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Foamy Water & Cyanobacteria

5K views 38 replies 7 participants last post by  SarahCalgary 
#1 ·
I have been keeping a planted freshwater tank (29 G) for years and have never had as many issues as I am currently experiencing! I am not sure what to do about it and would appreciate some assistance...These are the issues I'm experiencing:

1) Have battled with cyano for months. Ended up doing the antibiotic treatments to get rid of it, which worked for awhile but then it came back about 2 months later.

2) Noticed one of my fishes eyes have popped out... he's now unable to swim and I know he's about to die. He is a black skirted tetra.

3) There are a ton of foamy bubbles on the top of my tank. I have a filter and an aeration device and usually the top has no bubbles on the top... it's out of control now.

In the past month I have added 3 apple/mystery snails to the tank, one died. The other seem to be fine.
I also added three additional albino corys. Currently I have 2 apple snails, 4 black skirts, 4 corys.

I likely caused a bit of the problem with the water quality by overfeeding because I wasn't sure how much to feed the bottomfeeders/snails, but even with that, I haven't seen the tank in this condition before.

Last night I did a 25% emergency water change but before I did that I added some tetracycline antibiotics for fish diseases hoping that would fix my poor eye popped fish. I had to do the water change because I noticed a decrease in the quality... so there goes the treatment schedule.

This morning it seems like the bubbles/foam is worse so I did another 20% water change. The filter appears to be working, but it is old. It is an Aqua Clear 70. I have kept the lights off today because I heard that is good for tackling the cyano. I just feel like I have too many things going on right now and even with my fishkeeping experience, I'm not sure how to tackle it. Suggestions?? I have included two photos that I just took of my tank this morning.
 

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#2 · (Edited)
Welcome to the forum!
First, might I recommend you purchase an API freshwater master test kit? It's under $30 most big pet stores, less online. That will tell you some critical information about your nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia levels.

We'll need more info to help diagnose the issue:
How often do you usually change your water and how much do you change?
How much are you feeding and how often?
What type of light do you have and how long is it on per day?
Can you list all the animals currently in the tank?
What type of filter and what is that substrate? (I saw the filter info, but not familiar with that one)
Do you fertilize your plants?

If you can provide this information, it will make it easier to recommend some actions.
While we wait for more info, I'd recommend changing your water frequently, even as often as every day or every other day, do a 25-50% change (making certain the temp is good). Clean water cures lots of ills!

The foam is likely from the tetracycline, assuming your filter is a HOB (hang on back)?
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the quick response. I do a thorough cleaning of the tank every month and add fresh water every few days, it evaporates a lot. I feed twice a day - breakfast/dinner time. I feed the 4 tetras probably about 20-25 tropical crisps at each feeding. I feed the 4 corys and two snails 1 to 3 bottom feeder sinking food tablets per day, as well as an algae wafer. That's probably too much now that I think about it, but when the snail died I thought maybe it was starving. I have a Coralife fluorescent light that is apparently good for my plants. I usually turn it on around 8am and off around 10pm.
I currently have:
4 black skirts
4 albino corys
2 apple/mystery snails

The bottom has black gravel on it. The filter is very common here in the fish stores - it looks exactly like this: AquaClear 70 Power Filter - 110 V, UL Listed (Includes AquaClear 70 Carbon, AquaClear 70 Foam & AquaClear 70 BioMax: Amazon.com: Pet Supplies
I do not fertilize my plants anymore. I used to, but stopped that a couple years ago.

I will look for that test kit tomorrow when I head to the pet store.

Thanks!!
 
#4 ·
Welcome to the community!

Have you tested for Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate, and what kind of test? If so, what were the numbers?

You don't have too many fish for a 29 gallon, actually you are pretty light with only 4 tetras and 4 corys.

Stress weakens the immune system for fish making them get sick easily, and a stressed fish will release pheromones that other fish can detect, and can cause them agitation too. Both species of fish you have are schooling, so they like larger numbers. The tetras should be in a minimum group of 6, and the corys 4 (so it is good you got a few more so the one isn't lonely anymore).

