6 month old tank---newbie questions at the sixth month mark.

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wigglejaggles

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Oct 26, 2003
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hey now all,

well my 10 gallon tanks are now about six months old. Each tanks has only one dwarf gourami.

I have some problems that have recently started to occur within the past two months that I hope you can help me answer.

The first question is about driftwood-

I had driftwood in my tank....from driftwood arts with a slate bottom. Today I just took out a piece because the wood started to turn black, and when i touched it flakes of wood would just peel off. I take it the wood is rotted? It was so bad, and I think causing alot of waste i my tank...all the itsy bitsy pieces of wood...almost like sawdust.
So my first question is....is the driftwood rotted? And also how do you prevent driftwood from rotting in a tank?

Second question is dealing with detritus collecting on my fake plants. I have only fake plants. the plants are full of junk...every time i do a water change i shake up the plants and junk fills the tank. How can I fix this? I tried taking them out and rinsing them in the sink, but it didn't work.

third question is I have a thin film of mixed green and brown algae which started to cover the glass sides of the tank. I removed it with an algae brush and it since has been kept at bay. This thin film a normal occurance in a tank that is six months old? too many nutrients?

all water tests are normal...fish are doing well, but those three things are just buggers that don't like to go away. Any solutions? I feed very little. I crush up one flake a day for each gourami thats it...and on the days i feed them brine shrimp, I give them just alittle. I just don't understand the problems because I am not overfeeding.

if your still with me thank you! any help would be great!!

take care,
jared
 
I have the same driftwood problem that you have in my 110 gallon.

Shreds of it will peel off if i poke at it

Also, my plastic plants in my 10 gallon get filled with gunk that also clouds up the water. I contribute this to the snails that were accidently put into the aquarium, because they produce copious amounts of waste.

Sorry I didn't answer any of your questions, just letting you know that other people have the same issues on well established aquariums
 
I acutally wont use "DRIFTWOOD" anymore because it does exatly what you think it does ROOT and it roots like there no tommorrow. Best stick with "BOGWOOD" as that is slightly different and will not root as fast or as bad.

Regards to algae I think you could do with maybe some corydoras or a couple of algae eaters on clean-up duty. Or try some live plants as they will compete with the algae for nutrients/food and ultimatly win therefore killing or at least controlling the algae
 
How often do you do water changes, and what size?

With such a light fish load, you should not be seeing much algae unless you are not cleaning the tank often enough, or are importing lots of nitrates with your water. For the plants--try increasing circulation, so the solids will be pushed into the water column and captured by the mechanical filter. If you don't have mechanical filtration, get some! Works wonders for solid waste removal. An AC Mini would be plenty for these tanks.

Some algae is normal. What it comes down to is this--all tanks have a bit of algae, that a few swipes down the side of the tank will take care of. Shouldn't be enough that you can't see into the tank, or something that comes back within 24 hours--I clean the sides of my tanks every other week, and it's plenty.

Finally--all this is theoretcial--you need to test your water, and report back with nitrates, phosphates, GH, KH, etc. Without these numbers, it's all guess work
 
Make sure to clean the algae off before doing a water change. That will collect any released spores. Do you use a gravel vacuum? That will help clean up detritous in the tank.

I have found that when I change water in my small tank I pour the water into the HOB directly. This prevents the water from crashing into the bottom rocks of the tank and knocking loose my plants.

In my bigger tanks I actually siphon the water back into the tank which really helps as well.

I don't know about the driftwood. I use driftwood I collected myself and it has been going great for a year now.
 
thanks!

Hey guys,

thanks for replying!

Since I have scraped the algae off it hasnt returned! So I am thankful for that.

My tests read as:

ammonia: .5-1.0ppm (hopefully this is due to my water change earlier this afternoon using biosafe which neatrulizes chlorammines. My test kit is no nesslar based so it cant tell the difference.) I am hoping thats what it is :-(
nitrite : 0 ppm
nitrate : 0 ppm
KH : 53.7 ppm
GH : 107.4 ppm

I posted another question regarding my nitrate reading zero. I thought my tank was well cycled long ago. Its six months old. I run an aquaclear 200 on it. Is it normal to have zero nitrate readings? Since I have been home from college i do 30-40% water changes three to four times a week.

For about two weeks now my honey gourami has lost its color and has a bloated stomach. He eats like a champ and is acting totally normal. His feces is stringy from time to time. I hope its not actually ammonia!

take care,
Jared
 
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