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This is the future home for the announcements when someone obtains an achievement badge. Let the games begin!

Sorry about the dramatic title but I think this topic deserves something monumental as it has and continues to be a persistent pain in the neck for aquarists of all skill levels. Let’s face it, BBA is a tough algae to get rid of once it settles in. This thread is dedicated to its eradication by showing real life treatments and their effects. The hope is that we, collectively, arrive at a process that works.

This is important because there is just SO MUCH bad information out there. It’s inconsistent and all over the place. It is based on what someone heard or read but not on first hand experience.

For example, I just saw a BBA help question posed in one of the Facebook groups. Within 4 hours, there were 85 comments. People suggesting everything under the sun. Here is a sampling:

• reducing phosphates
• Ottos and amano shrimp
• Siamese Algae Eaters (SAE)
• American Flag Fish
• Hydrogen peroxide
• The One Two Punch
• Algae Fix

And I could continue the list. It’s funny and sad at the same time. Such is a Facebook group. Try to find the diamond in the rough. Not easy for anyone.

So, with this background in mind, I present to you the present state of my aquarium on the left. BBA has taken over and is now firmly entrenched on the plants, the AquaSoil, the circulation pump and even on the internal UV filter in the back. You can just make out on the lower left that it is now also growing as a lawn on the AquaSoil.

Let’s not get lost looking backwards, although some background as to how we got here is important and helpful. The tank was neglected for about two months. It’s an automated tank but the CO2 ran out and the light and fertilizer stayed the same.

Format​

This post is in the form of an article. This means that I will be able to take good discussions from posts below and update the article with them as needed. Feel free to let me know if you feel something from the article merits changing.

Background on BBA - what we know to be true​

To be continued…

I started my first tank as an adult about a year ago, and have posted updates on it in my other journal , the Beginner Scaper Journal. I had intended the other journal to be a journey for this new tank but there were so many variables and many questions about the other set up that i thought it would best to start this new journal.

I am going to hold on to my beginner/amateur flair to the post since I think this is such a great hobby and want newcomers to know that everyone started as an amateur

Tank Inspiration
Dennis Wong's planted tanks. If you guys don't know who this is, I have already served a good purpose by introducing you to the founder of the 2Hr aquarist. He has a scientific horticulturist approach to planted tank that resonates well to my scientific mind. He is one of the few that I have read and listened to who mentions the different schools of thoughts when it comes to managing planted tanks and does not stick with a single approach.

Anyways a long winded rambling to say that everyone should read through the 2hr aquarist website. His products are all called APT (Advanced planted tank), and i think that is what his company was called before. His current display tanks are all planted tanks, which are beautiful mostly without hardscape but with lush plant growth and do not follow the rules of Dutch scaping. To anyone who wants to understand his philosophy more, i would recommend in addition to the website watch some videos where he has been interviewed.

I wanted to re-create this type of tank, but obviously as a beginner/amateur. I am hoping to learn more about growing plants with my ultimate goal to advance to a next scape which might be more nature style where i can take the knowledge from growing plants and now incorporate hardscape to it.

Equipment
Tank
- Waterbox mini 25

• 60 cm x 40 cm x 40 cm
• 90 liters or 24 gallons
• This is a big upgrade from my 29 gallon standard tank. The silicone work is flawless.
• It does come with a leveling mat.
• It is deeper and slightly taller than a 60P or UNS 60U. I thought it would be useful to have more depth.
• Background - Thanks to @Jeff Miotke suggestion

Stand

• Waterbox stand - Black
• The main contention is that it does not come with side holes like some of the other expensive stands do.
• It just comes with opening in the back, so getting the tubing out is messy.
• The door attachment is a soft close but it needs to be leveled which can be finicky
• I did add a magnetic holder for tools and will add some light as well at some point.
• It does come with leveling foot holders.
• It is nicely built other wise.
• I wish it came with a pull out like the Oase stands but guess would be very expensive.
• Overall Ok, but nothing to highly recommend about.

Filter

• Oase Biomaster 350 thermo
• Replaced the biological media with Seachem Matrix
• Replaced one of the foams with Seachem Matrix as well.
• Steel lily pipes from GLA with extension. I think many of liked this company. But I personally would not buy anything again from them. They had quality control issues with this. One of the holders were metal and other acrylic and they would not send me another metal one. These are not the cheapest especially and you also have to buy extension separately. These are made by a chinese company and not made by GLA.
• I used to have glass lily pipes but got tired of cleaning them.

Skimmer

• I read many people commenting that using a skimmer attached to the inflow or outflow might be a pain to adjust, so ended up getting the Oase Crystal skim

CO2

• Fzone Co2 inline diffuser
• These work great and this is the second one that i have gotten. Trouble free but might need to replace parts of it if it gets clogged. Important thing is that it can be opened to clean.
• I have a Fzone dual stage regulator
  • Cheapest that i could find and works very well - highly recommend

Water

• I use RO water and remineralize it with APT Sky to a GH of around 4. Use the calculator on APT webpage.
• My goals are to have a low KH, and GH of around 4 - 5.

