Convicts

[electric yellow]

I have alot of greenish brown stuff now spreading rapidly over the gravel n ornaments in my tank it could be hair algae.

What does it look like? ...fluffy, stringy, slimely or fuzzy? I always have a small bit of algea in my cichlid tank but nothing to worry about. There is a difference between good algea and bad algea though I just clean it off when i change their water. Is it totally covering things? How much light is getting in there?

 

[LauraFrog]

The bottled products that you added will do nothing at all because the bacteria in them are dead. This is another thing said by pet stores - I can assure you that they don't work, the people on this forum have tested them extensively and repeatedly and they will not speed up your cycle. As has been said you will also need to rehome the convict and RTBS when they get bigger.

Do you have ammonia and nitrite readings for today?

What colour is the algae? If it's bluish-green it is BGA, blue green algae, and you can kill it with the antibiotic erythromycin as it is actually cyanobacteria. If it's not BGA, the ways to get rid of algae usually rely on removal of phosphates and nutrients or application of glutaraldehyde (Flourish Excel). Most of the commercial 'algae killers' do very little in my experience.

 

[Davo86]

Hi guys thanks for the advice, fish are still ok - today's the 1st day the Convict has been out swimming about when the lights been on, she's been in my rock since Friday, but has now settled in 1 corner.. I have just Cycled the tank the normal way by adding Nutrafin Cycle and Nutrafin Aqua Plus... done a water change today, about a couple of hours ago now, things look fine. Yes i put in Mature Filter a good handfull of gravel from a Mutured Tank that a friend has, put the gravel in a stocking and put it in the tank. I also had the temperture up at 30c for the first week too. I have alot of greenish brown stuff now spreading rapidly over the gravel n ornaments in my tank it could be hair algae.

no offense but you really do need to do some research,

- Nutrafin does nothing to cycle a tank
- 'Mature' gravel does next to nothing to cycle a tank
- no point in upping the temperature to 30C
- You now have a crap load of algae in the tank as your nitrate will be sky high and the algae will be feeding off this.
- You also have a convict that needs 20G and a territorial shark that needs 50G+ to reduce aggression,
- You have not mentioned water stats so i presume you haven't got a clue what they are.

 

[saltynay]

Upping the temps do actually have an impact on bacterial metabolic rate so it will speed up cycling but there is only about a days difference.
Algae is a sign of ammonia and nitrate usually as this is what plants preffered source of nutrients like a natural fertiliser that is why a heavily planted tank doesn't need to be cycled for long periods providing you understock the tank atm you are overstocking that tank even if those fish are small they all like to swim a lot and explore there environment thoroughly.

 

[bronzecat]

Hi

With regards to the "cycle" type products, i have recently set-up a marine tank. I used a product called "Seachem Stability". Since day one of setting up I have not had any Ammonia or nitrIte showing. NitrAtes to 5ppm were showing after 3 days. Whether or not the Stability did its job in this case is difficult to establish due to the amount of live rock that was put in the system (live rock acts as a filtering agent). I have just set up a new fresh water tank and am using Stability to establish whether or not it does work. The difference between Stability and other so called cycling agents, is that it has the good bacteria that would eventually appear in the filter at the end of the cycle, rather than the bad bacteria that the others do.

I will post up my results as they happen.

 

[LionMom]

Please do, Bronzecat, the results will be VERY interesting.

Myself, since I have had tanks for years I just steal some filter media - instant cycle!!!

 

[KyzaSoze]

i have done water tests everyday, a 6 in 1 test kit, every reading so far is in the 'OK' brackets, its colour charted thinkin of gettin a API test kit, anyway. The algae is now mainly a brown colour and is stringy. Water temp is 26c and the lights on for 8 - 9hours a day.

 

[Davo86]

i have done water tests everyday, a 6 in 1 test kit, every reading so far is in the 'OK' brackets, its colour charted thinkin of gettin a API test kit, anyway. The algae is now mainly a brown colour and is stringy. Water temp is 27c.

There isn't really an 'ok' bracket when it comes to water stats, its either good or bad,

 

[KyzaSoze]

There isn't really an 'ok' bracket when it comes to water stats, its either good or bad,
[/quote]


Just done another Water Test and on the test it has an ok level and/or safe level or tells you that it falls in a water change level, all 6 fall into ranging from ok to safe.. does that explain it bit better?

 

[Davo86]

Just done another Water Test and on the test it has an ok level and/or safe level or tells you that it falls in a water change level, all 6 fall into ranging from ok to safe.. does that explain it bit better?

Paper strips give very poor info and results, They also don't test for ammonia which is the most critical

Your nitrite needs to be exactly 0, having even 0.1 nitrite is bad, (same goes for ammonia)
with smaller fish like neons etc you really want the nitrate level to be showing at 20 or below.

 

[LauraFrog]

Correct - 'Safe' probably means 'level too low to be detected by a paper strip test but still toxic to fish'. You should really get a liquid-reagent test kit (API Freshwater Liquid Master). Greater accuracy, which allows you to pinpoint where in the cycle you are.
Telling us the readings are 'safe' really doesn't work because 'safe' varies by company. What we need if we are really going to help you is numbers.

Bronze - the seachem thing is interesting... by 'good' bacteria do you mean they're using nitrospira instead of nitrobacter? If so, that's very good news and means that it is likely to work. (Nitrospira is the active ingredient in Biospira, which does work. It is a nitrite oxidiser and it is capable of living at low concentrations of its food source. Nitrobacter is what you get growing if your water quality is ABSOLUTELY FOUL when you cycle, or if you are going fishless and you overload it with ammonia, like 10ppm - as soon as the concentration drops below 8ppm or so it dies, which is why products that contain nitrobacter will not cycle a tank.) /science rant.