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Hi, 2 days ago I saw an adult male guppie eat a chunk of blue green algae that I had dislodged. This morning he was on the bottom my wife ways, but now he looks normal. There are only 3 guppies in the tank, and I would like to scrap this tank. I figure they can go live in my other tank with a thriving herd of plain guppies. The plain guppy tank has been BGA free for years... maybe the crustacean living there fixes that perhaps.

Should I:

1. don't do it as the BGA will spread there
2. treat them with maricyn2 for 3-5 days first
3. setup a little quarentine tank and use it somehow for this move

Id do 3 first, then do 2, then move it. Im sure that the algae isnt at all harmful and it probably wont move, so it is Ok i guess for you to move it out.

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It sounds as though you wouldn't want to have the algae getting into the other tank, and chances are that if you bag and acclimatise the fish from the tank they are in that the water will contaminate the other tank with the algae, even if you just net and flick the fish over to the other tank a small amount of algae could possibly get in there from the net, however unlikely it may seem it only takes one algal cell to start a plague if conditions are favourable.

If I didn't particularly care if the algae gets in the other tank,
I would check the parameters are relatively equal first and just net the fish / flick them into the other tank.
If the parameters aren't close enough to do that then I'd do the acclimatisation in a bucket first before flicking them into the tank.

If on the other hand I definitely didn't want the algae getting in the other tank then:
I would setup a quarantine tank for the move, and leave the fish in there for a week or two to check for absolutly no signs of algal contamination before moving them to their new home.

I personally wouldn't medicate fish that aren't sick, allthough maricyn may work for killing BGA, it might be an expensive way to find out that your variety is unaffected by that treatment or just a regular algae and that you have acheived nothing more than a hole in your wallet.

I hope it's not a nasty BGA / cyanobacteria you have and is just another type of algae that looks similar, BGA can be really bad if it is one of the nasty types, even to the point of being hazardous to humans,
It can also be relatively harmless and even beneficial so here's a link I found to some more info about BGA for those who are interested.
cyano.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://lakes.chebucto.org/cyano.html

How old are these fish that you want to move ??
if they are older fish it is probably easier and safer to just leave them where they untill they die out before you scrap the tank if you are patient enough.

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Oh! Im sorry, i didnt know that BGA was poisonous/harmful! I agree with troppo though, as quarantining is tha best option for preventing spread. I guess if you do find BGA contamination, you could add a shrimp to the quarantine tank, or treat it with maracyin2. Anyway, i think the guppies will be fine, and since the shrimp eats it, im almost sure that it isnt as bad for fish as we think. Then again, youcould go with a blackout if it is regular algae. That would work!

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That fish that I saw eat BGA is dead this morning. My BGA first starts as rust-coloured round patches on the glass, in areas of highest current. It is also on the rocks and plant leaves. If anyone knows how to identify it for sure, I am all ears. I looked at it at with a little microscope but can't see anything to describe. It is a brownish color. If I let it go for months it will get thick and turn black and come off in sheets. I saw an apple snail eat it last summer and croak right away.

Tank 1: 2 adult guppies, 5 plants, BGA already and fish only been there just over 1 month

Tank 2: moon crab, guppy herd, no BGA ever, coming up on 2 years, crab has moulted regularly, guppies are breeding, java moss

Sorry to give the impression that a shrimp was eating my BGA. What I meant was that perhaps the ecosystem of the crab tank was maybe keeping the BGA out by either not feeding it, or crowding it out. I don't mix nets or equipment between the two tanks, but they are on the same stand, one on top of the other so I doubt they are perfectly quarentined. My hands which I wash with hot water after going in are a common factor I would think.

I feel caught between a rock and a hard place here.

Can you take a pic and post it?

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

pics on the way

Here is the best I could do with an automatic camera and GIMP. This is after ~35 days of adding fish to a new tank that was cycled with ammonia for 6 weeks. Before that everything soaked in bleach and was scrubbed with salt rigorously. Gravel, rocks, plants, filter sponge were new. In the 2nd picture, you can see how I tried to scrape some off with a blade.

Hi,
Is this a newly set up tank?
I see what looks like Milky Quartz and perhaps some
Petrified Wood among the hard scape. Frankly, it looks
like an outbreak of diatoms and they are not poisonous.
In fact many fish, such as the Ottos love the stuff.

