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…

 

[snowballs99]

Just in case somebody might think I am making things up…

Y'all know our toilet water gets recycled right.

 

[JayP]

Y'all know our toilet water gets recycled right.

By sitting around the house in buckets? ewww

 

[Pepere]

Y'all know our toilet water gets recycled right.

Yes, all of the water in the world gets recycled.. there is no new water…

But I would much rather collect rain water after it evaporated from my toilet than storing it in a bucket for solids to settle out and decanting off the water…


The process of recycling matters…

 

[CincyScaper]

Any time you don't do water changes, you'll see your TDS creep up. Fish waste, dying and rotting plants, cellular waste and excrement; all a part of a cycle of life. In nature, moving water, rain, and other factors help keep it maintained, but for some reason hobbyists think they can not do water changes and nothing bad will happen... Like, if you have living things in your tanks, they're going to alter the water chemistry over time, no matter how hard we wish they didn't!

Anyway, I use TDS as a general baseline. Measuring it too strictly is pointless, TDS is the total of all dissolved solids, good and bad, and they fluctuate and climb for hundreds of different reasons. But there are often correlations (not guarantees, just positive correlations) between TDS/DOC and BBA, in many cases. For me, larger water changes, cleaner/softer water remineralizing, and solid CO2 has made it so I haven't seen BBA in well over a year in my tanks.

I have been following the tds of my tank for a while, I typically remineralize it to about 80 after 80% water change every week and it slowly creeps Upto 120 by the end of the week and then I repeat the water change.

 

[Koan]

discovered in recent science about water
7:42
it has a kind of
7:46
memory

[secret method used by the ancients for finding shrimps in an aquascape ]

 

[Sulla]

As a middle Eastern man I'm very happy to learn that hummos is the basis of life. I approve

Just in case somebody might think I am making things up…

so what about the water
7:29
well water has a number of very unique
7:32
properties
7:35
one of which is has been as has been
7:38
discovered in recent science about water
7:42
it has a kind of
7:46
memory
7:48
the same sort of memory that our
7:50
computer has
7:55
rather than typing in data
7:58
the animals living in the water
8:02
are
8:04
typing into the water
8:07
putting into the water
8:09
their
8:10
data
8:12
their
8:13
electromagnetic pulses
8:18
their
8:19
not behaviors but their chemistry
8:24
in such a way as to
8:26
create
8:28
in the water
8:29
of the water
8:31
an environment that is in perfect
8:35
alliance and perfect harmony
8:38
with the fish and the plants
8:42
that are living in it
8:44
so the water literally takes on the life
8:50
of the animals living in the water and
8:54
in so doing
8:56
brings itself into greater and greater
8:59
harmony
9:00
with those plants

 

[Yugang]

I really liked @Burr740 insight on BBA

At the moment I have no BBA at all, while I usually would have a bit on my hardscape. Suspect, but would be nice to have confirmation, that my two new pleco's gave me a nice surpise. SAE were mentioned in @Art initial post, but any experience with pleco's?

 

[BranchScape]

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.

I generally agree with the logic here but want to flag DOC can exist even with great water changes by virtue of the wood in a tank.

I only get BBA on the softer pieces of spider wood in high flow areas, which leads me to believe the wood itself is feeding it. I don't see any BBA on the plants or rocks. I recently ran out of CO₂, and the BBA subsequently exploded on the select wood sections after the significant CO₂ swing. I don't think the swing was the root cause, but it certainly seems to have accelerated the issue.

As for maintenance, I do 70%+ weekly water changes, and the substrate is just UNS Kona, so I gravel vac aggressively as well. That's why I suspect the wood is the primary source of the DOCs feeding the algae. Under normal conditions, I can usually keep it minimal and localized to a few areas of the soft wood, and sometimes eliminate it entirely through maintenance and scrubbing those wood areas clean. However, when the CO₂ dropped, it spread quickly. My assumption is that the plants became stressed, reducing nutrient uptake and allowing the algae to gain a foothold more easily.

TDS ranges from 80-130 in this tank. the worst I have ever seen is 150. My tap TDS is about 60.

 

[JayP]

I have such a soft spot for innocent older people,

Thank you.

 

[snowballs99]

Yes, all of the water in the world gets recycled.. there is no new water…

But I would much rather collect rain water after it evaporated from my toilet than storing it in a bucket for solids to settle out and decanting off the water…


The process of recycling matters…

I was trying to say our water has memory of you taking a #2 in it.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

I was trying to say our water has memory of you taking a #2 in it.

Father fish would tell you not to flush #2 toilet water, it's nature's perfect aquarium fertilizer. Just let it sit in a bucket for 2 weeks (because there's nothing aesthetically wrong with that in our homes) and dump it into your tank for plant growth!

 

[Pepere]

I was trying to say our water has memory of you taking a #2 in it.

Apparently, Father Fish believes water going through treatment facilities, filtration, aeration, having chemicals such as chlorine and ammonia, flouride, ph stabilizers etc and then sent through distribution pipes wiles all good memories and instills bad memories.

 

[SmartAlec13]

Sorry to divert back to BBA for a bit, but my new tank has been getting a bit of BBA .

• It's a new scape, though I did use plants and some substrate materials (pea gravel in filter bags for volume) from my previous setup, along with the same equipment like filter, diffuser, etc
• A few of the plants did have very minor BBA when I planted them. Most of them have been trimmed and removed.

Right now it is almost all on the diffuser itself, which is an easy fix, but there are a few tufts of it starting to grow on a rock that sits almost right under the diffuser. This is also where flow is high, since the outflow lily pipe sends the water across the top, hits the wall, goes down (pushing the CO2 bubbles down as recommended usually), and that then brushes against the rock.

I am wondering if maybe its a flow issue, or my CO2 needs to be higher / longer duration? I currently run the CO2 2 hours before lights-on and 1 hour before lights off, so I think 8hrs a day.

I've been reading this thread, great stuff, but I don't think my setup would have a large buildup of DOC's seeing as its a newer rescape? It has me thinking flow is a larger factor.