Are you able to do a quarantine/hospital tank? Treating a smaller tank, and only the sick fish, is often easier and safer for the fish who are not sick.

For feeding, you should only put in a very small amount of flakes for the tetras that they will eat in less than 5 minutes. If any is left after that time, you have put too much in. The corys will eat flakes too, but they also enjoy sinking shrimp pellets. They take a bit of time to absorb water, so they'll take a little time for the corys to eat. The snails will eat any leftovers, but they also eat dead/dying plant mater and to a small extent algae.

Do you know your pH? Anything under 7 will start to erode their shells which is made up mostly of calcium and will dissolve in acidic water. You don't want it too high above 7 though because all the fish you have like soft, acidic water.

Hope your fish show improvement soon!
 
#5 ·
haha, I take too long to type and I see you already answered some of my questions ;)

If you only change water once a month I would suspect your Nitrates are probably on the high end. Bring a sample of your tank water to the pet store, they should test it for free, then also look for the API Master Test Kit so you can do it at home more often. It has everything you need, just be sure to read the directions. The Nitrate test is a little tricky because you have to shake the #2 bottle before using it.
 
#6 ·
I will definitely buy a test kit. When I first started fish keeping I had all those supplies but after awhile everything always seemed normal and they all expired and I haven't replaced them. Sigh. So how often would you suggest changing the water and how often should I do a thorough cleaning?
 
#8 ·
A weekly water change is good, depending on how quickly Nitrates rise you do 25-50% a week. You want to keep Nitrates under 20-30 ppm if possible. More live plants can help with that also. Ammonia and Nitrite should always be 0 ppm, no level of either is good for the fish.

During that change, just scrub the front glass with a sponge (be careful if acrylic) and swish your filter media in a bucket of the old water to remove any debris.

Your photo period at 14 hours is long and you'll likely get algae, do you? If so, cutting the photo period back helps a lot with that. You can get a timer for the light so you don't have to remember, the same timer used for lamps in your house when on vacation. They are less than $10 at department/hardware stores. More live plants, again, helps with this as they'll take up the nutrients instead of the algae.

Once a month you can inspect your filter and see if it needs cleaned, usually the impeller area.
 
#9 ·
Regarding the light, cut it back to 6-7 hours until you get the algae under control. Algae does well under longer light durations. Stinks you can't enjoy the fish as much with the lights on, but are you enjoyiug the tank the way it is currently? You can also set up the timer to turn off the tank when you are not home, kind of a "light it when you can enjoy it" approach (but the total should still be below 8 hours a day). That interrupted photoperiod seems to lessen algae also.

Totally agree on the weekly water change!
 
#10 ·
Yes, I do get quite a bit of algae. It's almost impossible to keep under control. I had a timer for the fish tank and then for some reason stopped using it. I think I will get that back in working order...Should I set it to 8-10 hours per day? I definitely haven't been doing enough water changes and will start doing weekly changes and vacuuming the gravel at that time too. I forgot about putting the filter media into a bucket of old water... funny how you can forget things after so many years. Do you think I'm feeding the fish too much? Should I cut back on that too?
 
#12 ·
Certainly won't hurt the algae issue. I'd cut back to 6 hours for a couple of weeks, then go longer if the algae stays gone. Some "algae" might be Euglena, which is a photosynthetic protist (single cell critter). They can exist with or without light, feeding on organic matter and/or photosynthesizing when they can. You may need to get the feeding under control also to get the best results.

Bottom feeders: My cory's love shrimp pellets. I just drop a couple in every 2-3 days and they pick up leftovers the rest of the time. Most of us overfeed, so there is probably more food than you think in the tank! Don't feed the snails specifically, they'll be fine.
 
#13 · (Edited)
I'll try to offer some suggestions on the several issues, which will expand a bit on what's been posted by others.

