BBA Anubias Bleach Dip

[HarleyK]

Howdy,

My Anubias have gotten colonized with BBA, and neither flourish excel nor a new light were able to change that. Therefore, I tried the bleach dip. I used 0.4 L of 7.5% concentrated bleach in a bucket with 17 L tapwater, dunked the plants for exactly 120 seconds, then submerged them in a tub with double dosed prime for 10-15 minutes. Some old leaves took offense to that, as you can see, and I simply removed them before I transferred the plans back into my tank. The other leaves are looking good, and the BBA has turned whitish. I'll keep you posted how the Anubias do over the next few weeks, wish me luck.

HarleyK

 

[M1A1]

Flourish Excel does work on BBA but you have to 'overdose' it quite a bit to see any results, especially if you're dosing the whole tank and not doing spot treatments or dips. The recommended dose for after a water change (5mL per 10gal) has to be done every day for a couple weeks to see any impact.

 

[HarleyK]

@M1A1 good insights, thank you, are you speaking from experience? Please share

I have a dosing pump in the basement and am thinking I might hook it up to that tank…

 

[M1A1]

Yes, I had to battle BBA in 50 and 75 gallon display tanks after some CO2 disruption while I was on vacation. I got the CO2 fixed when I got home but manual removal and the recommended doses of Excel did not have any impact after a couple weeks. So I gradually increased the dose 5mL total per week on each tank until I started seeing the BBA turn brown/red and die off. I used a graduated cylinder to measure the Excel and ended up at around 45mL for the 75g, which has about 15g in the sump, and 30mL on the 50g, which has about 15g in the sump. There's definitely less actual water volume than 90 and 65 gallons total for each system considering all the substrate & rocks in each display.

Also, once you start to see that initial color change on the BBA, you can reduce the dose a bunch or even stop altogether. I did not stop or reduce the dose right away on the 50g and it ended up melting some plants (crypts and h.c. cuba) along with the BBA. I did stop the dosing on the 75g and had no melt with any plants. It did take a little longer for all of the BBA to actually die in the 75g and I still have some tiny patches on old anubias leaves but that's it.

 

[HarleyK]

@M1A1 thanks for sharing your success story. Very helpful

 

[tiger15]

Yes, I had to battle BBA in 50 and 75 gallon display tanks after some CO2 disruption while I was on vacation. I got the CO2 fixed when I got home but manual removal and the recommended doses of Excel did not have any impact after a couple weeks. So I gradually increased the dose 5mL total per week on each tank until I started seeing the BBA turn brown/red and die off. I used a graduated cylinder to measure the Excel and ended up at around 45mL for the 75g, which has about 15g in the sump, and 30mL on the 50g, which has about 15g in the sump. There's definitely less actual water volume than 90 and 65 gallons total for each system considering all the substrate & rocks in each display.

Also, once you start to see that initial color change on the BBA, you can reduce the dose a bunch or even stop altogether. I did not stop or reduce the dose right away on the 50g and it ended up melting some plants (crypts and h.c. cuba) along with the BBA. I did stop the dosing on the 75g and had no melt with any plants. It did take a little longer for all of the BBA to actually die in the 75g and I still have some tiny patches on old anubias leaves but that's it.

Seachem recommends 5 ml excel per 10 gal after water change. So your dosage is about right taking into account of the sump storage. The half life of Glutaldehyde is about 12 hours, and glutaldehyde has low toxicity to fish, so if you have heavy bba infestation. It’s safe to repeat the same dosage daily until the bba turns red in about 3 days. Your Val’s and mosses won’t survive though as they are sensitive to glut. Glut is very effective against bba so there is no need to use harsh bleaching. I bought cheaper Metricide 14 for glut and dose prophylactically after weekly water change in my planted tanks.