Hair Algae Filter

[lozronz]

Hi!

Haven't been on here for time! the forum has even changed colour!

I just had a quandary after visiting a friends house that I thought I would put forward.

My buddy has a 4.5ft tank which he used to look after really well but he kinda went off the rails in the last six months (for good reason personal crap wise.) He has not maintained it at all, just fed the fish (no water changes) in the last 6 months or so and in my opinion it was overstocked in the first place.

The weird thing is the fish look super healthy! He has let a massive bloom of some kind of hair algae take up a load of the tank and I was thinking, could that be the reason that the nitrates/trites have not killed the fish? In a very unsightly way could that be working as a filter?

Obviously this is not a filter solution and please don't reply about by friend being spawn of Satan for letting a tank go a wry.

I just wondered whether the algae saved the fish?

Cheers
L

 

[jarcher1390]

Im sorry to say no they are most likely dieing a very slow death he may find that sooner or later they may all drop dead, Since there has been no water changes the water chemistry has changed but has changed very slowly allowing the fish to acclimatize to the poor conditions. and should be put right slowly other wise he may find he has wasted a lot of money