First, the cyanobacteria. This is always and solely an organics issue. Reducing light including blackouts, treating with antibiotics--the cyano will, as you have stated, always come back unless the cause (organics) is fixed. For one example, I just had a bout of this in my 70g. I hadn't really noticed it at first, until one day while feeding I saw that about half the pygmy chain sword were darker green, and looking closer I saw they were covered with cyano. It flashed across my mind that the canister filter on this tank had not been cleaned for about 6 months [won't get into all that]. I disconnected it, cleaned it, new pads...removed the cyano by hand during the water changes over the next two weeks (once weekly, no more)--end of cyano. For 3 weeks now, crystal clear. Organics is the cause, nothing else.

In your case, you have been overfeeding and not performing sufficient water changes. This causes a buildup of organics. Waste in the substrate should be broken down by snails (Malaysian Livebearing will help here) and bacteria, but this has to be balanced with the needs of the system (plants use some of these, other types of bacteria use the nitrates). Weekly partial water changes of 40-50% of the tank volume should keep this balance, along with less feeding. Fish do not need more than one feeding per day (except fry), and can mis a day or two a week with no harm.

Second, algae. This is strictly due to the light, and obviously plenty of nutrients because of the infrequent water changes and overfeeding. I agree with others to reduce the light period, and use a timer so it is consistent.

Never use antibiotics to deal with cyano. Yes, they work--after all, cyanobacteria is just what it is named, a bacteria, and we all know that antibiotics kill bacteria. But they kill other bacteria than the cyano, which can be just as dangerous. They can affect fish. And organisms do build up immunity to antibiotics as we all know ourselves. And they can kill some plants. Never use any antibiotic in an aquarium except specifically to target a bacteria that is harming the fish.

On the fish eye issue, I stay out of health problems due to lack of knowledge and expertise. But I wold suggest that this may be due to one of the fish. Black Widow Tetra are known as nippers, and they should always be in a group of no less than 6 but more is better, which can reduce this natural tendancy to nip. One may have gone too far, and now the problem. Even if this is not the cause, the aggression will add stress to the fish, and this weakens the immune system which opens the door to health problems.

So, to your last post question, you need to cut back feeding, do more water changes including substrate vacuuming (to get it back in balance, then the substrate can be left alone). Rem Ive all cyano by hand, it will not "go away." If you manage to kill it, that can cause a worse problem, as the sudden rise in ammonia can poison the fish and invertebrates. Also, this take a lot of oxygen out of the water. You have a small fish load fortunately, so this wouldn't be as dangerous as it would in a more heavily-stocked tank.

Byron.
 
#14 ·
Great, thanks for all that useful information Byron. I will follow everything you have said and hopefully I can get the tank back to normal. It sounds like I was definitely over feeding. You're right, you can just pick up the cyano as it is in rubber-like sheets. I did a bunch of that last night during my cleaning. Once I get my tank back to normal, I will consider getting some more black skirts, as it looks like I will have just 3 within a day or less. :( Now, do you think I should get a completely new filter? I don't know whether that is an issue in this at all, but I may as well fix everything while I'm at it.
 
#15 ·
Great, thanks for all that useful information Byron. I will follow everything you have said and hopefully I can get the tank back to normal. It sounds like I was definitely over feeding. You're right, you can just pick up the cyano as it is in rubber-like sheets. I did a bunch of that last night during my cleaning. Once I get my tank back to normal, I will consider getting some more black skirts, as it looks like I will have just 3 within a day or less. :( Now, do you think I should get a completely new filter? I don't know whether that is an issue in this at all, but I may as well fix everything while I'm at it.
I would certainly thoroughly clean the filter. And this you can do under the tap. With plants I never fuss with tank water, that is just unnecessary. Besides, the chlorine will deal with any cyano in the filter. For the future, keep the filter rinsed as the water has to be able to flow through the media, and as it clogs this slows and the water may manage to divert the media.
 
#17 ·
I think I know where you're coming from, and normally I would agree, but here she has live plants and very few fish in a decent volume of water. But water changes are part of this cleanup anyway.
 
