What An Evening....help Req.

[Liquidshokk]

As some may have read before, I have a bit of a fishy crisis in the sense that I have lots of fish that don't go together in my tank. I still havent had any offers to swap these or for someone to take them off my hands. (any takers in soton please let me know...)

As for tonight, Well the last week or so algae has been blooming like crazy, So I thought I'd do a weekly water change, during this i checked the filters in the filter box, they had lots of the good algae stuff on them which i made sure i didnt remove, but then I noticed that there were LOADS of snails in there and in my tank!!! The nasty little brown ones... I spent ages getting them out!

... I then found a tiny baby platty in there! He was hiding in the filter box and then escaped back out into the tank...

Then after I had done the water change and treated the water the two mollies started to go crazy!! attacking each other constantly...

So now I'm left with a few questions...

Why has the algae suddenly started blooming so bad when the tank is cycled and the lights are on a timer???

If I havent got rid of ALL the snails I'm assuming I will have loads again soon??? Any ideas for treatments if neccesary??

Is the baby platty likely to survive in the tank with the big fish??

Would the mollies behaviour be down to stress as a result of disturbance when I was cleaning the tank??

and lasty.... Why the hell did I buy a tank in the first place???

Thanks in advance

 

[doresy]

If you still need some fish taken off your hands then i may be able to help.
I'll take the Panda Corys and if the neon blue gourami are male then I could house one of them.
Just let me know, I'm not far away

As for your problems

It is quite common for fry to end up in the filter.
Fry will get eaten although sometimes the odd one will make it if you have hiding places..
Is your 'blooming' a sort of whit milky mist?
I get snail infestation then they all disappear, only to reappear months later and so on.
There are anti-snail products available from your LFS.
Now then, your filters? Firstly, you are not meant to growing algae in there! What your are doing is cultivating two types of useful bacteria. One to covert ammonia into nitrite and another to convert nitrite into nitrAte. These bacteria are invisible to the naked eye so maybe your filter is sludging up. Gently squeeze out foam media (or shake out if you have noodles) in OLD TANK WATER after a water change. Do this every other water change but to ONE HALF of your media each time never do it all at once. Do you use white fine wool media as the first stage mechanical filter, this will help to keep your filter cleaner and will help with the blooming.

Oh yes.......quote "Why the hell did I buy a tank in the first place" 'cos once mastered.....best bloomin' hobby there is! (sorry no pun intended, bloomin I mean!)

 

[Liquidshokk]

Ah, the corys are one of the breeds I'll be keeping, I currently have two and plan to add a another one, maybe two, when I have sorted out the gourami/barb issue...

I basically have too many male gouramis (I think I have two male neon blue's and two male gold) and the torpedo barbs will grow too big for my 96 litre tank (apparently)...

You are welcome to take a blue one (and an orange if you can home it) which will enable us to either get rid of the other two somehow or add more females to correct the balance...

 

[doresy]

Have added some more info for you.
If you are keeping the corys then yes you must increase the numbers and stick with the same kind.
Most of the LFS round here will take back fish.
The pet shop in Shakespear Rd (alongside Eastleigh Battery and Spares) will help you deffo.
Are you testing your water?

 

[Liquidshokk]

Thanks for the info!

The blooming is on the glass, it seems to be getting green very very quickly the last couple of weeks...There isnt a great deal of light in the room and the timer is set to change the lighting every 3-4 hours so its a bit strange, Im thinking maybe it is because, as you say, the filters are clogged up... When I say algae on the filters I dont mean covering it all over, just has a brown tinge to it and as advised by someone on here, I wipe any gunk off the cotton pads (which i replace weekly) onto the blue sponge...obviously removing any bits of plants etc...

I test the water before water changes and two hours after. The nitrite and Nitrate usually goes down to a bare minimum after a change but lately the nitrAte seems to be staying high(ish) So from what you say the bacteria is working as far as converting amonia to nitrIte is working but maybe not so well converting to NitrAte?!!?

I will following your instructions with the filters tonight as I haven't really touched the filters in the 13 weeks or so that we have had the tank other than to replace the white cotton ones...

I can imagine it is a GREAT hobby when mastered, I just wish Arturis sold me the right fish and it would be much more enjoyable!!