Blue-Green Algae (Cyanobacteria) - please help

[Annie]

Following this thread, it’s sounds it’s been a nightmare for you, sorry you’ve had to deal with it. Sounds like there’s a good suggestion for you to get things sorted , fingers crossed ????
I’ve never heard of it before, new to fish keeping Dec 18.
Have you got any pics ? Wouldn’t know what it looks like.
Good luck.

[Vale!]

Ah! Thanks (to CG).  Some notes ...

There are various kinds of cyanobacteria (= blue-green algae, = BGA). The single-celled varieties live in the water-column, as you say CG.

However, what's being described in this thread is one of the filamentous and/or colonial varieties.  It sounds very similar to the creepy Oscillatoria stuff that tries its best to haunt Vale! Towers. I mean 'creepy' literally : filaments attach to surfaces and wave back and forth looking (I assume) for more attachment points. The overall effect is that it appears to crawl around on surfaces (hence its ability to form sheets). I put at least one video of it on YouTube - I don't know whether it's still there, or whether it's been removed because of some music that I may have attached to it.

This stuff reproduces chiefly vegetatively, via branching and by broken filaments forming new colonies. It does form 'spores' but they aren't formed via true sexual reproductive means. These float about in the water-column, too.  However, if they don't find something to attach themselves to very shortly after they've germinated (if that's the right word) they die.

Some/most/all BGA can store nitrate and phosphate - which is why trying to manipulate the concentrations of those doesn't always work - and almost certainly not immediately. 

At Vale! Towers ...

My BGA obviously likes blue light (others report its apparent affinity for red light) based on qualitative observations whilst tweaking blue light intensity over time.  Strength of current seems irrelevant : my BGA grows in both strong and weak current. It seems probable that it likes water with a relatively high loading of dissolved organics. 


I believe I reported in another thread about the BBA (= black beard algae) in my 'Guilt' tank and how I'd used EasyLife's AlgExit to see if that would clobber it.  Once I'd realised that the active ingredient shouldn't affect 'sensitive' fish, I then tried it in some of my Liquorice Gouramis' accommodation which had an absolutely appalling and intractable infestation of BGA. 

Here's a pic of some of it:



After the course of Algexit had finished (five weeks I think, from memory) nothing whatsoever appeared to have happened. I continued to assume the BGA was there and that there was very little I could do about it other than remove as much of it as I could physically. 

That is : until it suddenly wasn't there!  It was about two weeks after the final dose of the AlgExit course that it dawned on me that there wasn't a scrap of BGA left!  Just as suddenly, some other kind of algae appeared (I did semi-identify it - I have an 'alge' book! - but have forgotten now exactly what I thought it was) which I dealt with subsequently and successfully.

That was some months ago.  I thought I'd capitalise on this chemical success by formally implementing in concert some of the strategies I'd been experimenting with sporadically over a long time!

I increased the frequency of water-changes.  Because of the water parameters in this tank/compartments, weekly water-changes aren't necessary from the ammonia (etc.) point of view. The tank/compartments is/are very low-stocked, so I tended previously to water-change fortnightly or even monthly.

I reduced the amount of organics (both in the change-water I was using and leaves and alder cones in-tank).

I turned down intensity of blue LEDs to a fraction of what it normally had been. 


Here's a pic as of now, representative of one of the compartments on the left side ...





There is, however, still BGA in the system!  I'd better explain (for those that don't know) that this is a c100L long tank that is divided into five compartments. Each divider has a hole, stuffed with sponge, which allows water to flow from the leftmost compartment (which hosts the heater) all the way through to the rightmost compartment (which has a pump that sends water via a pipe back to the leftmost). The current along the tank as a whole is very weak. Each compartment has its own little air-driven filter. 

If we number the compartments 1-5, from left to right and comment on the absence or presence of BGA in each:

#1 : zero BGA
#2 (as in pic above) : zero BGA
#3 : zero BGA
#4 : BGA! (as in pic below)
#5 : almost zero BGA! 




So why does BGA rear its ugly head 'suddenly' in compartment #4? That's what I'm contemplating at the moment.  Perhaps it's because the concentration of dissolved organics in any of compartments 1-3 isn't enough to nourish BGA ; but by the time they flow through to compartment #4 it's cumulated sufficiently to trigger BGA growth.  The BGA that grows there sucks relevant nutrients out of the water ; few are left by the time it reaches compartment #5, where there's just enough to allow a little BGA to grow. The water that's withdrawn from compartment#5, now stripped of BGA-friendly nutrients, is cycled directly to compartment #1, where the 'cycle' begins all over again.  At the moment I can't think of any other reasonable explanation - does another occur to anyone reading this?

 

I don't know how useful the above is to the thread but it may have been of some slight interest anyway!

[SiMorris]

What an interesting set up!
Looking at it, as all compartment have practically the same water, and I don't think the parameters would have time to change from one compartrment to the next, the nutrient level would not be the cause of it. The only thing that can change from compartment to compartment would be the lighting. Did you say you have different lights in each compartment?

Would the BGA or filaments be small enough to get through the sponge you think? or are they acting like a filter to keep the "infection" within one compartment? With it being a bacteria I would have thought it would be small enough to pass through sponges?

[SiMorris]

Following this thread, it’s sounds it’s been a nightmare for you, sorry you’ve had to deal with it. Sounds like there’s a good suggestion for you to get things sorted , fingers crossed  ????
I’ve never heard of it before, new to fish keeping Dec 18.
Have you got any pics ? Wouldn’t know what it looks like.
Good luck.

I'll try to attach a phoyo of it, not mine as I've just cleaned the tank this weekend so there's little of it left, but at it's worst it looked just like the green goo in the photo.

[SiMorris]

hmmm..... not sure how, but attachment didn't work. ..... I'll try to work it out.

[Cheltgirl]

Use the imgur button on the left. The attachment bit isn’t working

[SiMorris]

hey it works!! )

[Annie]

Eeeeewwwweee that stuff is disgusting ???

[SiMorris]

Eeeeewwwweee that stuff is disgusting ???

From someone who has been clearing a handful of that stuff EVERY WEEK you really do not want it in your tank! I'm just hoping this PureBlue remover can save the tank, otherwise it'll be armagedon! 

[Annie]

Eeeeewwwweee that stuff is disgusting ???

From someone who has been clearing a handful of that stuff EVERY WEEK you really do not want it in your tank! I'm just hoping this PureBlue remover can save the tank, otherwise it'll be armagedon! 

???? Praying for you ????