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Permalink Reply by TONY K on October 10, 2012 at 8:54pm

cut back number of ours light is on?

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Permalink Reply by LED on October 10, 2012 at 11:33pm

BBA is caused by the lack of CO2 in your water.  There is no getting around increasing your CO2 if you want the BBA gone.  You dont have to add CO2 gas (although this is the most effective) and you dont have to add Excel (although spot treating a plant with the liquid is very beneficial) but you can increase the CO2 level by not cleaning your substrate, not agitating the surface of the water, not using airstones which can cause both agitation of the surface and a slight increase of co2 to the water if the water has less than ambient co2 thats in the air itself, or finally increasing the bio load of the tank so that respiration of the fish and waste increases the CO2 in the water.   

This is a lot to absorb but yeah, hope something works for you with the restriction of not using Excel (or API CO2) nor CO2 gas.

Please be careful if you want to increase your bio load, this can bring a myriad of unwanted consequences.

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Permalink Reply by Rated M on October 11, 2012 at 7:59am

Thanks for the answer. I've cut the BBA infected areas off. I do run an air stone so I will stop this as of today. I did some research and see that I am running my lights to long and overfeeding the fish as well. I am going to buy a timer for the lights and feed the fish just once a day. What is a good spot treatment that I can buy? I am leaning towards getting C02 gas but I will have to do my homework first. I appreciate your feedback!

 

Tony, I do have my lights on too long.

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