I'm New And Have Some Question

[lil.michelle]

Hey everyone

I'm new here. I have a very large jewel aquirium. I've had it about 6 years now. It's wonderful. I have MANY fish in there from silvers sharks, clown loaches, drawf puffers, neons ect ect ect

I really want to know what i can do to keep it clean. I have 2 filters, one that came with the tank and the other which is an external EHEIM fliter and is bloody HUGE but my tank is ALWAYS dirty, after a few days the water turns a yellow colour and bits are floating around everywhere.

I do have 2 large bits of bog wood in the tank but surely after 6 years it would stop discolouring the water.....?

I also have trouble with algae. It's on all the plants. I have 2 very large plecostomus and a royal plecostomus but they REALLY do not help with this problem. The tank is not in direct sunlight or anything so i'm completely lost to why i have SO much! Any ideas what i can do? Has anyone any idea on that plant that's like a ball that helps with this??

I've been thinking about getting under gravel filters... Is this a good idea? Anyone else got them? any reconmondations?

I've spent hundreds of pounds on real plants but the fish eat them, so i'm stuck with plastic ones. They are nice but i'd much prefer real ones... Any ideas on what i can do or get?

For now... i'll stop asking questions I just feel i'm lost and now soo fed up with spending so much money trying to solve these problems that i'm now thinking of selling the tank.

Thanx soo much for reading this.

Michelle X

 

[SharonCC]

What's the tank size, complete stocking list, and the readings for Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates...

 

[Anguilla82]

first off, don't get undergravel filters.
they're hard to maintain, and by th esounds of it you've probably got enough filtration anyway with your b****y huge eheim!!!!

whats your exact stocking? could be that you're over stocked.
how often and what amount are your water changes.
An excess in nutrients either form too many fish or from not diluting them through water changes will lead to excess algae growth.

plecos (common and royal) are not very good at cleaning up algae once they get to a certain size. otocinclus catfish tend to do a better job (also bristlenose catfish).

the discolouring could still be from the bog wood.
are they big solid bulky bits? if so it'll take a while for the tanins to leach out from teh centre of the wood.

i've got some from aound 10 years ago that still 'ages' the water.


as for plants that won't get eaten, Anubias and cryptocorns? tend not to taste good.
whats eating your plants?

 

[annafishlover]

i would just take the wood out and see if that helps and why dont you try slik plants there not real but no hard plastic so they dont hurt the fish

 

[Anguilla82]

the plant thats like a ball is java moss. but all that will do is use up some of the nutrients like any real plants would.

best to target where the excess nutrients are coming from.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Yes as above, some more specific info on the tank will help us determine the root cause of your problem, what is the model number of the eheim filter? and all the questions above!

as some general help there's a link in my sig called 'weekly maintenance' which explains what you should do to keep on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to keep things clean and in order so have a read through that and see how it compares to what you do at the moment.