swirl some more... fuhyoo...

hahaaa.. cut cost la...

Sure optune... i will have alot to share.. will let ya'll know when i'm trimming.. michanz, u want some too right?


Ok bro.. thanks alot.. will work on what u suggested.. no algae on the rotalas la. they seem pretty fine. i don't think u have to soak it in clorox. btw it's only a few bucks for a bottle wat. heheh. forget ADA..over-priced la bro..hehe


yea pak, great jod on the lily pipe... looks pretty good in the picture.. NICE

hahaaa.. thanks...