BBA clean up

**Strider199** · 12-22-2012, 07:56 PM

In my 55 gallon tetra tank I have had some BBA growing on my driftwood and filter discharge pieces. Well today was the day I decided to declare war on the BBA. I first tried, removing the driftwood from the tank and using a toothbrush(never used), I scrubbed at the BBA in the ink under running water. That algae just laughed at me, nothing came off. So I decided to bowl my driftwood again to see what would become of the BBA. Did you know it turns from brown to green when immersed in boiling water?
After boiling the driftwood for 30 minutes I took it to the sink and with that same toothbrush I was able scrub the BAB off the driftwood. I then put the driftwood in a bucket of tap water dosed with PRIME. The plastic pieces cleaned up a lot easier under the sink water. I just used my finger nail to scrap it off, putting the plastic filter pieces in the bucket treated with PRIME before re-attaching them to the filter. Man I hate Black Brush Algae.

**jeffs99dime** · 12-22-2012, 08:10 PM

Get some Nerite snails. They will devour all types of algae including black brush.

**madagascariensis** · 12-22-2012, 08:13 PM

really? in my experience, nerites are hell on algae that covers a surface like diatoms, green or green spot algae but they don't touch filamentous or branching algae like hair algae because their anatomy just simply is for grazing off the surface. Depending on what else you have in that tank you could try a siamese algae eater, but I would try fiddling with your lights/fertilizer/CO2 levels first. anyways, good luck on your eradication campaign.

**jeffs99dime** · 12-22-2012, 08:23 PM

Well, I had green thread and the the Red Spotted Nerites in my Tang. tank got rid of all of it. Maybe I'm crazy though.

**Strider199** · 12-22-2012, 09:08 PM

If I'm not into a fish species (like the Siamese algae eater), I just wont have it in my tank. I hate snails, maybe I didn't have the kind that others love but I'm not into snails.

That said, thanks for the suggestions but they are not for me. I'm doing it the hard way I guess but keeping with my preferred stock.

**bethyMT** · 12-23-2012, 02:23 AM

Hydrogen peroxide. Something to look up. I used it with my ornaments which were covered with BBA, and it worked like a charm. There's different ways of going about it though, and I don't know which is best.

Edit: I just soaked the ornaments in it for a bit. You could probably just splash it on too.

**Lady Hobbs** · 12-23-2012, 10:11 AM

I have put my wood in a mild bleach/water solution to kill the algae on it. If's already water soaked so doesn't absorb it and I only leave the wood in the solution for a very short time. Maybe 2-3 minutes and then I drop it in a bucket of water with dechlorinatored water and let it soak in there for awhile. It can get in all the little creeves that way and not leave any algae spores to survive.

Several plants can tolerate a mild bleach solution as well. Some don't. (Very mild bleach/water solution.) Like 1 part bleach to 19 water.

**Strider199** · 12-26-2012, 11:32 PM

I was thinking of using bleach but for some reason I thought BBA would survive it so I went to the boil and scrub option. If I had to do it again, I would choose the bleach solution. My hands are still stiff from the scrubbing it took.
The driftwood looks 100% better though so I'm happy with the results. We will see for how long.......... Darn spores.