Warning Signs I Guess

[Greg Night]

hey got back from holiday and ive noticed brown spots over floor of tank and 2 spots on front glass wall, also noticed 2 leaves of a plant are white? (i beleive my plant to be "Vallisneria spiralis") and stringiny green algea on 1 leaf?

tank is 30 gal
set up 3 weeks
5 bloodfin tetras (used to be 6 one has dyed i guess some thing to do wth the above?)
sand at bottom

help
cheers

 

[jtnova13]

the tetra dying is probably not because of algea. How much light is on the tank? Tetra are not very hardy fish and the tank hasnt been cycled yet, so that's probably why one of them died, what are your water parameters?

Scrub your glass or get an algea magnet, get some more plants to combat the algea, i wouldnt recomend putting any other fish in it until the tank cycles.

dont know what cycling is? i think there's a sticky in this forum about it

good luck!

 

[Hysterian]

Getting a fish that eats algae would be a good idea also. Keeps algae problems down.

 

[dwarfgourami]

jtnova is right- algae is not dangerous for fish, just looks untidy. The problem is almost certainly due to new tank syndrome, i.e. the bacteria colony in your tank has not yet grown big enough to cope with your fish's waste. At this stage it would be a very bad idea to get another, algae-eating fish in, particularly as most algae-eaters are either heavy waste producers (plecs) or quite sensitive (otos). Instead you need to concentrate on the water stats- diluting the bad chemicals by frequent partial water changes (don't forget to dechlorinate). Ignore the algae for the time being, just clean off what you can manually.

 

[Greg Night]

hey cheers for advice, what do i use to declorinate water in water changes?

cheers greg

 

[jtnova13]

Your LFS will have multiple liquids to dechlorinate water, just ask them what they use. You typically put like a capful for every 5 or 10 gallons something like that.