Recent content by Elaine Hill

A letter has been despatched to my MP -w will see what response it brings. There are also a number of divers out there who anjoy watching fish (I am one of them) who are probably not aware of this issue. So, a letter has been sent to one of the diving magazines about it and giving links to the...

Thanks for the replies. I had a chat to the local dealer today and he thinks it could possibly be a black algae infestation rather than the return of the anaerobic bacteria. This would make sense given that it has appeared in about 5 days in a tank which has been steralised and has new gravel...

Thanks for the rapid responses. The substrate is about 2" deep at most - any less and the bigger plants tend to float out of it. I have tried not to make it too deep in case it stops oxygen getting in and causing anaerobic bacterial problems. At present it is not smelling - when I had the...

I set up a 3ft X 1ft X 1.5 ft aquarium approximately 18 months ago. About 4 months after it was established I noticed that the gravel was turning black in places and that the pH was becoming more acidic. I took some of the gravel and water to my local dealer who said that the problem was...

The algae rstopping granules are a mixture of baked clay and resins designed to removed some of the nutrients which the algae are feeding on. Whether it was pure coincidence or not I don't know but they seemed to work with the original bout of cloudy water. Since my last posting the water has...

Thanks for the responses. I shall respond to some of the points raised. 1. Re. the nitrite reading the reason I gave it as < 0.3 mg/l is indeed because of the way the test kit states things - essentially the reading is zero. 2. Re. the activated carbon - I had that in the filter all along...

I have a 3ft tank which was set up just under a year ago. It is well planted and the residents are 4 corydoras, 2 bristlenose plecs, 3 platys, 1 golden gourami and 5 harlequin rasboras. The fish were introduced slowly after the tank was cycled (1 - 2 fish per fortnight). I change 20% of the...