The Great Black Beard Algae (BBA) Thread - how to get rid of it once and for all

Sorry about the dramatic title but I think this topic deserves something monumental as it has and continues to be a persistent pain in the neck for aquarists of all skill levels. Let’s face it, BBA is a tough algae to get rid of once it settles in. This thread is dedicated to its eradication by showing real life treatments and their effects. The hope is that we, collectively, arrive at a process that works.

This is important because there is just SO MUCH bad information out there. It’s inconsistent and all over the place. It is based on what someone heard or read but not on first hand experience.

For example, I just saw a BBA help question posed in one of the Facebook groups. Within 4 hours, there were 85 comments. People suggesting everything under the sun. Here is a sampling:

• reducing phosphates
• Ottos and amano shrimp
• Siamese Algae Eaters (SAE)
• American Flag Fish
• Hydrogen peroxide
• The One Two Punch
• Algae Fix

And I could continue the list. It’s funny and sad at the same time. Such is a Facebook group. Try to find the diamond in the rough. Not easy for anyone.

So, with this background in mind, I present to you the present state of my aquarium on the left. BBA has taken over and is now firmly entrenched on the plants, the AquaSoil, the circulation pump and even on the internal UV filter in the back. You can just make out on the lower left that it is now also growing as a lawn on the AquaSoil.

Let’s not get lost looking backwards, although some background as to how we got here is important and helpful. The tank was neglected for about two months. It’s an automated tank but the CO2 ran out and the light and fertilizer stayed the same.

Format​

This post is in the form of an article. This means that I will be able to take good discussions from posts below and update the article with them as needed. Feel free to let me know if you feel something from the article merits changing.

Background on BBA - what we know to be true​

To be continued…

 

[Pepere]

Hmmm, how to get rid of it once and for all….

I guess if you removed all of the water from your tank and didnt replace it, that could eradicate it for good….

Other than that Idont know how you could reliably keep it from coming back from time to time…

 

[Joel Armstrong]

I'm not the most experienced, but wouldn't a deep gravel vac, filter/s cleaned and large water changes do the trick?

 

[RickyV]

In my tank I always had a bunch growing on this rock wall. It wasn't until a few months ago it slowly reduced to being completely gone without my intervention. But it was probably my SAE. They have gotten massive and also ate the dwarf hair grass carpet during the same period the BBA disappeared.
Before

After

 

[Burr740]

Everything commonly said can be the cause and the cure, poor co2, too much/too little ferts/light, water quaility, dirty substrate, its a long list. Most people chime in with what has worked for them personally or parroting something they read, which has also probably worked

BBA is a result of two things: Unhappy plants and/or dirty conditions

Any plant with bba is not a healthy plant. Any leaf with bba is not a healthy leaf. Healthy leaves dont get bba (see Art's pic). The only fix is to get rid of the poor growth thats feeding the bba and then make the plant happy. There's a million reasons why a plant might be unhappy. Folks have to figure out what is making theirs unhappy

BBA on hardscape means there's too much dissolved organic waste (for lack of a better term) in the water. A lot of this comes from degrading plant leaves. Often it'll be where theres a lot of flow. This is because high flow areas come into the most contact with the highest volume of those algae nutrients in the water

Get the plants happy and keep the system clean. Thats the fix for BBA

 

[Koan]

This is because high flow areas come into the most contact with the highest volume of those algae nutrients in the water

Ok that is the most sensible mechanism for high flow BBA I have heard yet

 

[Burr740]

Ok that is the most sensible mechanism for high flow BBA I have heard yet

Yup, thats why its often on the filter outflow pipe even when it doesnt exist anywhere else in the tank. That spot has forceful direct contact with every ounce of water in the tank several times every hour

 

[Art]

@Burr740 that is the most sensible and clear answer to BBA questions that I’ve seen. Thanks.

I think you’re absolutely right. I will be checking different “treatments” being suggested out there to see the relative success or failure to make the post entertaining and informative. However, at the end of the day, it’s about happy plants and good husbandry.

 

[Yugang]

BBA is a result of two things: Unhappy plants and/or dirty conditions

I really like your summary @Burr740, and this would also be my best guess after reading a lot about it and from my own experience.

While forum threads on BBA have accumulated many hundreds of posts from experienced hobbyists, to the best of my knowledge nobody has yet presented any hypothesis that could be tested by experimentally turning BBA on and off in a tank.

I believe worth mentioning is that the popular hypothesis that BBA is caused by bad CO2 is probably not correct imo. Without having a full proof, I do have the experience that I can do a lot of bad things in my tank with CO2, without being hit by a BBA outbreak. Plants will suffer from poor CO2, but if bad plant material gets removed and the tank and filter are kept clean it is very well possible to keep BBA under control even with horrible CO2 swings.

The other part worth mentioning is that I had started a thread on another forum (don't try to find it) asking fellow hobbyists to show their completely BBA free tanks and share their secrets to success. The summary was that nobody, even not the most experienced, seems to know how to completely eradicate BBA from their tanks and keep it like that without interventions by ourselves or perhaps fishy BBA connoisseurs.

 

[Burr740]

Agree with everything you said @Yugang

CO2 became the big bad bba villain because some of the biggest names in the hobby spent the better part of a decade screaming it cant be nutrients because theres no such thing as too much ferts! Its amazing the hoops Ive seen folks jump through to avoid blaming nutrients, whether its too much or too little

And of course every tank is going to have some bba . Plant leaves go bad no matter what and bba is what happens when they do. The bad leaves themselves get it, and they also leech what it feeds on into the water. Thats why regularly pruning away bad leaves and old growth in poor shape is so important

What about those few random loose leaves floating on the surface? Dont let them hang around and rot, get them out of the system. It wouldnt be a good idea to have dead fish laying around everywhere, would it? Same principal