Newbie Wanting Advice

[midcomp]

Hi
We have a 24" x 12" x 15" high tropical tank. In it is an under gravel filter, air brick and water filter, two plastic plants and a plastic "hollow mountain".
The fish we have are 8 guppies ( all male ), 4 neon tetris, 2 cichlids ( pink ), 2 small cat fish, 3 mollies ( one male, two female) and three small loach.
We feed them twice a day with a sprinkle of fish flakes, 5 or 6 food sticks for cichlids and two algae wafers.
After a couple of weeks the bottom of the tank and the plants and ornament are covered in whispy hairs and when you disturb the gravel small clumps float up into the water. The sponge in the filter is covered in a brown slime.
Question are: are we feeding them too much and the right food?, Have we got too many fish in the tank?,
Is it normal and are we worrying too much. Any and all help would be very much apreciated.
Regards
Pete

 

[WILDER]

Useless at maths how many gallons or litres it that.
How long has the tank been set up.
What are your water stats in ammonia,nitrite,nitrate, and ph.
How often do you do a gravel vac and water change.

 

[dwarfgourami]

The tank is 70 ltr=19 US gallons, so it's not a big tank. It may be that you are overstocked, and that you have stocked too much too suddenly, but at the moment you seem to have escaped serious consequences.
This is where you need to be proactive though, as disaster can strike suddenly. You need to buy yourselves a test kit and test daily for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. The algae you are seeing may be caused by too much nitrates in the water- check the level and compare with that of the tap water; tank nitrates should be within 10 ppm of the tap water; too great a discrepancy is a sign of either overstocking or overfeeding. Ammonia and nitrites should not be present at all, if they are they need to be diluted through partial water changes.

You also need to identify the cichlids and catfish; some of these grow very big, and some cichlids can get very aggressive. If you post us a pic, we may be able to help. 5-6 cichlid sticks and 2 algae wafers sounds like a lot of food for fish as small as they ought to be to go in that tank- it suggests either that you are overfeeding or that the fish are too big.

The brown slime on the filter sponge is a good sign; it is a sign that beneficial bacteria are present. You should be doing a weekly partly water change as general tank maintenance, and once a month you may rinse out the filter sponge gently in old tank water (not tap water as that kills the bacteria), just to make sure it doesn't clog up.