Noob Help

[GatorJ]

Hey everyone,

Just signed up looks like a great forum here, I am in need of some help. My wife and I are fairly new to fish/aquariums and we jumped in quickly and of course now we need help.

Ok I have 4 tanks 2 55 gal, and 2 10 gal. We use 1 10 gal for a "hospital" so to speak in case any fish is sick/damaged well move to the 10 gallon and administer treatment.

Ok first question, one of our 55 gallons (2 angel fish, kissing gromie, 3 blue grommies, 1 chinese algae eater,2 pictus catfish) We changed the filters about 4 weeks ago and the water is still cloudy (whitish cloud, bacteria bloom? from what i have read) Now for the past couple weeks i have been doing water changes regularly about once a week (i thought it was best to do frequent when this is going on) however now it seems i have talked to people and they told me to stop doing water changes so i did, then i put in some "live bacteria" which i guess should help control the bloom? That was 24 hrs ago, the tank is still cloudy. My question is am i doing the right thing? and how long can i expect until the tank clears up?

Next question is in regard to our other 10 gallon ( 2 chinese algea eaters in the tank, 2 mollies, 1 tetra, and 2 mini tetras), it gets alot of brown algea on the filter (where the water flows to go back into the tank), from my understanding this is because its a new tank which this tank has been setup for about 3 mos now so i guess im just wondering if there is anything else i should do to control it. I am concerned because my french onion plant is not looking so good, it has the algae all over the stems/leaves and is maybe killing it?

3rd question, those 2 tanks have live plants which we love however our other 55 gallon tank is a semi agressive (chiclids etc) and they keep tearing the plants up so we no longer have real ones in this tank, is there anything we can do to A discourage eating plants? B discourage picking/ripping plants up?

Last question is in regards to PH, my PH levels are high on all my tanks (7.8-8.0 maxed out on the strip) i am told because of the area here, i recently bought some ph decreser and my question is how important is it to get that level lowered? i know i should be doing it slowly no more than .5 a day however is it necassary and could this help the cloudy water not clear up?

I have a ton more things to ask but those are my main concerns, thanks in advance for any input, also let me know if some other information is needed.

 

[SharonCC]

Hi Gator and WELCOME! When you say, you CHANGED the filters in the 55gal, do you mean you replaced. If so, you've removed all the beneficial bacteria, and the tank is cycling again. Check levels for Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates. If the tank is cycling, you would get a bacterial bloom such as you describe. The levels need to be checked immediately, as water changes could be needed in order to keep fish alive.
The brown growth that you see in your 10gal is not actually an Algae but diatoms. It's harmless, and can easily be wiped off.
Cichlids that are prone to eat or disturb plants cannot be dissuaded from doing so...you can try some silks...they are quite realistic, these days.
I wouldn't mess with the ph at all. If you start trying to alter it with additives, you will have PH swings. Unstable PH is very harmful to fish...

You might want to consider rehoming the CAEs in your tanks. They will lose their taste for algae at about three inches, and start killing your other fish.
Hope this helps!!!

 

[waterdrop]

You've come to the right place. This is a great set of forums and the members here will eventually get you sorted out.

You've got a whole set of beginner problems that we see a lot. The problem is that its going to take time for you to absorb the new info and skills needed to handle these things. There'll be actions you'll need to take. In fact we will probably put you back on pretty big water changes for your big tank pretty quickly in order to keep those fish alive.

You're going to need to start reading the pinned articles at the top of this forum. You need to learn first about the Nitrogen Cycle. Look for Beginners Resource Center, and then articles by Miss Wiggle and AlienAnna and other things in the Cycling Resource Center. In any of Miss Wiggles posts there are a bunch of great links to click on.

The first and most important piece of equipment every beginner should have is a good liquid-reagent based test kit. Many of us use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit and like it. The Nutrafin Mini-Master is also a good one. The tests based on paper strips are worse than bad, they are misleading and should be tossed out. Only with good tests will you and we be able to know whether your tanks are cycled or are having water problems.

Unfortunately it sounds like your large tank is uncycled, probably due to changing out and losing your biofilter. "Live bacteria" products are exactly not that (live) and almost never work. The pinned articles will get you started understanding how important your biofilters are and what questions to ask. We will probably find you are in a "Fish-In Cycling" situation and the only solution will be to do large and frequent water changes such that ammonia and nitrite are kept below 0.25ppm, so that the fish have a chance of living.

Algae, unfortunately, is a great big topic and after you get your urgent water chem problems under control, you'll be able to spend some time reading threads over in the Planted Tank section and learning some of the skill sets needed.

Also, your pH is good and not something to be worrying about I feel. The important thing about pH is that it not be fluctuating wildly while fish are in. It really doesn't matter a lot what absolute reading its at by comparison and it is ideal to be able to stay within and work with whatever your tap water is. It can be analyzed on a fish by fish basis later but in the meantime it is not good at all to be adjusting it with chemicals.

