Ive been keeping a glass of daphnia on my windowsill.. pointless really because the corys are useless at eating them haha but hopefully soon I'll have some fish that will appreciate them!
Removing stubborn algae from white gravel
- Thread starter AdoraBelle Dearheart
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He means for when I move them into their new softer water home tank. It's a weird sort of halfway established, half not situation, since I'm keeping some things to move into their new clean tank, but the substrate and most decor will be new. The plants will be ones I have now, but to tackle the algae problem, I'd ideally like to clean them/trim algae coated leaves before planting them, so it would really be like a new tank. I don't really want to wait with it running for three months before moving them out of the hard water.
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Can you cultivate daphnia just in a vase like that?? My fish love daphnia...!
I looked into cultivating some things, like brine shrimp, but the aquarium co op article said to use a 50 gallon tank to keep them. 50 gallons! I'm not having a bigger tank for bloody fish food than I have for my actual fish.
Added the root tabs to cart too. This forum is costing me an arm and a leg
I would not worry. Over the years I have replaced the substrate in tanks with otos and other fish, and created "new" tanks for the most part (new filter media sometimes as well as new substrate) and fish go in the same day and I have not lost one yet that I could attribute to that. Water parameters being the same or nearly (or better, if softer).
Once otos are used to feeding from sinking "veggie" tabs, etc, they don't forget.
Once otos are used to feeding from sinking "veggie" tabs, etc, they don't forget.
Yeh I could do with a bigger glass theres probably only a few meals for a group of hungry barbs in this.Can you cultivate daphnia just in a vase like that?? My fish love daphnia...!
I looked into cultivating some things, like brine shrimp, but the aquarium co op article said to use a 50 gallon tank to keep them. 50 gallons! I'm not having a bigger tank for bloody fish food than I have for my actual fish.
Added the root tabs to cart too. This forum is costing me an arm and a leg
Other than feeding on green algae I occasionally add a few drops of baker's yeast mixed with water.
Just suck em out with a turkey baster thing and squirt them into the tank!
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I haven't tracked down the info on lights yet, I didn't save the boxes, will track down my order emails for them. But I took some photos. Feels weird to be taking photos of the ugliest parts of my tank, and not the prettiest. I feel vulnerable, it's like giving a speech naked or something.
Algae on the gravel, Mr. Shrimp helped the camera focus.
This is the underside of the sword leaf, none of them face the front, but if you look at the edges, you can see the fluffiness.The whole front side of the leaf is coated in that algae, feels like a very soft fabric, a darkish green. Think it's the same stuff as on the lily leaf above.
And hair algae. Mainly grows and wraps around my hornwort, which makes it rough to remove without damaging the plant. Some also grows from the algae left on the back and one side of the tank.
The hair and fluffy soft beard/brush algae seems to be worse at the back in the middle, where there's the least amount of light and flow since the plants are so dense there. I did buy a powerhead before, but wasn't sure how best to place everything, so it's still in the box. Urgh, looking at all these photos, my tank looks like a horribly neglected disaster
The plants at the front are relatively clear, as are some different varieties of crypts
Algae on the gravel, Mr. Shrimp helped the camera focus.
This is the underside of the sword leaf, none of them face the front, but if you look at the edges, you can see the fluffiness.The whole front side of the leaf is coated in that algae, feels like a very soft fabric, a darkish green. Think it's the same stuff as on the lily leaf above.
And hair algae. Mainly grows and wraps around my hornwort, which makes it rough to remove without damaging the plant. Some also grows from the algae left on the back and one side of the tank.
The hair and fluffy soft beard/brush algae seems to be worse at the back in the middle, where there's the least amount of light and flow since the plants are so dense there. I did buy a powerhead before, but wasn't sure how best to place everything, so it's still in the box. Urgh, looking at all these photos, my tank looks like a horribly neglected disaster
The plants at the front are relatively clear, as are some different varieties of crypts
There might be a hint of cyanobacteria there too. Organics/nutrients and light are the culprits, whichever. How long is the light on each day, and is it on a timer so it is consistent? When you do water changes, do you clean into the substrate gravel?
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That helps reassure me so much, thank you! I think maybe the established tank rule is for the general rule of thumb. Like, people buying them the first week it's been set up, when there's no biofilm yet, and they don't know the importance of the constant grazing. And that otos get skinny in stores since the tanks are also algae free, and they're probably not fed terribly heavily. I'll make a point to feed more veggies when they're in the new tank. Some courgette or spinach that I can leave in there for a few hours, then switch out for a new one.
No timer, just routine. Had been on for ten hours a day, reduced to eight hours this week.
Yes, I gravel vac with every water change, and go deeply into the substrate, but not quite as deeply when it's very close to plant roots. I did get a small gravel vac not long after I set up the tank a year ago so I could get in between plants as much as possible.
