Hello all!

[Tis]

Just wanted to thank you for this forum & praise God I found it. My husband & I are fairly new to having fish aquariums. We started out with 5.5 gallon & have recently moved up to 10 gallons (we each have 1). He leans toward fancy guppies & blue/gold neons. I have Tetras (6 total), 1 snail, & an Oto catfish(?). I started out with a male Betta. Had him for about 4 mos n he passed ...?? Then I got another male Betta, which I named Finnegan. He had personality galore! Have NO CLUE what happened, but he was fine 1 day n died the next . Had him for 6+ mos. I'll attach photos of Finnegan, my current tank & my husband's tank. We both have snails also. He had a BIG problem with his past snails being...shall I say...VERY prolific?!! Must've ended up with over 100 of the buggers, but when going to the larger tank a lot were in the substrate n just threw it out as he had to start TOTALLY new due to some kind of algae. It was dark green to almost black in color, kinda hairy, and over took the whole tank...on live plants, the glass, the ornaments, even on the pump, etc. We cleaned as told by 2 owners of the local fish stores, including taking everything out & scrubbing it & even using bleach, but to no avail.
That's my adventures so far.
Thanks again! Have a blessed week!!
Tis

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The black beard algae is a pain to deal with. It is introduced on plants and in water and spreads. you can usually control it by reducing light and nutrients but it's a fine balance to get it right.

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The following link has information about what to do if your fish are sick. It's long and boring but worth a read when you have some spare time.

What to do if your fish gets sick

If your fish ever looks sick or unwell, then the following steps might help. Test the Water and Clean the Tank. Test the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH and write the results down in numbers. Check it for general hardness (GH) and carbonate hardness (KH) too if you can, but...

www.fishforums.net

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The tank with the blue gravel needs a picture on the back to make the fish feel more secure. You can buy pictures from pet shops, online, or just use black plastic or coloured card. Tape the picture to the outside of the tank.

The same tank has an Amazon Sword plant in it. The plant needs to be lifted a little bit so the stems are above the gravel and the roots are in the gravel. Currently the bottom of the leaf stems are buried in the gravel.

You can put some floating plants in the tanks to help reduce algae and make tetras happier due to the shade from the plants. Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta) is one of the better floating plants and can be grown in the gravel too.

 

[Circus]

Welcome to the forum!