[learnest]

i have a 25 gallon tank with 3 albino buenos aires tetras, 3 spotted corry's, 3 black finned tetras and 1 blue apple snail. the problem i have and it is a big problem is everything turns black . i take everything out and clean it when i change water and i change about 1/3 every 2 weeks and after about a week it is black again. even the snail gets black. what can i do to stop this? it gets on everything, the glass, and all the things i have sitting in there and the stone. any help would be gret , thank you, Lloyd

 

[Lupin]

The black thing sounds like fish wastes already overly accumulated in your tank. Pls do daily water changes of about 20% together with gravel vacuuming. This should hopefully remove the wastes.

 

[learnest]

Blue,
thank you for your respose about the black in my tank. as i said i change water , about 1/3 every 2 weeks and during the week i do have a vacunm that i use about once a week. but i will take your advice and change a little everyday and see what happens. thank you again Lloyd

 

[SimplySplendid]

The black could be algae. Thats what happened to my tank before...the algae builds up and everything turns black. Try bleaching everything then boil everything before you put it back in your tank

 

[learnest]

thank you cute lil pleco for that advice. sounds very reasonable to me. i just changed the water this weekend but will change it again very soon. thanks again, Lloyd

 

[Lupin]

Boiling the gravel will do no good as the beneficial bacteria is being destroyed.
Learnest, could you post a pic pls? It would be better to do so, so that you can identify the cause immediately.
How does that black thing look? Hairy or slimy?

 

[SimplySplendid]

I meant to bleach/boil all the other stuff--rocks, plants (fake) etc.

 

[Lilith]

Do you have driftwood in the tank? If not boiled throughly before being placed in the tank it will release tannins that will darken your water and make it the colour of tea. I've had a large piece in my tank for a few weeks and it still turns the water yellow within a week. The good news is, tannins are not harmful to your fish.

If you have no diftwood, is there a chance that anything else in your tank, such as ornaments, could be leeching into the water?