My 20gal long tank has had a really nasty blue-green algae problem for the last couple of weeks. When I do the weekly water change, I pull out as much as I can find, pull it off the plants, scrub down the glass, and by the next week, it's taken over so bad you can barely see through the glass again.
It's a 20 gal long tank, peat moss capped with black sand.
My current Fish are:
1 clown Pleco
3 kilifish (flag fish)
5?(6?) Platys (they keep having more....I think there's probably at least four or five tiny babies in there with the 5 adults and the one half-grown one)
1 African Dwarf Frog
2 Amano shrimp (they were a mistake. I'd drained the tank almost completely a few weeks back looking for my pleco, couldn't find it and assumed the algae was from it dying and decomposing. the pleco popped up from wherever he was hiding as soon as I got home with the shrimp, the jerk.)
I'm pretty sure my tank's overstocked....I kind of want to find somewhere to take the platys and possibly the pleco, but there's no one around that I know who keeps fish.
Current plants are:
swords (4-5)
pennywort
ludwigia repens
some anacharis? I pulled a lot out recently as it was too densely planted for the fish to get through that part of the tank.
Unfortunately my testing kit's gone missing so I don't have the water parameters just now. I'll find that and test the water some time today before I do yet another water change. will post the results before tonight with any luck.
My usual maintenance is a ~50% water change, and vacuuming the debris off the sand weekly.
I'm a student, so my current plan is to try and keep everything alive until the summer, and once I have time for the undertaking, completely break down the tank and replace the peat moss with soil, replant everything, cycle while my fish are temporarily housed somewhere I haven't figured out yet, and hopefully not have to buy 100% new plants.
If anyone has any suggestions to that end, I'd be happy to hear it though, or better ideas. keep in mind that anything that's going to take constant monitoring or daily testing is going to have to be put on hold till about june, and anything that costs more than ~$20-~$30 is going to be hard to swing, as I'm not currently a productive member of society.
It's a 20 gal long tank, peat moss capped with black sand.
My current Fish are:
1 clown Pleco
3 kilifish (flag fish)
5?(6?) Platys (they keep having more....I think there's probably at least four or five tiny babies in there with the 5 adults and the one half-grown one)
1 African Dwarf Frog
2 Amano shrimp (they were a mistake. I'd drained the tank almost completely a few weeks back looking for my pleco, couldn't find it and assumed the algae was from it dying and decomposing. the pleco popped up from wherever he was hiding as soon as I got home with the shrimp, the jerk.)
I'm pretty sure my tank's overstocked....I kind of want to find somewhere to take the platys and possibly the pleco, but there's no one around that I know who keeps fish.
Current plants are:
swords (4-5)
pennywort
ludwigia repens
some anacharis? I pulled a lot out recently as it was too densely planted for the fish to get through that part of the tank.
Unfortunately my testing kit's gone missing so I don't have the water parameters just now. I'll find that and test the water some time today before I do yet another water change. will post the results before tonight with any luck.
My usual maintenance is a ~50% water change, and vacuuming the debris off the sand weekly.
I'm a student, so my current plan is to try and keep everything alive until the summer, and once I have time for the undertaking, completely break down the tank and replace the peat moss with soil, replant everything, cycle while my fish are temporarily housed somewhere I haven't figured out yet, and hopefully not have to buy 100% new plants.
If anyone has any suggestions to that end, I'd be happy to hear it though, or better ideas. keep in mind that anything that's going to take constant monitoring or daily testing is going to have to be put on hold till about june, and anything that costs more than ~$20-~$30 is going to be hard to swing, as I'm not currently a productive member of society.