An outbreak of diatoms occurs, generally in newly setup
tanks where there is a large amount of Silica available.
Since they use the silica for their skeletons, they thrive
and will bloom in these conditions. Older tanks can have
diatom blooms when the water from the city treatment
plant contains silica as well. This usually happens when
they change water sources, a different well, or a different
intake or intake level in a lake, or river, even sometimes
when the season changes from winter to spring and the
spring runoff occurs.

Make sure that there are no "dead spots" that can act as
a sump allowing the diatoms to collect, and be sure that
your lighting is at least 1 watt per gallon. If the water
is not the cause, regular water changes of 20% or so should
change the problem.

As far as eating BGA is concerned, nothing will eat it.
It is toxic, and everything from a snail to fish know it
and won't touch the stuff. It is a greenish blue slime
that forms curtians or drapes of the stuff and will coat
the gravel and plants.

Here is a site that shows a picture and a description
of BGA:
http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/algae.html

Here is a site devoted to the stuff:
cyano.shtml" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/algae/cyano.shtml

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Yup I agree with frank, thats diatomic algae. I get it all the time, its the black quartz gravel i use. Nothing really eats it,apart from a few species like mudskippers, and even they will only sift it from sand. Its just something you always have to put up with if you choose quartz gravel.Just give the glass a scrape with a magnetic scaper every couple of days and it never builds up. Only takes a minute.

Yeppers, I must also concure.

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

Hate to sound like a bad record but my rineloricarias cleared a similar case of diatoms off the front glass of my tank in about one night.

I guess they were really hungry when they came in from the LFS!

I'm so happy, thanks for the good news. Is there a style of gravel that is better? Those are granite rocks and quartz I think crystals.

Ive had ottos and SAE's take the odd shot at it too, but I couldnt say anything Ive kept will eat it consistantly.

Hi,
Actually, this is generally a passing thing. In new tanks
the gravel, especially if it was not throughly washed will
introduce the excess silicates into the tank. Over time,
with the water changes the silicates will be down to a more
normal level and the "brown algae" will go away. As was
mentioned some fish think they have died and gone to fish
heaven when they see that stuff. A banquet is served!

I would not change anything, the gravel, nor the rocks.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Once again Frank saves the day with those killer links, Thanks Frank.

Immediatly after seeing the pictures I thought I've seen that brown stuff before and it's completely normal and mostly harmless and will eventually go away by itself, I couldn't remember its proper name and that wouldn't have helped you very much at all.

So now that your BGA problem has been positively identified, and you don't have BGA, sorry for the semi-alarmist response, I had assumed you had already positively identified it as BGA, I'm going to add further comments.

Scrap that tank at your leisure if that is still your desired plan for that tank.
You can now safely move the fish same as you would normally move any fish to a new home, if you haven't already done so, they will probably enjoy the company in there and you will probably end up breeding some good stock from the plain guppys by contaminating their plain genes with a little color.

Perhaps you will change your mind about scrapping that tank now that you know its not BGA, only time will tell.

How's this idea grab ya, keep the tank running as it is currently with a handfull of guppies or other small fish as a future quarantine tank, hopefully you wont ever need it but if anything should happen to get sick, you could easily move the guppies out and you would be putting any sick fish into an already cycled tank, hopefully before any sickness has been spread to other fish in the tank of origin, allthough this is not usually the case it does occasionally happen that you can be lucky enough to only get 1 or 2 sick fish if you can recognise the illness and isolate the affected fish quickly enough.
It would also serve as a good disease control point for new fish before adding them to your main population possibly averting a major and usually expensive dissaster.

Food for thought.
GT

EDIT: Incoming MAJORLY ALARMIST comment, Hold on a minute dont move those fish yet, MY alarm bells are ringing again, it might not be as safe as I had previously stated, You now have an unexplained death, two if you count the snail you mentioned previously. I suggest you keep those fish isolated in there for another week or two, possibly indefinitely untill there are no more deaths, then you should be able to move the remaining fish ok, but be careful, have you tested the usual water parameters lately ?? , think about what other factors might have caused the death/s.

I honestly hope it is just diatoms you have and it looks from the pictures provided that it is diatoms, the aquascape listed would certainly provide the right conditions for it to be diatoms, BUT , I am still a little concerned for the welfare of Tank 2, What if it is a toxic BGA that has killed the snail and now a fish, wouldn't it be better if it only claimed the lives of the 2 remaining fish, rather than however many fish you have in tank 2 as well.