OK, that's about all from me for now. Others will chime in. Work on getting a decent liquid kit right away and reading about the Nitrogen Cycle.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GatorJ]

Thanks for the quick replies, i am doing the reading right now.

Follow up questions
Sharon : You might want to consider rehoming the CAEs in your tanks. They will lose their taste for algae at about three inches, and start killing your other fish.

If these fish are not good due to losing their taste or being aggressive what do you reccomend for algae eaters i would prefer smaller as we have a pleco? (armord catfish) one in our semi agreesive tank and it is prolly 10-11 inches and that would be too big for the a 10 gallon

And should i start doing daily water changes again then?

Lastly we replaced the filters in my other 55 and in the 10 and they are not cloudy i guess i dont understand why it effects one tank over another?

 

[SharonCC]

Otos are fairly good algae eaters, as are Siamese Algae eaters. Don't add them now, as Otos are sensitive. Am I understanding...you've removed ALL the filters and replaced with new??? All tanks will be cycling, if that is the case. You REALLY need a proper liquid test kit, as you need to know readings for Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, since you have the suspicious bacterial bloom, you should be performing 50% daily water changes until you can confirm with the liquid tests whether things or worse or better than we think.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

It is time to bring up another possibility for your 55 with the cloudy water. If your tests show that you have an uncycled tank, entirely possible, you are in the perfect position to speed up the cycle on that tank. You have a fully cycled filter on the other 55. The cycled filter can be "cloned" and will greatly speed up the cycle on the uncycled tank. The way to clone a filter is to take some of the filter media out of it, no more than a third, and place that media into the one that needs cycling. Since I use mostly the Rena XP series canisters, a clone is easy for me. The canisters come with several sponge filters inside so I swap a used sponge for a new one in the filters and my new filter is almost instantly cycled. It has often made it possible for me to stock a tank within a week of setting it up. For a tank that is already stocked, the approach may save your existing stock.

 

[GatorJ]

Ok i feel like an idiot.... the lights we have in our 55 are white, and this whole time we have been thinking that it was a "white cloud" well upon doing the water change the water we were taking out was green, looked at the rest of the water in the tank with the lights off and it is green for sure. So i guess this means i have an algea bloom and i should be doing daily water changes anything else reccomended?
So maybe the changing of the filters is irrelavent at this point?

 

[OldMan47]

Green water is not a problem for the fish. If you don't like it, the best approach is to make sure you are not overfeeding the fish and limit the light over the tank to just what you need for your other plants. There are commercial breeders who think of green water in a pond as a tonic for fish that just are not thriving. They say things like "When I have some that are looking sick but not showing any particular disease, I toss them into a pond that is solid green and a few weeks later all the fish in that pond look great". Frankly I wish I had your problem. I am trying to grow green water for my daphnia culture and having a hard time getting it going. I think I'm short on nutrients and light but am trying to work that out. Meanwhile I do have a green water culture that is working in a jar, it just isn't big enough to feed all my daphnia.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, if its green water and not a bacterial bloom that changes the whole picture. It is still essential for your "aquarist basics" to be getting familiar with using a good test kit to get your "stats" however.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GatorJ]

going to invest in a good test kit today, we have one of the paper ones, but after seeing how much everyone says they are horrible its time to splurge. I will post up my water results tonight

 

[waterdrop]

going to invest in a good test kit today, we have one of the paper ones, but after seeing how much everyone says they are horrible its time to splurge. I will post up my water results tonight

Yes, excellent choice. I had bought some "5 in 1" strips before I got a liquid master kit and I was shocked at how far off the strips were when I compared them later, doing strip and liquid test simultaneously.

With 4 tanks, you have jumped seriously into the hobby and it'll be great to master all of this water stuff!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[drobbyb]

Green water is usually triggered by an ammonia spike or too much light with abundant nutrients in the water. Like OldMan47 said, it isn't harmful to fish. The easiest way to stop the green water is to leave the light off for 3 days and on the 4th day do an 80% waterchange. This will kill off and clear out the dead algae in the water. It should be noted that until the cause is found, there is nothing from stopping it from happening again. Guessing by the change in filter media, I would say that the ammonia spike probably started the ball rolling.

Almost everyone gets greenwater at some point in their fishkeeping career.

 

[GatorJ]

havent gotten the test kit we went last weekend but the LFS was sold out, and other stores only have the paper strips.

I have been doing frequent water changes and its slowly but surely getting better i guess, however i cant just turn the lights off for 3 days because it will kill my plants... and 80% isnt that a bit much? i never do more than about 40%

 

[waterdrop]

No, I think its good advice, won't kill your plants and 80% is not too much unless your tap water params are way off from your tank stats I'd think.

If it persists and you want to dive in in even more detail you might go over in the planted tank section as there have been plenty of long threads over there about green water I believe.

~~waterdrop~~