Problems....

Beej

ok, currently in progress of a water change, will change out 50% tonight, and recheck at the weekend and post back. it has 8 live plants in there but a few look a bit worse for wear thanks to the mollies picking at them, so i am going to go and get some new ones tomorrow after work.

Thanks

k19smith

As stated water changes with gravel vacuums to get the nitrates down, I would go with the 40-50% once or twice a week. I would also cut the feeding to once a day in till you get this resolved.

Beej

i gave the gravel a good vacuum on sunday, so i will feed them once a day and put 50% fresh water in tonight and see how its looking come the weekend

thanks again people, i just feel that because both my tanks have went the same way, i thought i was doing somethings wrong, the irritating thing is that my dad also set up a 125l tank in January cycled it the same way as me, stocked it with guppies, neon tetras, platies and white clouds, and has no issues at all, and he mainly only does about 15% water changes every two weeks!

k19smith

I would say it's more than likely over feeding and gravel vacuuming. The thing is if you don't work on gravel vacuuming all your doing is diluting the nitrates in the tank not getting at the source to remove the nitrates. In my experience this takes a month or so to get nitrates down where you will see a major difference. Lots of gravel vacuuming.

Beej

the thing is, i make a point of vacuuming on a weekly basis with water changes, plus, there is never a chance for any food to go uneaten in the tank, everything gets devouwered! which is why i thought i might have been doing something else wrong!

n2fish

Clairification please? When you guys say "vacuum gravel" do you drag the vacuum (syphon) gently accross the very top/surface of the gravel or is it more jamming (not exactly the word I'm looking for) into the gravel so the gravel churns in the vac tube?

Kind of an odd way to phrase the question but I think you all know what I'm asking?

k19smith

The thing is you have been changing a low water volume, you also have a mix of fish in what I think is a 45 gallon. I'm not sure on all of your fish but if you have Common Pleco's they will need to go as they get huge and produce a lot of waste. The clown loaches will need a 125 gallon tank and are schooling fish with at least 6 recommended. The fish maybe eating all of the food but they are producing a lot of waste, you don't have to starve them but feeding less will not hurt them. I'll have to go back and look at your other fish. I think you may want to look at getting rid of some of your fish as they don't belong together or getting another tank for some of them. We can help you get it under control. It's not nearly as bad as it sounds.

I would also quit using salt in your tanks with plants as salt will damage and kill plants.

k19smith

Good question, a good weekly gravel vacuuming includes jamming lol into the gravel to get all the food and poo from between the gravel. You want a good churning.

Beej

The two plecs i have are genuinely very small, and havent grown in the last two months at all, likewise with the loaches (less than 1.5 inches). i was assured by my lfs that these were small bred ones from their supplier which they have been breeding for years now at this size and do not grow any bigger than 2 inches at maximum. I will definately cut back on feeding them. the biggest fish this tank are the two mollies which are just about 2 inches.

Beej

i 'jam' the gravel and shake at the same time to get as much up as possible