Substrate

• APT feast about 12 Liters
• You can read about my experience cycling it here using Dark Start (sort of)
• I did not want Aquasoil in the front of the tank and wanted a thin lining of gravel so used a gravel from Carribsea, and some smooth lava stones to separate them. More about this later but i don't really like the way it turned out.

Lighting

• Chihiros WRGB II - 10th anniv edition - 60 cm.

Plant List (Links provided to their care on the 2 hr Aquarist website if interested)

Background

• Left - Rotala blood red
• Middle - Rotala Tulunadensis (From Burr Aqua)
• Right - Alteranthera Reineckii Rosaefolia

Midground

• Left - Blyxa Joponica
• Middle - Ludwigea Arcuata, Pogostemon Decannensis, Rotala Florida, Staurogyne Repens
• Right - Syngonathus Belem/Macrocaulon(From Burr Aqua)

Foreground

• Left - Lobelia cardinalis mini
• Middle/Right - S.Repens and Montecarlo
• Still to come - Eleocharis Aricularis mini (in the place where the stones are)

Misc

• Clump of Hydrocortyle Tripartita to absorb nitrogen - Trust me you do not want this plant for any other reason, will take over your tank and get everything into a tangled mess.

Fish List (Preliminary)

• 4 Rasbora espei
• 2 Otos
• Will be adding more from my prior tank

Maintenance Parameters

• Lighting - 30% - 8 am - 3 pm
• Co2 - 40 ppm by Hanna co2 kit, 5 am - 3 pm
• Fertilizer - APT 1 - Still not settled on a routine but the recommended dose for daily dosing would be about 2.3 ml and i do about 2-3 ml every 3 days.
• Water changes 75% every 3 - 4 days, will make it weekly in the next couple of weeks

Photos
photo 1 - Day 11
Photo 2 - Day 20
Photo 3 - Day 21 - Current - Testing - Ammonia 0, Nitrate about 10 on API kit - Changed filter outlet location to get reduced current
Photo 4 - Day 21 - Side view

Thanks for reading so far!

There has been some good growth, some expected filamentous algae/diatmos and some melting, all expected hopefully this would not get too bad.
The Rotala blood red, Florida and Ludwigea arcuata are doing great. Both the florida and Arcuata seems to do much better on the aquasoil than on my prior intert substrate.
Blyxa melted a little but getting better, the Tulunadensis is struggling. The rest holding stable.
Interesting observation - The Rotala blood red, started putting out lot of roots and side shoots which i think is mainly because the plant was being pushed by the current to almost bend sideways and I believe it is thinking that it close the surface and doing its thing. With the changed filter outlet location I am hoping that it will be more erect and when i cut and replant there will be less roots. 2hr aquarist has written about this as well, but i think the bending sideways leading to rooting is not mentioned.

I am not liking the layout as much as i thought i would. Have been discussing with BurrAqua and have some suggestions but still thinking about this. Thoughts and suggestions welcome. Hopefully lot of people with (@Burr740 , @Dennis Wong @Art @techman81 @Pepere @Unexpected @Naturescapes_Rocco @Jeff Miotke @BenB @DutchMuch ) and without experience will follow and share this tank journey with me.

This is a great forum and i have tagged people that i am familiar with on the forum who have answered my questions and helped.

Same camera settings, with a tiny bit of ambient light.



Under week aqua a430


Couple of close-ups:
Fluval 4.0


Twinstar S V


Although Fluval 4.0 is spectrum tunable, it does not have enough red diodes to balance out its spectrum curves and tends to be red deficient.

Twinstar has spectrum curves similar to Netlea/Chihiros/Week aqua, much easier to tune to a range of attractive visual colors.
In short, while Twinstar has improved in the last couple of generations to match the chinese LEDs, while Fluval has not.

So I'm sitting here trying to create a plant layout for the garden scape and a thought came across my mind; What would ChatGPT do?
I provided the tank size, substrate, (very long) plant list, and aquascaping style and said while you're at it, create an image of the final scape. As you would guess, ChatGPT knows the "rules" for a Dutch scape but doesn't have much of a human artistic touch, so the result is very clinical indeed. It also used synthetic images for many of the plants and therefore is a bit off on leaf shapes and colors. It only took a few minutes though. And to be fair, I didn't go down the list first to balance out plant colors.

This reminds me of the days when computer scientists were trying to program computers to challenge the great chess masters. It took a while but they eventually did it. So how far away are we from AI producing a truly competition worthy aquascape?

I am working on my mistakes…. The next one will be huge.

