I lost one of two lyre tail molleys and a neon Friday overnight. I don't have an explaination. One of my fancy guppies has tail issues and the tail is split in several places. I lost power Wed of last week and when I looked I saw many white worms in the water column about a quarter an inch long. I saw one funny looking worm(?) that had a rectangle shapped body and was about an inch long. I have recently added a more powerful lamp, 104W instead of 40W for my 45gal. to help my live plants. I now have a beard algae problem.
My water has been and is 0 Amonia, 0 Nitrite, and 5 to 10 Nitrate as measured before and after weekly 25% water changes.
I went to the local pet smart to get some information and see if they had any products to help with the algae or worms. The young lady at the store said, and was ademant, that the worm problem was over feeding or poor vacuuming. She said the algae was likely caused by over feeding, poor vacuuming, or too much light. I am currently running the lamp on a timer for nine hours a day.
I learned that I was not vacuuming correctly. I had been vacuuming just the top of the substrate and rocks. I did a change and vacuum yesterday and forced the vacuum into the substrate and going all the way to the bottom of the tank. This produced an amazing amount of waste that I had no idea had been accumulating.
I would have expected that all this waste would have shown up in the water parameters, why not?
I assume that the worm call was correct as provided by the lady at PetSmart. We will see.
I am assuming that this does not have anything to do with my fish dying off. I have lost about half the fish I have purchased over a six or seven month period. They seem to be one at a time with a week or as much as a month in between. I was replacing them but for the past three months Ive decided that I am not going to replace. If I get to zero I guess Ill start over after cloroxing my tank and contents.
A second lesson learned came from a recent post. I had said that my fish did not seem to like water changes. One of the recommendations was to try and use water that was near my 78 degree temp. That has worked and the last two changes have the fish seemingly happy following a change.
Mark
My water has been and is 0 Amonia, 0 Nitrite, and 5 to 10 Nitrate as measured before and after weekly 25% water changes.
I went to the local pet smart to get some information and see if they had any products to help with the algae or worms. The young lady at the store said, and was ademant, that the worm problem was over feeding or poor vacuuming. She said the algae was likely caused by over feeding, poor vacuuming, or too much light. I am currently running the lamp on a timer for nine hours a day.
I learned that I was not vacuuming correctly. I had been vacuuming just the top of the substrate and rocks. I did a change and vacuum yesterday and forced the vacuum into the substrate and going all the way to the bottom of the tank. This produced an amazing amount of waste that I had no idea had been accumulating.
I would have expected that all this waste would have shown up in the water parameters, why not?
I assume that the worm call was correct as provided by the lady at PetSmart. We will see.
I am assuming that this does not have anything to do with my fish dying off. I have lost about half the fish I have purchased over a six or seven month period. They seem to be one at a time with a week or as much as a month in between. I was replacing them but for the past three months Ive decided that I am not going to replace. If I get to zero I guess Ill start over after cloroxing my tank and contents.
A second lesson learned came from a recent post. I had said that my fish did not seem to like water changes. One of the recommendations was to try and use water that was near my 78 degree temp. That has worked and the last two changes have the fish seemingly happy following a change.
Mark
