At A Loss As To What To Do!

[Underwurlde]

Every tank I look at that people own or in shops are nice and clear with happy looking fish.

I liked the idea of keeping fish, they look beautiful.

So I got a tank, cycled it and put some fish in, this was in June of this year.

I then added some plants and this is when the problems started as a snail was on one of the plants and now the damn things have taken over my tank - I must have removed about 250 of the blasted things.

Also, green algae is dominating - it is everywhere and I am at a complete loss as to what to do about it and am considering that fish keeping is just not for me - I hate to admit this and wish this were not the case.

I have put a lot of effort in and a lot of research and I think all I have managed to do is become a snails and algae expert (at growing the bloody things).

Any help greatly appreciated, but from what I read is that I have to be a chemistry expert and a plant expert and for the algae and NO ONE AT ALL can tell me how to eradicate the friggin snails. It appers that having more plants is the key to a balanced (i.e. algae free) tank but that means investing in a CO2 set up that I simply cannot afford - also I do NOT see other clean tanks using CO2 or (plants for that matter) so why my tank? Why is my experience with fish keeping turning out to be such a disaster!



Andy

 

[PaPeRo]

Does your tank get "direct" sunlight?
What kind of light are you using? Wattage and time on per day?
What is the size of you tank?
What is your Nitrate level?

As to the snails you can use any fish medication that has copper sulfate, but you have to remove your shrimp. Also make sure you remove as many snails as you can before you add the medication. Another safer way is to buy a clown loach which will eat up the snails.

 

[chibi]

I'm really sorry to hear that! For the algae, I'd buy an algae-removing chemical. I think mine is from the company Jungle. Make sure it's plant-safe or it will kill the plants. These chemicals make the algae weaker and make it not grow so quickly. It's a lot easier to scrape off this way.

Here are some sites I found that have info about removing snails:

http/www.bestfish.com/tips/031298.html
http/www.aquariumfish.net/information/ge...mall_snails.htm
http/www.justbajan.com/pets/fish/article...nails/index.htm

Good luck~!!

 

[Glod]

As far as the snails are concerned, a common reason for a population explosion is overfeeding the fish. The snails happily eat any leftovers and breed like mad. This could also be a reason behind your algae problem if the nutrients from rotting flake food are left on the bottom.

Overfeeding is pretty common when people get their first tanks ( I know I certainly did, ). The advice I see given here is to feed only enough that all of the food is eaten in 2 minutes with no leftovers. Personally if I see myself adding food and the fish do not *actively* go for it I think it's too much. The advice of a clown loach for snail control is sound, they're well known for eating snails. Watch their size tho if you have a smaller tank, they can grow to a foot or more. Other, smaller loaches may be an option such as Khuli or Queen loaches.

When you say Algae do you mean on your plants ? Or green tinted water ? What kind of algae are you having problems with ? Can you describe it ?

 

[Underwurlde]

Many thanks for your kind (and unlike my post, tempered) responses

@PaPeRo
Does your tank get "direct" sunlight? NO
What kind of light are you using? 1x Arcadia Freshwater, 1x Arcadia Original
Wattage and time on per day? Total 30Watts. Lighting is on a timer, for a total of 9 hrs. I may change this to 4 hrs on, 1 hr off 4 hrs on.
What is the size of you tank? 15G
What is your Nitrate level?
Ph = 7.8 (equates to 1.4% Ammonia)
Ammonia (NH3/NH4) = 0.2mg/L x 1.4% = 0.003mg/L
Nitrite (NO2) = 0.1 mg/L
Nitrate (NO3) = 5.0 mg/L

As to the snails you can use any fish medication that has copper sulfate, but you have to remove your shrimp. Also make sure you remove as many snails as you can before you add the medication.

Copper Sulfate (in the form of 'King British Snail Control') does NOTHING - it is meant at the very least to 'knock them out' - it did not!

Another safer way is to buy a clown loach which will eat up the snails.

I think using a clown loach is one of two sure-fire methods of removing snails - unfortunately my tank is too small. (The other was to do a complete strip down, replace gravel and dip everything else in a bleach solution).

=========

@chibi
algae-removing chemicals (as far as I can tell - I am no chemist) are the same as that used for snails (i.e. based on Copper Sulphate) - adding above snail control did nothing to the Algae (but I did not try scraping it off).

I have heard of a chemical called 'Protalon 707', but God knows where to get it from!

Thanks for the time you have spent providing me with those links!

=========

@Glod
For the record I vac the gravel weekly when doing a 33% water change. I may be guilty of overfeeding - I feed my fish ONCE a day a varied diet of either flakes, bloodworm or brine shrimp (and Tabimin every other day for my cories). I am aware of the problems associated with overfeeding but my fish are greed little buggers (aren't they all!) and seem to scoff everything.

When you say Algae do you mean on your plants? Yes
Or green tinted water? No
What kind of algae are you having problems with? Sorry, I do not know!
Can you describe it ? It is a dark green (STINKS when exposed) and grows in flat furry patches (max 1mm high). It is everywhere - on the leaves of my plants, side of the tank, on the filter, in the gravel and on my mopani.

==========

Thanks again everyone!!! I guess you are feeling my pain!

Andy

 

[Glod]

Fish are indeed greedy little critters. I'm convinced if I dropped food in at a slow but constant rate my platies and gouramis would eat until they exploded!