Besides the characteristic bluish ("cyan" ) photosynthesizing pigment, some cyanobacteria have a range of auxiliary photosynthesizing pigments, which make them very flexible about which wavelengths of light they can use. The pigments can color the blue-green cyanobacteria yellowish to dark reddish brown to blackish. Don't let these color disguises fool you when you're identifying that slimy film with the rank stagnant-pond odor.

Quoted from the skeptical aquarist link that Frank provided earlier in this thread and pretty much the same thing is stated in the link that I provided, colour means nothing, ONLY proper scientific analisys will confirm exactly what it is, and I think thats a bit beyond the capabilities of your microscope at home.

This next quote is from the link that I gave earlier it comes under the benefits heading and I found it to be quite contrary to the misconception that fish and snails would know instinctively not to eat BGA, and I'm sure that a few people may recoil in shock that they are actually feeding their fish a type of BGA,
I have definatly seen spirulina fish food, in fact after a quick look at the ingredients in my veggie wafers I actually own some, I've never heard of people eating it before though.

Humans also consume Spirulina. It contains all of the amino acids essential for humans, and its protein content is high (± 60%). It is a staple food in parts of Africa and Mexico. In China, Taiwan and Japan, several blue-greens are served as a side dish and a delicacy. Several areas in North America culture and commercially process certain blue-greens for various food and medicinal products such as vitamins, drug compounds, and growth factors.

I will be calling them BGA discs from now on its easier to say than spirulina.

Poisonous blue-greens occur in ponds and lakes throughout the world. In Canada, they primarily occur in the prairie provinces. Poisoning has caused the death of cows, dogs, and other animals. Although humans ordinarily avoid drinking water that displays a blue-green bloom or scum, they may be affected by toxic strains when they swim or ski in recreational water bodies during a bloom. Typical symptoms include redness of the skin and itching around the eyes; sore, red throat; headache; diarrhea; vomiting; and nausea.

Most of the recorded toxic blooms are caused by Microcystis aeruginosa, which manufactures "microcystin", which yields 7 (or 14) amino acids upon hydrolysis. It causes enlargement and congestion of the liver followed by necrosis and haemorrhage, and may also exhibit neurotoxic activity.

I have included these final two quotes from the link that I provided earlier both can be found under the poisonous conditions heading, the first specificially mentions Canada, just in case you may have missed the symptoms to watch out for, and the Microcystis quote I included because I have seen LHG mention Microcystis in another thread.

OH NO, I've had all these symptoms with the last flu virus that I had this year, well all except the redness of skinmaybe it was just Microcystin and I'm suffering the neurotoxic effects or it could just be that my brain is fried from the sun and I have gone absolutely troppo.
It may be advisable to completely ignore everything in this whole edit
I know this is a very large spanner to throw into the works at such a late stage in this thread but it maywell save the rest of your fish if it indeed proves to be a toxic BGA.
A phone call to your local water supply department will quickly ascertain whether or not they would consider testing a sample for you. You might also be able to convince somebody at a nearby university to have a look at a sample under an adequate microscope that would be up to the task.
Check with them as to how to package any sample you are to provide, but an old clean film canister will usually be sufficient if you tape it shut immediately after taking the sample.

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

I am quite thankful for the help and that I did not do anything yet. I feel that taking the algae off the glass will be a minor nuisance compared to starting over for no reason. I'm just going to keep it going and try to decide whether to use my plain guppies or get more fancies to mate with the remaining 2 females in the tank. We will likely have a family vote. Believe it or not, as bad as they look, some of those plants are actually growing and I am sure this will end well.

Edit: (so I don't have the last word) Yeah, not gonna move anything from the new tank to the crab tank as that guppy should not have died from eating algae I should think. The snail was long ago, back when I had a dwarf gourami, before I was into tiger barbs for 2 years. That was BGA then, as it was slimey and black. I just assumed this was more of the same, and was wrong.

Sorry pizpot but I was still typing out the edit to my last post when you last replied, not that that is such a bad thing it is rather alarmist, and I hope you have nothing to worry about and all goes well.

GT

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Gadzooks! I just noticed a baby in the new tank, hiding in the tall plants. It is already like 7 mm long end to end. I better feed it! Isn't life wonderful.

...and at least 2 of the tiniest little snails on the tall plants too, and one on the glass and oh yeah there's one on the gravel. oi-yoi-yoi!

(yeah, I covered the intake, that is not the intake sticking out, just part of the backdrop)

Attached Image:

lol, cant be that toxic in there then.
Just a bit of a tank crash and a recycle? seems to be the time when most of the diatomic algae goes ballistic.