Muck in aquarium

[Dubby]

I have a heavily planted aquarium with a few tetras, mollys and some algae eaters including a shrimp. Recently I am noticing that a fine brownish muck forms on the bottom which looks almost like crumbled poo/plants. There arent that many fish to account for all that much poo. So what could it be?

It also rapidly clogs my filter wool that I have to clean them every week. ANy help to reduce this would be appreciated.

 

[yvez9]

maybe you're overfeeding and your fish poo a lot more than usual?
what kind of algea eaters do you have? plecos can be messy and if you feed them algea tablets, they usually make a mess if the fish don't eat them within a few hours.

 

[pondfreak4365]

Is it possible that the muck is from decaying plants? Maybe a bit of 'gardening' is in order!

 

[Dubby]

Definitely not overfeeding Plants are growing like crazy so could be the dying leaves are contributing to the mess. My algae eaters are small chaps - SAE, CAE, Flying fox and a shrimp and they have never contributed much poo so far

Perhaps I ought to remove a few plants..... I cant see the fish anymore !!!

 

[WILDER]

You don't feed freeze dried tubliex worms do you by any chance.

 

[SnowyzMom]

Yep it sounds like some tank mowing is in order. Whatever the plant is that's in my aquariums, and I forget the name , it grows so blinkin fast I was hauling out long strands of it 2 weeks ago just so the fish had room to swim in. It's nice to have the plants growing so well but sheesh. I gave tons of it to snowyangel and she's now stocking her tanks with it. (she carried it home in a 2L pop bottle on the bus ) This plant does break off bits and pieces all the time and they do rot. I'm always retrieving dying bits. Mainly it grows like mad though.

Have you siphoned/cleaned the bottom of the tank out yet? I find I have to do that regularly. It gets rid of a LOT of the gunge at the bottom of the tank, particularly among gravel. It also helps if your fish beg you so prettily that you overfeed one day....because they sure poo alot afterwards!

 

[ddm18]

Probably a silly question, but you haven't, by chance, just changed from a gravel to sand substrate have you? Only that when I did I was surprised by the amount of poo on the bottom, because the sand shows it up better than gravel. I'm sure that's not it, but maybe worth a mention.

 

[Dubby]

You don't feed freeze dried tubliex worms do you by any chance.

Only as a treat once in a while. Why?

I use sand as a substrate with Vermiculite and clay as the base and have been doing so for over a year. Prior to that I had gravel.

 

[freddyk]

I think some gardening and a good cleanup will do the trick. To prevent further accumulation I highly recommend adding a powerhead or two, depending on tank size, to improve water movement at the bottom of the tank, this way debris will be kicked up before it can settle and be picked up by the filter(s). Several small powerheads are more ideal then one big one to keep the current acceptable. This, at least, works very well for me - I never need to clean the bottom of my planted tank.

 

[BobK]

Hey SnowyzMom, could your plant be hornwort? Does it float at the top? My water is crystal clear but when I vacuum the gravel the water is full of little pieces of the plant and they grow really fast too. I was surprised how filthy it was when I cleaned it the other day. It's a 10 gallon and I have 3 platies in there.

 

[Dubby]

freddyk

You are probably correct. This is a Juwel 60 using only the internal filter. An additional filter or powerhead might help.