If a clown is too big, even temporarily you could consider some of the smaller loaches, there are others which will happily snack on snails given the option. Botia Dario (queen loach) gets to about 6 inches, Kuhlii Loaches get to only 4, never tried those on snails tho.

Sounds like you have cyanobacteria (also called Blue Green Algae). There is an excellent post in the pinned topics that has some suggestions to deal with it here.

edit: Just noticed your lighting regime, not sure if it will help but in my 10 gallon I had to change my lights to have a 2-3 hour gap in the afternoon which cleared up my algae in a few days. Strangely on my 90 gallon the lights are on for 12 hours and there is almost *no* algae in there, there are 3 small plecs tho

 

[Underwurlde]

@Glod
OK, thanks for info; I have read the 'excellent post in the pinned topics' before but it was a bit complicated for me and concentrated on high tech tanks, i.e. those with CO2 - I cannot afford this option and therefore have a lo tech set up - I may be wasting my time trying to do as that article suggests....

However, at the back of my mind is a little voice that is still asking why I have such a big BGA problem and that to rectify it is not simple at all - also that voice tells me that my friends lo tech setups (WITHOUT plants) are fine! I don't get it, perhaps the biggest mistake I made with my setup was to add plants from a grubby source (poxy pets at home) - this I think introduced the BGA and definately the friggin snails (I went back to the store, saw the snails in the plants tank and kicked up a fuss about it - utterly pointless exercise of course but it felt good).

I am trying your suggestion about a lighting siesta (4hrs on, 2off, 4 on) - God knows how or why this would work but I am holding my breath for it because the alternative is:

1) Scrap everything and find my fishies a nice new BGA & snail free home.

2) Strip down & start again - but I cannot see how I am going to do this without a 2nd tank (one I cannot afford cost and space wise). If I do this, knowing my luck thus far, 3 months down the line I'd probably end up with the same problems probably down to a basic imbalance in my approach to fish keeping.

3) Somehow change my setup and add more plants (from a 'clean' source) - I think I have read somewhere about a lady called Diana Walstad who has some wierd & wonderful techniques for lo tech set ups that may help my set up.

I am pretty sure that adding more fish, so called 'algae eaters' would actually make the problem worse!!!

Thanks again,

Andy

 

[BigIan]

the alge problem is you have 2 watts of lighting for every litre of your tank. thats ALOT!
you definately need to tone down the lighting to maybe just 6 hrs on a day.
as for the snails a natural predator is the only way to go, blue opaline goramis are gerat little snail eaters.

Hint: forget those expencive alge scraers in the shops just get a green scourer from asza they worm much better....

 

[Miss Wiggle]

your tanks 15l and you've 30w of lighting ??? can you double check this. this gives you something like 10wpg, even the most high tech set up's have 4/5 wpg, this is why your getting so much algae growth. cut down to like half the lighting and you'll see some die off. also if you start using a fertiliser (just get an all in one type thing, i use seachem flourish and flourish excel, it's easy cheap and effective) your plants will do better and fight off the algae better

 

[Underwurlde]

Did I say L??? I meant, of corse G. i.e. 2W/Gallon

Butter-hook!

I do not use ferts (advice from a previous question was: do not use ferts in a lo tech set up). My substrate is gravel & Laterite.

Andy

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Did I say L??? I meant, of corse G. i.e. 2W/Gallon

Butter-hook!

Andy

ha ha that's more likely. it's still quite high lighting though, turn the lights down to like 6/7 hrs a day

 

[dwarfgourami]

Did I say L??? I meant, of corse G. i.e. 2W/Gallon

Butter-hook!

Andy

ha ha that's more likely. it's still quite high lighting though, turn the lights down to like 6/7 hrs a day

If it is cyanobacteria though, do we know that is caused by high lighting? I had it in my darkest dingiest tank, not quite sure how I got rid of it in the end- I did take a few things out and scrub them, and started feeding the plants- suppose that might have helped.

 

[Silverlady]

I found Seachem Flourish Excell excellent for clearing my Algae up , and have you got Co2 , i think i have read that at 2 watts per Gallon you need it.

 

[BigIan]

If it is BGS then only elbow grease will get rid of it.

 

[Glod]

Ignoring all the other parts of the post...

Treatment

There are two main methods to treating BGA. The first is a blackout. Cover the tank completely; do not let any light in at all. Wait for 3 days, no peeking or feeding the fish, then uncover, hopefully the BGA will have disappeared. I have not personally used this method but I am assured it works (except for Houndour�s case � sorry Sam).

The second is by using antibiotics. Remember that BGA is bacteria. Ethyromycine (trade name - Maracyn) is commonly used to rid BGA. It is also highly effective and is apparently fish and plant safe. The whole tank is normally treated via mixing the drug with the tank water. Dosage - 200mg per 10 US Gallon every day for five consecutive days.

I have had good results with Maracyn using another method. I recently witnessed a little BGA build-up between my substrate and front glass. I split a 400mg Maracyn tablet in half, then one half I broke into 8 small pieces. I placed each piece in the infected areas using tweezers. A couple of days later the BGA had completely disappeared. Now I slide a credit card between the glass and substrate every week just to ensure it doesn�t reappear. So far so good (8 weeks on) and I still have 99 � tablets left!

Those both seem quite simple methods to try and combat the problem. As BigIan and Miss Wiggle have said, you have a lot of light, hopefully the break in the lighting will help to keep it under control once you get that far. The other option would be if you have mutiple tubes in your setup, take one out ?