Instead of continuing the old build thread, I wanted to make a new one. This build might go just as terrible, but I want to put the old one behind me. I really wish I had given myself a month or two break because I feel like I have algae PTSD. I’m pretty burned out, and I sort of dread trying again. Oh well, too late now.

I wanted to try 2Hr Aquarist stuff, but already had the Controlsoil. I bought it a year prior (see previous journal) and decided to go ahead and use it. Hopefully I’ll make a successful transition to nutrient depleted aquasoil, and then restart with the 2Hr stuff later.

I didn't plan on starting a new journal until about a month in, but since my aquasoil is already starting to give out of ammonia, I need to get it going to get help making the transition to full NPK dosing.

With that said…..

Ben’s Plant Pharm 2.0
(BTW, in case you were wondering, I’m a pharmacist. Hence the pharm)

Setup Date
8-11-25 (Day 0)

Goals
Enjoying some farming.
Successfully navigate the different stages of aqusoil nutrient release and subsequent depletion.

Tank
ADA 60p

Light
Chihiros WRGB Pro II
Starting out at 40% of the Fish setting
Red 53, Blue 34, Green 55, White 23
PAR 105 under the light (estimated)

Substrate
UNS Extra Fine Black 1 x 10L bag

Plants
From Previous Build
Xiris Red from S21 Aquatics
Eriocaulon quinguangulare from Cherries Nature Aquarium

TC plants from Buce Plant
Cryptocoryne parva, Pogostemon helferi, Rotala Sunset
Came in in questionable shape despite paying extra for insulated box. Were very jumbled.

TC from The Fish Room
Alternanthera reineckii ‘Mini’, Rotala macrandra, Gratiola viscidula, Rotala wallichi, Lobelia Cardinalis ‘Mini’

From S21 Aquatics
Synogonthas Vichada, Centrolepis drummondiana (Blood Vomit)

From Aquatic Plants Factory
Pogostemon stellatus Dassen and Rotala Florida? (TBD)

Fertilizer
Micros: Burr Aquatic Trace (BurrFertz)
Macros: DIY- dosages to be determined
PO, K, Mg at the beginning. Been adding about 2-3ppm PO4 daily
Transition to the addition of NO3 as aquasoil depletes

Filter
Oase HOB BioStyle

CO2
Injected via GLA regulator
Bar type diffuser placed inside the HOB filter

Livestock
None

Notes

• The Alternanthera reineckii ‘Mini’ was in bad shape when I opened the container. Might have been bad when I got it and then it was a week before I used it.
• 8-15-25: Added Synogonthas Vichada and Blood Vomit. Checked NO3 for the first time. It was 40. Started making twice weekly water changes.
• 8-18-25: Increased light to 45% of the full “Fish” setting. PAR should be just about 114
• 8-23-25: Pogostemon stellatus Dassen and Rotala Florida added
• 8-29-25: Discovered my NO3 was 0. Aquasoil is giving out way earlier than I expected
• Had a short diatom period, but it seems to be resolving
• I had planned to increase my light to 50% of full "Fish" setting which would be a (tested) PAR of 126, but right now, things are going so good, I don't want to mess it up. We'll hold off for now.
• 8-31-25: Starting to dose my own mixture of NPK and Mg. I really need to determine my actual water volume. What I am trying to dose, and what it tests as after I dose it are a good bit off.

Day 0






Day 1


Week 1


Week 2


Week 3






Here you can see the older Rotala Sunset on the left. On the right is supposed to be Rotala Florida, but it is looking a lot like the Sunset did at the same stage. Argh!


Pogostemon stellatas Dassen changing from emersed to submersed form


Syn Vichada is doing pretty good. It is growing slow. The new growth is all green and the old growth is dying off. I want to cut old leaves and clean it up a little, but right now, I don't really want to disturb it. I watch it every minute. I loving having it.

Hello, starting up a journal for the second tank. It's totally for my fiance because she wants a betta fish, it's definitely not just a thinly veiled excuse to get a 2nd tank going. No way.

Originally this was planned on being a low tech tank. However I ended up receiving some money from family, so I decided to upgrade it to more of a mid tech.

Equipment:

• UNS 45U rimless tank
• Oase 100 Filtosmart Thermo, with an extra valve stop
• Chihiros WRGB Slim, set to roughly 33% overall power
• A poppy lily pipe and an inlet skimmer
• CO2Art Regulator & Solenoid

Plants:

• Anubia broadleaf
• Anubia (no clue what other kinds, small ones)
• Various Crypts of various types and sizes (I'll dig later in my email receipts to find the types)
• Creeping Jenny
• Limnophilia Heterophylia
• Hygrophila Angustifolia
• Red Root Floaters

Fertilizing:

• 1 pump of APT 3 daily
• Root tabs from Aquarium Co-Op

I wanted to make this a sort of island-ish setup, where the main focus would be the elephant stones and the large anubias. I knew that my other tank would be right next to this one, so I focused the stems on that side since they would be getting the higher light. I did have some challenges getting the stones and aquasoil into a proper shape, and fitting the huge anubias was an obstacle.