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#20 ·
I think overfeeding has a huge thing to do with it. But dumping that tetracycline in there as a knee-jerk reaction was probably not helpful. I will test the ammonia and nitrates asap and let you know what the results are. I dont' think I should do any more water changes right away though because I did about 40% last night and 20% this morning. :(
 
#21 · (Edited)
25% a day would probably be plenty, at least until ammonia and nitrite are 0. Vacuum the gravel if possible, and look in your plants for bits of decaying food.

Serpae tetras can be aggressive.. I would assume the eye-loss was from a fight.

Lastly, don't feed your fish as much. ;) I feed mine 4 times a week, and small amounts when I do. They're perfectly happy and healthy.
 
#23 ·
Could water changes, if it has high levels of nitrates (say 20ppm) add to the cyano problem?

I had something similar to Byron and the OP. I was overfeeding and had too much light. I reduced both and the algae problem I had went down to almost none left now. I had cyano at a time, but it seems to be getting better. Right now the only issue I have to algae or something in the sponge for the filter. I rise it very often and that seems to help but it hasn't disappeared.

I ask about the water as mine was high and I saw somebody post in a different tread about getting a baseline of the tap water to see what it contains. I don't know if the nitrates in tap would add to the issue here.
 
#25 ·
My understanding of cyanobacteria is that it is caused by organics, period. This has certainly been my experience, both the recent issue I've previously mentioned but also a fairly severe bout in a former tank. Nitrates on their own will not cause cyano. However, nitrates are usually high if organics are over the limit, so it is easy to see a parallel. But one shouldn't lose sight of the fact that it is the organics, not the nitrates, causing cyanobacteria. Light does not cause it, but it needs light being photosynthetic.

And cyanobacteria is not an algae, it is a bacteria, just in case there is confusion there, since we have been dealing with both in this thread.

On the cloudy water, this is caused by bacteria, and they feed on organics. So we're back to the high organics. I explained this in my article on bacteria here
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/freshwater-articles/bacteria-freshwater-aquarium-74891/
so all I'll say now is that the bacteria feeds on organic matter which can be waste or it can be DOC (dissolved organic carbon) which occurs even in tap water for example, which is why one almost always has a bacterial bloom in a new tank. See the article for more on that. And here again it is not ammonia causing this, but ammonia often occurs as a result.

We sometimes confuse things, incorrectly assuming the reaction is the cause. I think it is important to understand the root cause of these issues, since that is the only way to effectively deal with them.
 
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#26 ·
Thanks Byron and Redchigh for the information. Sorry if I side tracked your thread Sarah, it seems as if we had very similar problems. Mine occurred a few months ago, but it appears to be the same result.

It looks like we both need to find the source of the organics.
 
#27 ·
Ok, I took everyone's advice and got an API Master Text Kit. These are the results... obviously I have a problem with nitrates and my PH is super high.

PH - 8.2 - I originally did non-high PH and it was the top one so I tried the high ph.
Nitrate: 40ppm
Nitrite:0ppm
Ammonia: 0.25ppm

I am going to do another water change RIGHT NOW and I have some new tools to tackle the algae. Hopefully afterwards it lowers some of these numbers. Any other suggestions?
 
#28 ·
Honestly, I'd worry more about the presence of ammonia than the 40ppm of nitrate. 40ppm nitrate is a little high, but the ammonia is more of a threat to the fish! One of my tanks had nitrate at 160ppm+ (oops on my fertilization) and, while the fish were not happy, I was fortunate not to lose any of them.
 
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#30 ·
Okay, so I finished my water change (about 40-50%). I also used my awesome new tools for algae removal. The tank looks great. The foam is not back yet, so that's a good sign. It was REALLY bad this morning. I tested the water again and these are the results:

pH- 8.0
Ammonia - can't tell if it's 0 or 0.25 ppm, probably still closer to 0.25ppm
Nitrate was 20 ppm.

I haven't put any Tank Buster in yet, since I have no idea if that is something useful to do or not.
 
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