I wondered if there might be cyanobacteria. Maybe three months ago, started getting some dark green slimy stuff appearing on the edges of some water lettuce. I thought cyanobacteria! and panicked. I removed every plant that had a trace of it on, and improvised a skimmer using a glass held underwater and allowing just the surface film to flow into the glass. Kept that up, removing plants showing the dark green, and worried about cyanobacteria appearing in sheets in my tank, but that hasn't happened yet, and I don't see that stuff showing up on the floating plants anymore.
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Parameters remain stable, always 0 ammonia or nitrites, nitrates rarely goes above 5, and never above 10.
Nitrates would get as high as 40ppm when I first started the tank, but more plants took care of that.
Nitrates would get as high as 40ppm when I first started the tank, but more plants took care of that.
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I recommend a timer, as this is beneficial to fish and plants and it does help to control problem algae (within reason, many factors are involved). Fish react to light even more than humans, and having the light come on and go off at exactly the same time each 24 hour period is a significant issue for them. Their circadian rhythm "expects" daylight and darkness, and studies with blind fish show that they respond to daylight and darkness exactly the same as fish that can see, so it is the light sensitivity of every cell on the fish that is involved.
Keep the filter well cleaned. I clean mine at every weekly water change, but I have internal filters so it is easy. Cyanobacteria is caused by organics in the presence of light, nothing else, so keeping the organics down should keep it away. I had it twice in the same tank several years ago.
Reducing the light another hour might help this algae too. My tanks are now on 7 hours daily, and my algae problems have vanished.
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Irresistible!That belly!
I love their little round bellies too, they're so damn cute. When I got the second batch and got them home, and saw flat little bellies, I felt really bad for them, and kinda worried. But they soon ate their fill on all that horrible algae that's in my tank, and had the lovely round tummies like my first ones.
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Do you mean timers like these?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B083DLL3J2/?tag=
My lights have a blue light/night mode, and the white/daytime switch. I turn on the night mode in the morning for about 15- 30 minutes, then turn the day mode on. Switch from day to night 15-30 minutes before turning the lights off. But then the light is still on the room for several hours after the tank "goes to bed." I didn't think about that. I knew that light and dark periods were important to fish, as they are for most creatures including us, but I didn't know that about the light sensitivity on every cell of the fish, that's fascinating.
Do I have to spring for something much more expensive in order for the timer to be able to change day/night modes? Not sure how that works. I'm sorry for dumb questions, really not a tech or gadget person! I also really, really need to conserve spending. I love my work, but it isn't exactly highly paid, and I've already had £960 in vet bills this month, and bought a 'new' tank. Things are getting tight, so if a timer with all the bells and whistles is needed, I'm going to have to budget to buy it at a later date I'm afraid.
Have another dumb question, and I feel like a complete idiot asking this, but what exactly do you mean when you say "organics"? Specifically, in reference to aquariums. My mind instantly goes to decaying plant matter and fish poop, and the different bacteria that would be involved in the process, is that what you mean? I've read about decaying mulm and plant matter causing higher nitrate levels, and I do gravel vac and remove dead leaves when I find them. I figured since my nitrates never get high, that I was doing a good enough job, even if things weren't as spotless as I would like. But I don't remove every leaf that is beginning to look bad, and my water lettuce has gone through phases of boom and bust. When it's struggled, it has shed a lot of leaves that just sort of melt into the water, and there is nearly always a yellowing older leaf or two on the largest, oldest plants. Right now the plants are big and healthy, and I throw away handfuls of it most weeks. The green slime did appear on the surface when the water lettuce wasn't doing well, so is that why it appeared on the surface, but not in sheets anywhere else? Decaying floating plants, directly under the light, but not a lot of decaying plants below the surface. Different things are clicking into place and making sense now!
I'm also not religious enough about trimming and maintaining the hornwort at the back since the shrimp are always packed in there. Has made me nervous to go in there with the scissors, so there is almost certainly a build up among the plants and roots there. Have read about mulm actually being good for the plants, and not to try to remove every bit of it, so I admit I've slacked off in those parts of the tank. Could that be the cause? That it isn't enough to cause a problem with nitrates, but that there are other bacteria thriving on that, and there are high levels of other... materials? Compounds? Bacteria? in the water that have nothing to do with the nitrogen cycle, so not something showing up on any test?
I cleaned the canister filter today in fact; the deep clean where I don't just remove and rinse the media, but dismantle the whole thing and send a long bottle brush the entire length of the intake/out take tubes, and removed a whole lot of yellowish stinky horribleness.
I'm sorry for the essay responses, and dumb questions. I just really want to learn and get a handle on this, and you've helped so much by taking time out of your day to explain these things to me. Things have become clearer thanks to you and others like @seangee and @mbsqw1d . Thank you!
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