Overall I think it's in a good state, starting to get a few diatoms but not much, and I just added the CO2 today, so the tank is officially fully setup. Now, just waiting to cycle and mature a bit before I add in some shrimps, and then a month later, the betta.



Also, if anyone has advice on the placement of the Poppy Pipe + CO2 diffuser, that is appreciated. Part of the problem is that the Poppy doesn't send water in a straight current, it's just a flurry around it, so I cant just place it on the opposite side of the diffuser like I normally would. Where I have it now, it forms a current that manages to draw some of the CO2 bubbles in, but not all.

Final ask, if anyone has better fertilizer recommendations that is appreciated, specifically how much APT3 would be appropriate for this. So far I've been doing 1 pump/day.

The UNS 3N has been calling for me to fill it with water. A friend has been subtly hinting that I ought to start a crab tank. She's been signing her texts with a crab emoji. Besides, the 60S is humming along, the 5N is going through a babysitter plant phase for at least another month. I need a new project.

From my notes:

Concept:
A Pile of rounded stones covered with various mosses. Pockets of Sagittaria subulata poking up from the rear. Controsoil fine in the rear, inert substrate of black sand and pebbles in the foreground.

Dry start:
Scape, plant, wrap rocks with moss, and add RO water. Add springtails. Cover with plastic wrap.
Mist gently with RO water, and APT Dew a few times a week. Light duration 12 hours. Figure 5-6 weeks before flooding. (House is cooler side at 67F)

Hardware:
Tank - UNS 3N
Light - AquaWorx EOS LED
Heater - Hygger Mini Submersible - 25W
Filter - Aquascape Guide Mini Canister, includes lily pipes and tubing.

Plants:
Sagittaria subulata 'Needle Leaf' - Tropica Tissue Culture Cup
Riccardia Chamedryfolia - Tropica Tissue Culture Cup
Weeping Moss
Flame Moss
Christmas Moss
Mini Bolbitis on Clay Moss Ball

Extra Moss, make a slurry with Controsoil, paint on wood, and various rock types on hand. Place wood and rocks in clear bins on the metal rack, light 12 hrs. More nano ideas up in the ole noggin with these bits.

Thoughts, advice, heckling, and comments, etc, are all welcome, please.

(I hope this is acceptable as the start of a journal, new here).

Greetings, I’m Alec and this will be my third aquascape. I plan on rescaping my 60p (current scape pic below). The first time I did it, I sort of winged it in the moment. The second time, I came in with a design but it wasn’t strong enough and slowly was buried by aquasoil and plants.

So this time I’m coming in with those learnings and trying to design with intention.

Second pic below is my potential new hardscaping.

I have never done an island composition, and usually I am not a fan of them visually. But while messing around with my rocks I found this tower layout impressive.

My idea is to have the right side be a lower sandy area with some smaller rocks (not shown in pic) along with my big ass Anubias and the various crypts as well. Floaters would be above this area.

Front middle and left would be the Monte Carlo carpet, along with some Ludwigia or other stems tucked along the rocks to become bushes.

Tucked into the cracks of the rocks would be Monte Carlo & Java moss to accent it, along with my Hygrophilia.

Back-left would be stem-city. Big Rotala area with some Bacopa and Ludwigia in front of it, especially towards the center.

The middle area surrounding the top tower rock itself would be Cardamine Lyrata, as it grows naturally well in vertical bushes.

Focal point to the right of the top of the tower stone would be Ludwigia Diamond, which gets decently red.





Looking for potential feedback from those with more experience! Some of my concerns:

1. My Anubias are massive, at least for the small. I’m mostly saving them for my fiancés betta tank we hope to setup later this year. I’m a bit worried they won’t fit well into the right side area.
2. The tower is very central, which is the point of island compositions, but I worry my plants might detract from the island look, especially with my plans for the left side.
3. A commenter on my Reddit thread suggested I remove the left side “slope cliff”, instead do another smaller tower there with a sand path. Thoughts?

Thank you for reading. I will probably update this journal with other composition ideas & tweaks as I go, and of course progress pics once I actually rescape it.

Went to Amazon to order a few more of the Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip, 6-Outlets | HS300, only to find they are not there anymore. Only the 3-outlet strip is available. Using the link in the previous order, the no longer available message appeared. Snooping around, it appears the line is possibly transitioning to the Tapo brand, with its own app. Kasa products are supported in the Tapo app.

The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip appears to be the same as the Kasa with different branding, a different app, and a higher price.

I expect that over time the entire line will transition.